Kids And Violence - Fresh Reason For Hope


April 5, 1998|By Joan Faulkner, special to the sentinel

It's only a week and a half ago that our country learned that two boys - really young boys - deliberately killed four of their classmates and their teacher. Compounding the shock, we learned it was the third fatal shooting at a school in recent months of kids, by kids.

What's going on here? And why do these things happen? There must be millions of us who are agonizing over the answer to that question. I wonder how many different answers we'll come up with.

Some can be predicted: lack of parental guidance and family values; the pernicious effects of violence on television, in video games and in the movies; the easy availability of guns. These, and others, can surely be counted as reasons.

The big question, though, is what can we do about it - about the violence and about its causes? Obviously we're not going to be able to remake dysfunctional families in any hurry. Nor, barring a parental revolution that decrees the airwaves must be regulated, can we control what's on television, cable and the Internet. As for guns, it would surely lower the death toll among children if there were far fewer around, but that's not likely to happen soon either.

Hopeless? Not quite.

There are still the schools, where our children spend a good chunk of their lives. And in many Orange County schools, as well as schools throughout the country, something wonderful is happening. Teachers in the elementary grades, starting with pre-kindergarten, are teaching their small charges how to manage conflict positively, how to resist peer pressure and to think for themselves. Instead of kicking Mary in the shins when you figure she has done you wrong, or making fun of Tommy because his socks don't match, you talk with other kids and the teacher, working out with them who's right and what's wrong. The kid who learns ethical behavior this way is not likely to vent his frustrations with gunfire.

Because teachers have come to realize that it's almost impossible to shield children from bad influences, the ability to resist those influences must be learned by the children themselves. In recent years, our schools have tried a number of techniques for teaching this. One successful one is known as peer mediation. Its aim is to have the kids handle their own disputes. Barbara Barry, guidance counselor at Lake Silver Elementary School, said classrooms in her school have a ``conflict mediation corner''; by third grade, some kids are proudly wearing T-shirts stating, ``I'm a Mediator.''

In many schools teachers have devised their own ways of teaching social skills, but today the program most used, and with the greatest success, is called ``Peace by Piece.'' It was developed by two teachers, Marti White and Linda Johnson, at the request of the Orange County school administration when, in 1993, it acknowledged a trend toward increasingly violent behavior among students.

White and Johnson were released from teaching duties to head a team to work on the problem. The team soon realized two things: 1. In teaching conflict resolution effectively, you have to start as young as possible, and 2. You can't do it in, say, separate 15-minute segments; it must be integrated into every subject and filter through every class.

Tony McLone is a guidance-support person at Dover Shores Elementary, which made a schoolwide commitment to the Peace by Piece program two years ago. ``I'm very excited about it,'' he said, especially because it's ``literature based'' - that is, based on children's stories that kids relate to and teachers feel comfortable with. ``Teachers can take ideas from the programs and apply them to any situation.''

McLone continued, ``I've seen many programs come and go, and was getting jaded. But this one incorporates the best of the others.'' Even its telephone-directory size does not daunt busy teachers once they realize that its aim is to move responsibility for positive behavior from them to the kids themselves, thus freeing up more time for teaching.

How effective have this and other programs been? It's still too early to tell, but the weight of ``anecdotal evidence'' is strong. (Barry estimates that referrals to the principal for anti-social behavior are down ``significantly,'' perhaps by as much as one-third.) White said the school system is working on a scientific evaluation, but she has no doubt that the figures will be favorable.

Marti White is a modest person, so it was only from McLone that I learned that a group of Swedish educators had reviewed Peace by Piece and were so impressed that, last year, they asked her to come to their country to help implement the program, which is now in use there. Other Florida county school systems are asking for it (and are getting the office-printed volume for just $2.50 a copy).

One teacher who uses Peace by Piece tells of a child who proudly reported that she had ``mediated'' a family fight at home. Peace by Piece, step by step - who knows where this might lead?

Orlando Sentinel Articles