PD Colleagues,

Conflict is an area where learner leadership and critical thinking can flourish (or flounder) .Negotiation skills such as listening to and accurately describing others' points of view, finding win-win or good compromise solutions, sorting out long-term goals from short-term objectives, identifying shared goals and objectives, separating out activities and strategies from goals and objectives (in order to suggest new strategies and activities that may help those in conflict to reach common goals) and other conflict negotiation skills can be identified and learned.

Negotiation may be needed in the example I gave earlier, where a group of students and a teacher are in conflict about the way the class should be taught. The teacher and students may have common goals and objectives, but may differ on the strategies (textbook and grammar lessons vs language learning games and problem posing) for getting there. Compromise may be needed by the teacher and the students. As part of the negotiation, the teacher may agree to use a textbook for some things, and the students may agree to try new ways of learning that they have not experienced before but that may be beneficial in achieving their goals and objectives. In such a negotiation, leadership is needed by many people, not just one learner leader and one teacher, and if a good solution is worked out in the classroom, everyone has the opportunity to learn from the negotiation process some new skills that may be useful in other parts of their lives. 

Some of the violence in neighborhoods in my community -- and others -- results from young people who do not have good negotiation skills. Sometimes teachers see this played out in their classes, increasingly now because more young school dropouts are enrolling in adult education programs. 

For the success of the class and, more important, for the success of the students, some would argue that conflict resolution skills should be taught in adult education. Do you agree? Do you you teach conflict resolution skills in your classes? If you provide professional development, do you offer workshops, courses or study circles in conflict resolution skills? Do you think this is an area that offers good opportunities for learner leadership and critical thinking skills? 

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net

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