Conflict Resolution

The other day I asked a staff person, “How’s it going?” And she was very excited.

She told me about one of her students, maybe second or third grade, that originally came into the program and didn’t know how to read or write the alphabet. And she said that today she sat next to him while he read an entire story to her. Hearing him do this literally brought her to tears.

And then another staff member came over to us and said, “Did you know what else happened?”

This same boy, when he first came in three months ago, he'd gotten into a fight with another student. They sat him down explained that he can't just hit someone else. "Oh yes I can," was his response. "If someone hits me, or says something, or bothers me, I'm going to hit him." Then, a couple days ago, another argument broke out with the same child. Once again they sat him down, except this time the boy was asked to write his response to his conflict. So he did. You could see in his handwriting - complete with words misspelled - how "if someone says something to me, I want to think how it makes me feel and tell a teacher instead of hitting them back."

Just to see this child who started with “I’m gonna hit you” to be at this point - and to have WRITTEN that when before he couldn’t even write... that was very powerful.

GM