Conflict Resolution Education - National Criminal Justice Reference ...

The TSP program is implemented through a combination
of bottom-up and top-down strategies.
Teams of faculty members are trained to implement
the TSP program through 30 to 40 hours of training
given throughout the school year or in an intensive
summer session. Following the training sessions,
trainers provide support to the teaching teams by
giving demonstration lessons, helping members
prepare lessons, observing their implementation
efforts, and providing feedback.
Educators for Social
Responsibility
Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR), based
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, promotes children’s
ethical and social development through its programs
in conflict resolution, violence prevention, intergroup
relations, and character education. ESR
helps create peaceable classrooms in schools by
providing onsite professional development training
with followup support for the schools. By the term
“peaceable,” ESR means a safe, caring, respectful,
and productive learning environment. ESR provides
workshops, curriculums, and ongoing support to
help educators develop instructional and management
practices that foster skill in cooperation, caring
communication, appreciation of diversity, expression
of feelings, responsible decisionmaking, and conflict
resolution. 7
Since implementing the Peaceable Classroom
approach, I can spend my time doing
what I love to do. Teach!
Kindergarten teacher,
Brookline, Massachusetts
ESR first conducts a needs assessment of a school
or district to help the institution more clearly define
the problems it seeks to address, current program
strengths, specific needs, and short- and long-term
goals. At this stage, ESR recommends the creation
of a program steering committee, multiyear
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planning, voluntary staff participation in training,
and the development of local leadership capacity.
We attended two ESR conflict resolution
institutes and brought one of their trainers
into our school for 3 days. Since we started
this work, so many wonderful things have
been happening.
High school English teacher,
South Bend, Indiana
ESR Core 4-Day Training Model
The ESR model provides a theoretical background
on key topics such as social and emotional learning
and developmentally appropriate classroom teaching
activities. Woven throughout the training are direct
instruction strategies, ideas for incorporating conflict
resolution into the curriculum, classroom management
ideas, and discipline applications.
This training is participatory and experiential, placing
emphasis on community building. Participants
in workshops develop action plans appropriate to
their classrooms and schools. A major premise is
that teachers are taught to model the behavior they
seek to teach through direct instruction, and schools
develop and reflect the values they seek to nurture
among young people in all facets of their program.
ESR recommends that students and teachers
make decisions together about classroom norms
and guidelines at the beginning of the school year
and that teachers provide early instruction in problem
solving and decisionmaking so that the skills
can be used and reinforced throughout the year.
Ongoing Followup and Support
A staff development specialist provides onsite
followup. The activities offered include demonstrations
of teaching, coaching, planning, and problem
solving. For many teachers, seeing is believing,
and the opportunity to watch a staff development
specialist model the teaching of conflict resolution