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by
Robyn Tellefsen
Isn't
it strange how the people we love are the ones
we fight with most?
Do
you ever wish you could tone down the tantrums
and live in peace? Students enrolled in the two-year,
pre-university United World College in Montezuma,
NM, are teaching their peers some peace pointers.
Through their school's Bartos Institute for the
Constructive Engagement of Conflict, seven students
traveled all the way to the United World College
of India this past spring as part of their training
in conflict-resolution.
"Often,
people think conflict is bad, but it's just inevitable.
The bad part is the violence associated with the
conflict," says Mohammed Herzellah, a first-year
student from the West Bank of Palestine. The key,
he says, is to take advantage of conflict and
deal with it constructively.
Their
two-fold plan to help students in India turn their
conflict into something commendable included training
in conflict-management, as well as in ways to
keep the conflict-resolution program going even
after they left.
Translation
- the students discussed causes of physical and
spiritual violence, and suggested ways to deal
with people who use "attacking" behavior.
"We
wanted to enable them to achieve successful communication
through de-escalating behavior," Mohammed
explains.
In order to make the need for skills in conflict-resolution
relevant to the students, the trainers focused
on common roommate issues. For instance, if one
roommate is complaining about the room being messy,
instead of shouting "you" statements
like, "You're messy!" the peer counselors
recommend using "I" statements like,
"I feel frustrated."
"You
need to state your emotion, and say why you feel
that way," instructs Munira Lalani, a first-year
student from England. If you take responsibility
for your own emotions, she adds, a solution can
be found together. "Surprisingly enough,
these issues come up more than you think."
Certainly, conflict is bound to arise when international
students from more than 80 countries go to school
together, claims Dr. Charles Clements, director
of the Bartos Institute. In fact, the trainees
in India were able to apply their brand-new conflict-resolution
skills immediately. "Several students said
to me, 'There was a fight in the the dorm last
night, so we used the principles we learned and
solved it more easily,'" says Clements.
While
the trainers mainly taught conflict resolution
on a dorm-room level, the same principles of listening,
and naming your own emotions rather than blaming
others, can be applied globally. Back at home,
the counselors practice these techniques through
Israel-Palestine role-plays, finding that by taking
each party's needs into account, they can create
unbiased solutions.
And they believe real, lasting change can result
from this kind of work. "These are practical
skills to use in their lives at college and beyond,"
says Clements.
 If
you want to stop the violence at home and even
abroad, learn more about conflict resolution on
the American Friends Service Committee Web site:
www.Afsc.org/hipp.htm.
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