A Transparenting Overview for
CULTIVATING CARING & COMMUNITY BUILDING TOOLS
Conflict Resolution Methods: How do we deal with students hurting each other?
(unfriendly behaviors: name calling, physical contact, or hurting others belongings)

Most important for the teachers to focus on is: Why are they acting out that way?

These Transparenting Community Building Tools came out of the need for them -
and we are forever grateful to the ones who provided those lessons -
so that these tools could be be born.

              The Friendship Circle was the culmination of a very intense experience where my husband and I began teaching at a K-9 private school - where our son started the 1st grade - we are a family who loves being together and we saw it as a way we could all be together each day.

              However, when we arrived we were shocked to find that the wonderful programs at the school were clouded by how much the teachers screamed at the students as part of the normal day to get the students to do as they wished. Often times, it was yelling with not much explanation, especially with repeat offender where it had become a war of wills. The atmosphere on the playground alone was really tense - filled with so many "safety" rules we could not keep track of what to call them on. That was one of our duties as teachers - especially at lunch when the whole school was on the playground.

              If the teachers saw something that was not "allowed" on the playground, these teachers who had been there for years acted as BOTH judge & jury towards the students. They pointed to the student and yelled: "You're on time out!". If students were fighting, both students were put on time out in different places to stew in their anger - especially if it had not been their fault at all. I did not enjoy being in that kind of negative power position because I was just getting to know the students and I knew this was not the way to go about it. And then we saw they had a reward system where if they had felt a student had not been "good" that day - they got no popsicle at the end of a hot day while everyone else did and ate it in front of them taunting them. I found that it made these students even more angry and usually they misbehaved even more because of this unfair "shameful" setting. Especially if it was not clear if they had done something wrong or not, or why. Finally, when I saw that they had students writing repeated sentences as a punishment - I had to say something. I made it clear that we were teaching them to love to write - not see it as a punishment. To the principal's credit - she understood that it was completely counterproductive to their main goal of teaching the children to love writing and stopped doing that particular punishment.

              That's when I asked if I could make a PEACE BENCH - where I could teach the students how to talk out their conflicts - the principal had to admit it was a real need and was open to the idea. So this became my main job. I had been hired to teach Kindergarten yet now after being at the school I was asked if I could teach a class I developed to all the grades K-9 to help the friendships mature at the school called: CoCreative Communications, Art, and Life Skills. The student would focus on a friendship themes and do an art project with that theme and then come to the circle and present it to the whole class one by one telling us what inspired them. This usually lead to a wonderful group discussion on the friendship theme or whatever needed to be talked about to help the class to grow kinder towards each other. Many students told me how much they looked forward to the class and for me it was really fun and healing to teach. I saw how much they wanted to get along yet they had never been given tools how to do it - or had a safe way to stand up for their feelings towards unfriendly behaviors around the school - let alone other parts of their lives.

              Theater is what the principal of the school believed helped build confidence in the students - and it was one of the reasons I was hired. I have a long background in performing and loved that the whole school worked on plays together. However, observing rehearsals where the director worked with soloists began to show me why there was so little self confidence in many of the students - especially the older students. This was not at a private soloist rehearsal, it was while all their friends sat watching them (with nothing to do - perhaps jealous they did not get the soloist role and watching them upset about it) while the soloist did their song(s). All the students watching were being yelled at for being disrubpitve - as a natural part of the rehearsal process. Yet what shocked me was that the soloist also was getting yelled at... for getting distracted, forgetting the melody or lyrics they should know by now, and this lead to publically being told you may not get to keep the part - all while the whole class's eyes were on them during this humiliating process. It was so sad for me to watch her yelling at them with the very experience that was meant to build their confidence. The director was a good person and surely did not realize their situation and how traumatic that experience was for them because they were being told to sing a capella (with no music) all alone on the stage with not much support besides when the director would scream at the students watching saying - in a mean voice to be quiet. And then tell the soloist, "Go on..." as if that didn't just happen. So, that's when I got a Karaoke set up- and gave all the students a chance to sing with music on the stage during my classes with the positive support system we had developed in classes. This was helping most of the younger students, yet the older students were teens and they didn't seem to respond to much and weren't affected by the new methods on the playground. They were just sitting and talking or using the computers during playground time - so I didn't have as much interaction with them like my husband did - who saw them every day. He began testing them in math - to see what they did and didn't know. They had been told by the former math teacher who he had replaced - that they were really advanced in math - yet he must have not checked to see what they really knew - because when he test them... it s was not all that much. He came to see that huge gaps of information was missing or they had forgotten completely - if they had learned it.. Interestingly enough, the older students were really lazy towards doing their school work and I found it was because they had lost their own motivation for learning in this environment.

Once my husband and I took a deeper look - we saw the general competitive atmosphere among the older students. It seemed that the "behaviorism reward" approach that had worked well at the school - getting "rewards" at the end of the week in the form of fake money that they can spend in the school store for the amount of good work and good behavior they earned a certain amount of these fake dollars. It seems very fun and creative - and harmless and yet what it had lead to was them having this "what will I get for it" mode. Needless to say, I could see that this system wasn't working in the long run... especially all the screaming and punishments (less fake dollars than others for the Friday store) that did not seem to teach the students how to resolve their differences or do what was good for them for no other reason than what they will get for it.

So how do we motivate students towards them wanting - for themselves - what is good for them?
The school, as many school are - was based on Behaviorism. All kinds of rewards for doing what you were told to do and punishments if you did not.
This disconnected them from their own INNER MOTIVATION because of all the OUTER MOTIVATION to do what was understood as best for them.

              My husband and I became very focused on the "playground politics" knowing that that was where the real stuff happened when the teachers were not paying attention. Through the PEACE BENCH both my husband and I together showed them another way to deal with conflicts where they walked away feeling better and no one was put on time out or punished. It was so amazing because I could see students really starting to care about each other on a whole new level than they had before - now that they were not being put on time out - which meant getting in trouble - or being "bad, NO PUNISHMENTS meant that the real reward was the friendships they cultivated and that's when there was a lot less competition going on around the school. Now they saw themselves as a community. However, because they were not given a punishment - several of the "repeat offenders of the peace" took advantage of the situation - and that is what lead to the need for The Friendship Circle.

              It worked amazingly well with every age group - and especially with the older students who had grown up together yet had never really given honest feedback on behaviors that kept them from being closer. One of the students in the 9th grade had pretty much sassed her way into bully behavior. Yet after her circle - she cried as she hugged me for a while... then we talked it out. She really didn't care what the adults in her life thought about her behaviors - she had heard it all many times till she was numb... with all the ongoing punishments and constant nagging. But this was her best friends - her peers who she really cared about giving her some similar feedback and she had to look at it really - for the first time. I was there to support her through it and let her know that it was a real gift because now she's free to grow into the person she knows she can be. As she did the 9th graders all became much happier and fun to be around and this made them better student..

              The Friendship Cirlcle allows this kind of growth experience because it is a safe space to say what is really real to you and get past all the stuff that keeps us from doing what we know will make us happy - being more connected to the ones who care about us. The heart is the surest motivation to a happy student. I would rather see a happy student over a "well-behaved" one and in a healthyenvironment with interdependent support - they are the same thing. Yet in today's world outer discipline has totally ecliped inner discipline in most homes and schools. It is not trusted that students actually do want what is good for them and they just might have a few questions about what is being asked of them before they motivate themselves to do it. That is a good thing. In today's world we need to have our students question adults if they need to - their are some adults who students should not follow. We need to appeal to their own innate wisdom. Once we allow them to listen to their INNER MOTIVATION & INNER DIRRECTED LEARNING allows us to cultivate our gifts and this brings real self esteem and in a healithy support system everyone is happy for you. So that as they grow they are able to motivate themselves that way for the rest of their lives by loving to learn and knwoing how to teach themselves and trust the process of their growth.

              Things have come a long way, when both my husband and I were in school the students would be paddled/spanked in a humiliating way if they misbehaved repeatedly. It is interesting that often times these students being spanked were also the ones who bullied other students and got in physical fights regularly where the punishment was getting spanked or paddled. How ironic that we would hit these students while telling them not to hit others. As a society we are questioning the common spanking that parents give their childen might just be a form of child abuse. But let's take a deeper look at the psychological backwash of a spanking: it is shameful and if they pull your pants down it is sexual too. The humiliation with sexual overtones and contradiction of it being patient good behavior you are asking from them is so obvious. More so, it is coming from someone who supposidly cares about you - doing this demeaning act to you. It gets really twisted when the person says: "This is going to hurt me more than you." Yet it gets very cruel if the person doing the spaking is getting out some of their own frustrations doing it. The person getting spanked is told to respect them now - yet after such an act the student would be a fool to respect that kind of behavior. All it does - it build fear and mistrust with that person and within the student so that all relationships are somewhat effected by it. We are now finding that this kind of trauma will stay in their body cells until they release it. However, most people don't even know that it is still there inside them or how many unconscious actions they do stem from these cruel acts that happened in childhood and we see many illness that develop out of it. This is why a new approach is needed that focuses on RAISING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE as the most important factor in raising somone to be a "good" student. In this day and age we need people who question authority as much as we can embrace wisdome we find. So we need to help students the wisdom to discern which is which. So for many reasons it is best to teach student to trust the path towards cultivation of their gifts... for that builds self-esteem through focusing on our what we love to do... knowing that our INNER MOTIVATION LEADS TO INNER DISCIPLINE.

              The "bully approach to disciplining" is counter productive in so many ways... and the wounds go deep and can make a person behave in distructive ways - consciously or unconsciouly. It makes a person choose to be self-destructive (victim/depression) or outwardly destructive (rebel/A.D.H.D.) - or they could be someone who goes back and forth (Moody/bi-polar) by behaving (trying really hard to please) and misbehaving (perhaps feeling it is unfair or pleasing the person in charge was not rewarded or satisfying) - yet their whole life become a reaction of other people and their judement of them. In fact, this is really all about judgement... and forcing someone to do what the person in charge thinks is best. However, we have come to see that the biggest draw back is that it won't mean as much to them - becaue it did not come from their own inspiration - so they can't own it - even it they do accomplish it.

              The 3 Most Common Outdated Motivations: shame ("What kind of student would do that?") blame ('You don't listen, do you?"), or the harder one to see as a problem fame ("You wouldn't do that in my classroom!" or "You're so good when you do that - did everyone see them do that?") that can breed a very negative compition among the students. In the past, it may have been seen as a good thing to compare students to motivate them to do better and parents often do it among siblings as well. The problem with this method is that it must be balanced with constant cultivation of a caring enviroment with teachers who do not use the students adoration of them - to keep an ongoing rivary among the students. It may seem that they are working harder yet with a lot of baggage and again, chances are - it is the teacher's baggage. Anytime we use these 3 motivations - it takes the acomplishment away from the student. In other words, if they do go ahead and do what ever it is that is being asked of them... it doesn't come from them anymore. Now it is an order and NOT their own cultivated motivation to do what is best for them selves for the rest of their lives - it is only an order for this one thing they are being told to do.

              Now they have a choice - to do as they are asked and loose another piece of their own motivation or rebel if they feel it is unfair - if they are able to have a voice this can be resolved by talking deeply about their motivations and help them to connect what is being asked to the motivations they have for themselves. However, if they are not able to have a voice (children are seen and not heard, you will do as you're told (period) or... (threat of punishments) - then it begins the road of bad choices or choices for the wrong reasons - who later on end up in a mid-life crisis or devorced and wondering "How did I get here?". I have see the answer come in 'REDIRECTION" which can help IF it is sinsere. After a while it feels very manipulative if there is no real interest in what you are pulling them towards on your part or on theirs. So again redirection can be just "a kinder, gentler order" or "an order with a smile" and still be missing the main goal of teaching or parenting for that matter is getting students/children/emplyees genuinely attracted to what is good for them - because they see how happy it makes them inside to take good care of themselves and those around them in a balanced way - interdependently. This allows us to make good choices and handle conflicts in a way where we grow from them quickly and move on grateful to the lessons learned.

We are not our "behaviors" - we are so much more!
Knowing who we are - we need to get in touch with the part of us that knows why we care about being good...it feels good.

             After finally winning the trust of the students because they were all getting along so much better due to the class I started Communications, Creativity, and Life Skills and the Friendship Circle that came out of it - where they were able to give constructive feedback to the ones who needed to hear it (often times for the first time in their lives they were given a voice to someone acting like a bully) in a safe space where kindness was honored and valued. I saw students who - when we first arrived - were fighting all the time - now, actually hanging out as friends. It brought me such joy that rather than competing continually all the time with ongoing battles where they continued to get back at someone they were mad at - very skillfully - when the teacher isn't looking. Getting away with it was how they used to feel good - yet now having a real friend meant so much more to them. I could see that there had really been a change of heart in whole school.

             So I decided to take the process deeper and I had the students write 3 reasons they care about being good. At first, they could only come up with things outside themselves like: so I won't be in trouble, to get good grades, to get my allowance, to make my parents/teachers happy.... all good reasons to care about being good - however none of them could even think of the main one... because it feels good to be kind and considerate towards others - when they are being that way towards you. They could not think of this answer because all their lives they had been told that other people's thoughts and opinions were more important than theirs. END OF DISCUSSION. Some had been raised in homes where they were able to speak and they may have even been heard. Yet there was an overwelming feeling that if these students were not told what to do or what is best for them - they would not know or worse - they would choose otherwise. So out of protection of their psyche they began to turn off the part of themselves that cares how it feels - they were rarely doing what they feel or thinking that the thinks that were being told were good for them were actualy good for them. There are many outdated things that we thought were good for kids: "You need to finish all the food on your plate to get desert." is a perfect example of something that as a society we have come to see was very harmful to many people who live with eating disorders now because of this fairly normal code of rasing children. My goal was to get these students back in touch with the part of them who understood that they did know what was good for them... and once they connected to that - they found their own way or felt secure enough to talk about what seemed to not be working.

             Everyone wants the well-being of being a caring person who cares about those around them - friends who care about them and who they care about - even if their behavior does not act that way. We are continually growing and understanding our gifts and things we need to work on - and interacting with others in mutual support is the way to living life in an interdependent way. A way where their needs are being met and they understand that they are around people who really care about them and see them beyond the behaviors they are displaying - usually out of defense. Once they understand how they are affecting others with unfriendly behaviors - and that it actually doesn't make them feel good inside - they look to those who don't see them as a bad student - someone who can help them out of the behaviors with dignity into seeing sometime for the first time - who they really are inside beyond all their reactionary behavior. This approach is a win-win situation all the way around.

This is our method to help cultivate and enable CARING Behaviors.

The focus is on getting them to understand how important it is that we care about each other -
not so much the specifics of what happened and who's fault it was.

1. Gather the students that are involved in a conflict together to the "Peacekeepers" area. (Make sure the others students are safe - if crucial ask another Teacher to watch the class/playground while the resolution is happening.)

2. If there was an obvious one who was hurt ask them first to tell what happened. (This way the one who hurt does not get the idea that hurting others gets attention.) If it's not obvious, then the one who is most calm should speak first, while the other one calms down and listens. If they are both wound up emotionally, ask them both to calm down by taking a few deep breaths and saying something like: "Each of you have something important to say yet we can't hear anything with both of you/everyone talking at once."

3. Once the energy is calmer, we listen to each tell what happened. Emphasis is on letting each one speak while everyone involved listens. Many times they won't agree on what happened and will start arguing again. Calming down then becomes the focus until active listening (they are showing that they care what the other is saying) is really happening. We feel it is very important that those involved speak to each other, rather than to the teacher who is acting as mediator - not a judge where each pleas their side of the story. The goal is to get them to use their words if they feel upset with someone, and we model it for them how best to tell someone what they feel in a constructive way. This process develops empathy for others and consideration for all concerned. It is especially important that the one who was hurt speak to the one who hurt them and they tell them how is made them feel to get hurt by them. If both got hurt, they need to both tell each other how it felt to get hurt by the other one and if more are involved each needs a turn to speak.

4. It is important to help them to understand how hurting others not only hurts the other person, it also hurts the friendship that they share and the trust that we have in our school. Once this is understood we can together find a way to remedy the situation. We do our best to let the students come up with solutions whenever possible. However first, we say we are sorry to each other. It is explained that saying you are sorry does not mean you are "guilty" especially when most conflicts happen because of equally unfriendly behavior. Saying you are sorry to the one you hurt means you are sorry that they got hurt - it mean you care about them. So after we say we are sorry, we come up with a way to have it not happen again. We can shake hands or give a hug and go play kindly with each other or whatever is appropriate for the situation. For instance, if we break someone's toy, then fixing it or make arrangements to get them another one. Perhaps it’s as simple as helping to glue a broken piece or finding a lost toy with them. We focus on being fair and showing how good fairness feels. It helps everyone to feel like an important contributor to the friendly feelings around the school. It helps us to share in the caring environment we are co-creating. This way each student is a Peacekeeper and is an important part of a peaceful, caring environment.

              Sometimes, the one who hurt the other is making it obvious that they "don't care" that they hurt them or is too busy denying it (to avoid a punishment or to be "right") they may say that they are sorry, but obviously not mean it by saying it in an insincere way. We make sure to frame this as: they are "acting" like they don't care. Because deep down inside we know they do. We then ask them, "How does it feel to “act” like you don't care that you hurt someone who cares about you?” If they still continue to “act” like they don't care about hurting others, then they are asked to sit alone at the peacekeepers area and think about how lonely it must feel not to care about their friend's feelings. They are given examples of others showing them that they care about them. Without shame or blame they are asked to get in touch with their own feelings about why they act unfriendly – if they want to they can write their feelings down or draw a picture about it. The teacher checks in from time to time to see if they are getting any answers. Then later, in a private conference the teacher and student they can talk about what was discovered during this introspective time. It is important that this is not framed as a punishment. It is instead framed as the natural consequence of "acting" like not caring about their friends in a caring environment. We enroll all the students in protecting and co-creating a friendly caring environment at their school. Everyone agrees that it is harder to learn and grow in an unfriendly environment and we all have an important part in making the school a place where everyone feels safe and able to express themselves - in a way that’s constructive and helping to make our school the best it can be.

Empowering students to communicate if they fight... and helping them to see beyond their behaviors into the reasons they are acting that way. If we look deep enough it is always there.

              Our main concept for cultivating friendly behavior is based on the golden rule: "Treat others how you would like to be treated". However, different people have different feelings about how they would like to be treated and what feeling safe means to them. For instance, one student may have a family that hugs a lot and he may reach out to hug another student. Yet that student is not OK with that because their family only hugs at certain times and only after knowing someone a lot better. Another example is that in some cultures they feel that looking into someone eyes is important to really connect with them. While in other cultures, they feel that looking in the eyes of an elder is disrespectful. So we all want to be treated with respect and yet we all have different definitions of what that is. What we ask the students and teachers to do is continually pay attention to reactions and keep: "Checking in" by asking the person "Can I give you a hug?" before we give one. That way we know what’s appropriate for each person and can respect what that is. This is also important when we are giving feedback to one another, we need to first “Check in” to know if now is a good time and they want our feedback. Also, we all have personal space as far as our arm goes out around us. This is our protective bubble and we all need to respect each other’s personal space and have ours be respected to feel safe - I use the hoo-lah-hoop to give a visual of this space all around them. Another part of feeling safe means that “mean” humor (jokes about a person) is not allowed and treated in the same manor as any other kind of unfriendly behavior. We feel, that if the idea is to resolve the conflict through showing that caring for our friends is what's most important - then, less conflicts occur in the long run. We find that focusing on punishments for bad behavior only snowballs bad behaviors & "getting even" type motivations. Students begin telling on each other when ever they get the chance and this creates an unfriendly environment. We have found that shame and humiliation never motivates anyone to act better. The most productive idea is to have them understand how they made each other feel because of the conflict. Empathy and empowering consequences (to help the person who’s toy they lost to find it) is the best tool to good behavior and helps to create a friendly caring environment around the school, as well as in their lives outside school and in the future.

              When teachers do their best to offer an environment where feelings matter then needs can be voiced in constructive ways. If valid needs are for some reason not being met, together we will find a way to meet them. We do our best to cultivate patience and taking turns is an important way to learn/show patience. We do our best to be fair so that everyone who wants to has a turn and has a voice. We know that treating students fairly shows them what fairness is - and they are then attracted to being fair and standing up for fairness.

              If a teacher does not see a conflict in action themselves - they have to rely on those who did see it, and they ask "what happened"? Usually, if many students say the same thing - it is what happened. However, if we did not see it ourselves then we have to take in account that we are depending on what other's say. At times students may stretch the truth, give "their" version of it, or even at times lie, especially if they are involved with the conflict. Mostly students lie to avoid punishments - because their "being wrong" is connected to "shame" and harsh consequences. If being honest is held as very important and our focus is on keeping a loving connection with the students and them with each other at all times - then we have set a standard of behavior with our love not our fear.

              This standard is even more important when students behave in ways that don't support a caring environment. Most important though is that they are given "an out with dignity" to learn how to behave differently. Otherwise, it feels like there is no way to win and they get confused with these feelings. People act “selfishly” when they feel that their needs are not being met and/or their feelings are not being accounted for in decisions that involve them. Often times, there are conflicts at home and I have found that there is a good reason for their bad behavior - as a "cry for help" so to speak. Because this is true - to any degree - how we handle it becomes an even more important issue.


Empowering students with “The Friendship Circle”

              Repeat offenders of the peace are asked to be part of a group discussion with the other students called: The Friendship Circle. It is made clear that this is their behavior and not who they are. One by one, each student tell the student who sits in the middle of the circle examples unfriendly things they did and how it made them feel. It has to be a real example: knocking down their Lego's creation, or pushing them away from the drinking fountain to go first, or making negative comments on their art/school work, or about how they look or clothes they wear, harming their belongings and especially hurting them physically. As we go around the circle the example is given and then how the person feels when that person does that to them is said to the person in the middle. The person in the middle is asked not to look down and is asked just to listen and not rebuttal every statement. As the facilitator I make sure the comments are constructive and defend the person in the middle if they go too far to go after them. Then, they are asked to acknowledge it by telling how it feels to them to have hurt their friend in this way. The person in the middle is encouraged to say they are sorry (because they hurt their feelings – not because they were “wrong” and are being shamed for it.) And the person who has had the harm done is encouraged to say thank you to them saying sorry. Then, the person who told the example is asked to tell the person in the center if there is anything that they have done kindly towards them and to thank them for it. Unfortunately, there were some students who the other students could not remember any kind action from. If this is true they need to hear that. Yet most of the time there is a kind thing that they did and it really helps to balance the experience that they hear both things. Then after each person has spoken to the person in the center – they get a chance to speak if they have something to say. Then, together everyone discusses what they can do to find better solutions for unfriendly behaviors and the person in the middle is encouraged to help come up with solutions. They are told to remember these suggestions and to help remind people who are being unfriendly by coming up to them and if possible whispering in their ear without making a big deal of it kindly saying "remember the circle".

              As part of ending the friendship circle we would talk about how we say what we say to each other, with what tone of voice - that this is just as important. At the end we all join the circle again and everyone holds hands and together says 3x's "remember the circle." If the unfriendly behaviors still do not change another circle is scheduled with their parents there and together we all come up with solutions to cultivate more friendly behaviors. If the unfriendly behaviors continue then the student is asked to leave the school. We are happy to say that we never got that far into the process where a student needed to leave. Most students want to improve themselves and are just looking for a way to do it that doesn't make them feel like there is something “wrong” with them. They need an out from this unfriendly behavior that is sincere to them and is not forced.

              Later, we found that students do what they do because they want attention yet they may not know how to get attention in a positive way - so they choose a negative way. We found that many of these students had a good sense of humor and were often doing their best to be the "class clown". Our approach was to tell them they were funny and offer to help them with their comedy routine - so they could get the most laughs. We helped them to know the difference between mean humor making fun of a person and humor that helps people to feel similar. We also taught them that it is what is said after a joke was said that was just as important as the joke itself. Jon Stewart is the master at this, even when he is making fun of those who deserve it - he is still somewhat eloquant about it. Our best student is our son who took it even further on his own. He would engage in the teacher's talking - especially when introducing a new topic... then he would ask an important question that got the whole class talking. Then when the energy was getting tense for any reason, that's when he would crack the joke - to lighten the mood - and his teacher loved him for it.

              We are now focusing on teaching what we now call Evolutionary Comedy - as a way to help others to evolve through humor... to see themselves and others in a funny way and share if when it helps someone and as a way to deal with bully behavior with a compliment that could have been taken as a cut but was not clear enough... just enough to confuse them.. This is a concept that can shape a whole person's life and we have seen students come to life... once they learn to use they natural talent in a way that helps others and is appropriate for the situation - a comedy secret called "know your crowd". That, and many other comedy & improvisations techniques that help everyone to find the funny in all situations and share the thoughts that can help to empower everyone in the situation. The teachers all grew from the experience and found that being kind was actually easier in the long run to get the students to behave well and get along.

OUR FRIENDSHIP MOTTO: WE ALL WANT TO HAVE FUN –
SO I THINK BEFORE I SPEAK OR ACT IN AN UNFRIENDLY WAY:
“How would it make me feel if someone said or did that to me?”
“CHECK IN” WITH YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS
TO THEM TO BE FRIENDLY.
WE ALL CARE ABOUT EACHOTHER
AND WE ARE ALL KEEPERS OF OUR PEACE.
LET'S MAKE A PLACE WHERE KINDNESS RULES!

For Adults Conflicts Please See:
A Hero's Art of
Disarming A Bully
(within & around us)

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