Edutopia article reflection u06d1

Prompt: After reviewing the Edutopia articles on emotional intelligence and conflict resolution, explain how you would structure checkpoint questions, blog/discussion prompts, or entree activities to help prevent student conflict and/or empower students to deal with the conflicts when they arise.

I really enjoyed reading these two articles on emotional intelligence and conflict resolution.  I think our job as teachers isn't just to teach content, but it is to teach life skills like how to deal with conflict and how to empathize with people.  Working together, and solving conflicts are skills that people need to be successful.  We have all heard stories about someone who just can't hold a job because they didn't get along with their boss or coworkers.  Students need to realize that you aren't going to like everyone.  That working with certain people won't always be easy.  They do need to know how to adapt and work with other people.  They need to learn that they can't quit a job just because they don't get along with their boss.  I always tell my students, "Do you think I agree with everything my boss tells me?"  I tell them that I like my job and I would like to keep it.  Keeping my job requires me to resolve my conflicts and get along with my coworkers even if I don't agree with them. 

As a classroom teacher, the first thing you have to do is get to know your students.  Every student is different and this includes their emotional intelligence and ability to resolve conflicts.  I teach middle school and I know that some of my students have a great amount of emotional maturity and some of the others don't yet.  This alone can create conflicts. When you know your students, you know their level of emotional maturity.  This allows you to properly group the students.  Appropriately grouping students is essential to a successful classroom. This being said, you don't always want to put the same kids in the same groups. In order to teach empathy and conflict resolution, you need to vary the groups and allow students the opportunity to work through problems.

Organization and preparation are also a teacher's best friend.  I have learned through experience that the more you plan and prepare, the smoother a lesson will go.   As a teacher, you have to try to think of every possible outcome and/or problem in a PBL lesson. This can only go so far, after a lesson, it is valuable to reflect on the project.  What problems did you have? What problems did the student's have? How did you overcome them? It is good to do this after the project so you can adapt and change the project for the next year.  Every classroom is different! Sometimes my projects/lessons vary depending on the class. 

I also teach empathy in my class but putting them inside other people's shoes. I do this with historical figures all of the time! I have them imagine themselves as a particular historical figure.  I always ask them what they would do in this situation.  Then I have them ask why they think this person did what they did. So they try to understand why decisions were made, and the consequence of these decisions. I explain that people are the same today as they were back them. Some people made mistakes, some people made hard decisions.  I have them imagine what life would have been like if this person made a different decision.  I also teach them that compromise and conflict resolution skills were essential to the founding of our country.  There were a TON of different and passionate opinions about going to war with England and also in the development of the Constitution.  These groups of people were able to resolve their conflicts. It is important that we do here as well.  I also do a ton of opinion prompts in my class as well. This teaches my students to take a stand and defend their opinion, but at the same time respect other student's opinions.  There are a lot of controversial topics in American History/Politics.  It is important to know how to teach these topics, and to handle the student's opinions.  They should be taught how to properly debate and respect others opinions.  We as teachers are responsible for modeling this behavior, it drives me crazy when adults put down other adults in front of students (it happens), it does not teach empathy or respect for others.

When there is a conflict in my class, I try to have the students see things from the other students perspective.  I encourage students to compromise and I always tell students that yelling at other students is not productive.  I also teach my students that it is ok to disagree, its how you handle yourself and work with others that matters. 

Curtis, D. (2001, February 22). Fostering emotional intelligence lets learning happen.  Edutopia. Retrieved July 31, 2013, from http://www.edutopia.org/resolving-conflict-creatively-program.

Edutopia Staff. (2001, February 22). Emotional intelligence: putting theory into practice. Edutopia. Retrieved July 31, 2013, from http://www.edutopia.org/emotional-intelligence-sampler.