Tools for Conflict Resolution

Have you been searching for a way to resolve conflict that doesn't involve a series of ten or more steps? Do you think that perhaps a key to conflict resolution must come from within? How can teachers and pre-service teachers help their students learn and use strategies for conflict resolution?

Tools for Conflict Resolution is a practical method for teaching conflict resolution skills to students in grades K-12. Conflict is a part of everyone's life. It is the authors' belief that if each student is given tools for handling conflict, and these tools are used each time conflict arises that soon students become proficient conflict managers.

This book begins with a chapter, which introduces Peter Senge's five disciplines: Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Building, and Systems Thinking. After reading this chapter, the reader is able to embrace the five disciplines and begin practicing the adult level. As teachers, we teach from who we are. The rest of the book is filled with actual lesson plans, which are directly tied to the Multiple Intelligences Theory and are developmentally appropriate for students. Case studies, role- plays, skits, literature, songs, and co-operative learning activities are the primary instructional methods used to teach students conflict resolution skills. An annotated bibliography is included to assist teachers in extending lessons. These lessons may be taught during Social Studies as a unit on character education or could be used during a guidance class.

Ellen M. O'Keefe is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA. She is presently a member of the College of Education Faculty at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, IA. She began her special education teaching career in grades K-4. Her educational career includes teaching special education in grades K-12 for more than 20 years.

Sister Mary Catherine Stewart is a member of the College of Education Faculty at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, IA. Her educational career includes teaching in both elementary and secondary schools and administration in elementary schools.