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Educational Conflicts 1, Teaching Peace to Adults Conflict is an everyday part of life, yet in spite of the daily opportunities to master this area of the human experience, many adults fall short of what they would consider successful conflict resolution. By simply reading a newspaper or watching the television news, one recognizes that the lack of effective peace-making skills spans the social barriers of economic and political status, gender, age, and ethnicity. There is a call for educators, particularly adult educators, to proactively address this issue. Teaching peace to adults is key to personal and social change, but requires more than merely training individuals on how to use the prescribed conflict resolution formulae.
It requires adults become aware of the assumptions underlying their views of conflict, challenge these assumptions, and consider new ways of thinking. Educators have been formally addressing the topic of critical thinking since 1933 when John Dewey wrote, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. In recent years, Jack Mezirow and Stephen Brookfield have developed theoretical models of critical thinking that captured the interest of many adult educators. Encouraging adults to think critically is the first step in improving conflict resolution skills, a brief review of the central tenets of the critical thinking process, as defined by Mezirow and Brookfield, will provide a framework from which to build. There are several techniques for educators to use in order to encourage adult learners to think critically about individual conflict resolution styles and strategies.
Conflict resolution style refers to an individuals predominant tendency or general approach toward conflict, and strategy refers to the specific methods one employs for dealing with conflict in a particular situation. An individual may generally behave in an aggressive style and use specific strategies such as physical violence or verbal abuse to deal with conflict. Others may behave in ways more characteristic of an avoidance style and often walk the other way to strategically avoid a particular conflict situation. Those with a compromising style may make personal sacrifices in order to resolve conflict. A negotiating style employs strategies of wheeling and dealing in order to reach a satisfactory agreement.
Finally, strategies characteristic of a collaborative style may include sharing or determining solutions which will ensure equal and mutual benefit. These styles and strategies illustrate how individual adults may approach conflict resolution. There are adults who approach conflict from a variety of styles and employ a limited number of strategies, regardless of the situational context. To determine individual styles and strategies, adult educators should provide opportunities for self reflection through journal writing, personality inventories, and small group interaction. Furthermore, examining conflict resolution patterns in ones social environment and culture may provide insight as well. After becoming aware of ones predominant styles and strategies, activities may be developed which encourage leaders to consider alternative styles and strategies.
These activities could be in the form of written simulations, group role-plays, or real life assignments to promote personal and social change. Teaching peace not only changes individual perspectives on conflict, but can potentially change how society approaches conflict. The nature of adult development makes this an ideal stage in life to develop critical thinking skills. Through experience, adults are learning that their childhood assumptions do not apply to many of their current life situations.
They discover that there are other ways of thinking and behaving that are more appropriate to specific contexts. Adulthood is also an ideal time for perspective transformation in regard to conflict. Established assumptions about conflict can be considered. Adults may discover that through critical thinking they can increase peace in their own lives and make a positive contribution to the societies in which they live. Bibliography: O. Randall Brain.
Adult Learning, Winter 98 / 99, Vol. 10 Issue 2, p. 30.
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Research essay sample on Educational Conflicts 1 Teaching Peace To Adults
