Faculty and students from the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno will provide conflict resolution education to Fresno middle schools beginning this week.
At the invitation of Fresno Unified School District, the Kremen School will work with selected teachers and children in all 18 of the district’s middle schools. The request for assistance comes after the death in November of an Ahwahnee Middle School seventh grader who was fighting with a 14-year-old boy in a parking lot near the school.
Pam Lane-Garon, associate professor in the Literacy and Early Education Department at Fresno State, will lead the effort. She also heads the Mediator Mentors program, a university-public school effort to train elementary and middle school students in mediating conflicts among peers. Mediator Mentors is based in the Kremen School in collaboration with several university centers.
Peer mediators are trained by their teachers in concert with faculty and university students who are studying to become teachers, counselors, school psychologists and social workers. Fresno State students mentor the public school students and teachers in peer conflict management and communication skills during eight to 10 hours of training as they participate in guided role-playing scenarios.
“Having the skills to do conflict resolution is an important part of a child’s education,” said Lane-Garon. “It will give more children a thoughtful approach to conflict resolution.”
But, she warned, conflict resolution training is not a panacea.
“In respect to gang involvement and related violence, it is not the one thing that will solve that problem. It will not prevent tragedies,” Lane-Garon said.
Still, conflict resolution education is very useful, she said, and Fresno Unified has committed itself to the training as part of a strategy for enhancing its students’ safety and developing student skills in mediating conflict. The district also has set up a hotline, is working to prevent bullying and is boosting personal and social skills on middle school campuses.
“Mediator Mentors is an outstanding example of Fresno State and the Kremen School’s engagement with the community,” said Paul Beare, dean of the Kremen School.
“The program has clear effects, not just in improved atmosphere and behavior in schools, but it helps with academic achievement in that there is more time spent learning and less time spent in conflict.”
Five teachers and 45 students at each middle school will be trained in conflict resolution, Lane-Garon said. The student mediators will be nominated by peers, themselves, parents and teachers.
Training will begin in January and continue through March, at roughly two schools per week.
Fresno State does not charge schools for the Mediator Mentor training. Currently 20 university mentors are working by invitation in schools throughout the region.
Since 1998, the Mediator Mentors program has served elementary and middle schools in Sanger, Central Unified, Hanford Unified and Fresno Unified districts.
This fall, the Mediator Mentor program at Fresno’s Ewing Elementary was in the spotlight at a session of the Association for Conflict Resolution’s national convention in Philadelphia.
For more information contained in this release, please go to the following Web site:
Mediator Mentors
