Jim and Carol, teachers who share a classroom (at different times), are at loggerheads. Jim uses the chalkboard frequently, but when he walks into the classroom one day he finds that once again Carol has filled the board with vocabulary terms and scrawled "Do Not Erase" in all four corners. Carol, meanwhile, is upset because Jim's students are always rearranging the desks and chairs without returning them to their original positions. Neither Jim nor Carol is happy about sharing a room in the first place, and when they mention the annoyances to one another, the conversation turns into a confrontation. Carol demands that Jim move desks back before her arrival, and Jim threatens to erase the board whenever he needs to use it. Each blows off steam and then retreats, without reaching agreement, to fume silently.
Although such disagreements may seem trivial, even minor conflicts among educators—if ignored or handled poorly—can undermine smooth functioning of the school, poison the atmosphere, or lead to staff burnout, say experts in conflict resolution.
Why do people, including educators, find it so difficult to handle conflict with others?
One obvious explanation is that we don't learn enough about alternative ways to settle disputes. "Few of us were exposed to good models of conflict resolution," says Linda Baron of the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Lacking more constructive strategies, we often try to solve conflicts by "out-negotiating" the opposition or by appealing to someone in authority to rule in our favor.
School culture may contribute to conflicts among educators, others say. "Education is an extraordinarily lonely profession," with teachers usually working in isolation, says Alan Borer, director of guidance support services for the New York City public schools. Moreover, educators often are protective of their "turfs" (e.g., English department, pupil support services), and this can be a barrier to developing constructive solutions. "Traditionally, we haven't negotiated" solutions to conflicts, says Borer. "We stake out turf and then defend that to the death."
In addition, conflicts frequently make the disputants feel as if they, not the issues, are on the line. "Conflict somehow has a way of challenging our identities," says Baron. "It's hard to separate the person from the conflict." And the more people feel they are being challenged personally, the stronger they dig in their heels and take an unyielding position.
A Better Way?
But experts in conflict resolution say that educators can expand their repertoire of ways of dealing with conflict.
Ellen Raider of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College, Columbia University, trains educators in what she calls "collaborative negotiation." Raider, a consultant to the new ASCD video program, Adult Conflict Resolution (see Resources, p. 8), says that collaborative negotiation differs from "distributive bargaining," in which the conflicting parties negotiate positions in a win-lose fashion.
Collaborative negotiation requires that those in conflict separate their "positions" from their actual needs. In the example of the teachers sharing a classroom, for instance, the teachers' positions (I won't tolerate your using all the chalkboard space or leaving the room a mess) obscure underlying needs (for space on the chalkboard or orderly room arrangement). Only after the parties clarify needs can they begin to negotiate based on the goal of finding ways to meet the needs of both sides to the fullest extent possible.
For collaborative negotiation to work, of course, both parties must be willing to negotiate. And it requires participants to listen actively and appreciate others' perspectives. In Raider's collaborative negotiation model, participants then move through stages of negotiation, including planning the negotiation, creating a climate for negotiation, informing and questioning one another, finding common ground, brainstorming solutions to the problem, and choosing the most promising solution.
Skills Take Work
Learning the skills to negotiate collaboratively is hard work, Raider admits, but some educators who have been through training in conflict resolution say it pays dividends.
Two years ago, the site-based management team at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., was struggling over such matters as filling administrative positions and the role of departments, and the conflicts had become divisive, says principal Bill Sigelakis. "Things just weren't working well, and we were on the verge of breaking up."
Raider helped to mediate the dispute at John Dewey, however, and, gradually, "we were able to state our needs and to find areas of common ground," says Sigelakis. Eventually, the group rewrote its constitution for the decision-making team, a key step toward resolving the problems. Several staff members, including Sigelakis, also received extensive training in conflict resolution; and he says strategies of collaborative negotiation are becoming more widely known at the school. "I can use them on a day-to-day basis, and I do," he says.
Sandra Hassan, principal of Beach Channel High School in Queens, N.Y., also credits collaborative negotiation tactics for helping smooth the school's transition into school-based management. As the faculty has learned more about constructive ways to resolve conflict, examining shared needs and reaching consensus have replaced simple "majority rules" solutions. "If we're sincere about management by a team, then we have to move away from right or wrong answers to: `Can you live with this?' or `Can you agree with this?'" says Hassan.
Even though conflicts are often painful, they are inevitable, so it's important for educators to develop better approaches to solving them, experts say. "Conflicts are not going to go away," notes Raider. "That's a given. But we can increase our ability to handle conflict constructively."