Learn2Resolve Workshops

Interest and interaction was high at both of the Learn2Resolve "Stay Out of Conflict" workshops. The concepts were the same, but examples were drawn from adult and teen lives, respectively. The first night people were still talking a half hour after the workshop and had to be repeatedly asked by the librarian to leave since the library was closing. A few people well beyond their teens showed up at the teen workshop because circumstances caused them to miss the adult workshop. The discussion was stimulating -- how often do a sixth grader, the student's parent, and an unrelated 70+-year old born in another country share stories about conflict and why it might have occurred? The parent reflected back to a time after college; the sixth grader remembered a story from second grade.

Our minds naturally seek patterns; we need them in order to function and react to all the situations we're faced with. But what assumptions went into forming that pattern? In times of conflict with another individual, we need to examine unconscious rapid decisions we've made about the other. The "ladder of assumptions" "motives" rung is what Malcolm Gladwell calls "mind reading." From reading the mind of an individual, we may proceed to make generalizations about groups and take certain actions, both individually and institutionally.

Graham Middle School has a dress code policy that limits the amount of red and blue that students wear on campus. Other debated topics are racial profiling by the police and the SPOT program at airports (see the last blog posting).