Student Contributor: B. Musser
This tool is just your ordinary game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but instead of playing simply for pleasure, it is a tool kids use in the classroom to resolve minor conflicts. It is a simple, easy, and quick way for students to resolves issues on their own, allowing for more student independence.
This tool should be something every student learns how to use, in order to be able to resolve any conflicts that they may have, as long as they are somewhat minor issues that an adult doesn’t need to attend to. This is a tool that can save the teacher a lot of time, if it is introduced correctly, right from the beginning of the year, so then it becomes an everyday occurrence for students to use this method, instead of always going to the teacher. I often use this method in my own life with little disagreements, because it is so simple and fair and it leaves no questions to be asked. There also is a little lightheartedness to it, because it is a game, and so usually it goes over very smoothly, ending any conflict.
I put this procedure under the supportive phase, because it is a tool that is used to support prosocial behavior and student independence. This tool allows students to work on their skills in dealing with others and independently resolve conflicts that they are faced with. I also believe that this tool falls under the preventative phase as well because it should help to prevent conflict as well as support resolution. This class tool definitely falls mostly under the student directed theory of influence, because it is the students choices to resolve their own conflicts, without the help of an adult. This supports student independence in many ways, therefore, directly correlates with the student directed theory.
More Information –
Tool Source: Playworks
https://www.playworks.org/resource/four-conflict-resolution-techniques-for-school-children/
