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Photo by Jane
Ahn
Teachers Jorja Leap (front row, from left), Wellford Wilms
and Avis F. Ridley-Thomas (back row, right) with two student
mediators.
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course in conflict mediation
Students learn to restore peace in schools
BY AJAY SINGH
UCLA Today Staff
The seven sixth-grade girls at Malibu High School used to be such
inseparable friends that the boys in their class nicknamed them
“the Mafia.” But that was before one of the girls —
let’s call her P. — began hanging out with the boys.
They paid so much attention to her that the other girls felt sorely
ignored, and then angry because P. gossiped about them to her boyfriends.
When UCLA students Amanda Billings and Emily Sim heard about the
Mafia at Malibu High last May, they got excited. Reason: The Bruins
were among 25 undergraduates, all with minors in education, who
have learned the art of mediating conflicts in an innovative, new
course, “Restoring Civility,” which concluded earlier
this month.
Before the class ended, each of the 25 students conducted a month
of fieldwork in which they examined a range of diverse issues affecting
schoolchildren, and in some cases, their parents.
As part of their fieldwork, Billings and Sim met the Mafia, thrusting
themselves into an emotionally explosive situation few people would
willingly embrace.
The undergraduates encouraged the seven schoolgirls to communicate
openly by adhering to three ground rules: no interruptions, no name-calling
and showing unqualified respect for each other. “We told them
we were there to listen, ask questions and understand their feelings
and the truth of what was going on,” Billings said.
It wasn’t easy. The schoolgirls constantly disregarded the
golden rule of “no interruptions” and often ganged up
on P., who counterattacked.
Faced with a lack of constructive communication, Billings and
Sim suggested that the schoolgirls let bygones be bygones and focus
on ways to avoid hurting each other’s feelings. The best way
to do this, the undergraduates counseled, was to talk one-on-one
and thus enhance trust and friendship. After following this advice,
the reunited Mafia went out together that night for the first time
in months.
One of the interesting insights Billings and Sim said they gained
from the experience was how parents influence the behavior of their
children. P., for example, had a habit of trying to resolve issues
by saying, “I love you.” It turned out that her parents
often fought with each other and ended their arguments by uttering
those words.
“Restoring Civility” is the brainchild of Wellford
“Buzz” Wilms, a professor at the Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies, who taught the course with
Jorja M. Leap, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of
Social Welfare.
Wilms was inspired to launch the course after he volunteered in
a dispute resolution program in the Office of the City Attorney
in Los Angeles. That program was established in 1989 by Avis F.
Ridley-Thomas, a veteran mediator with a background in sociology
who volunteered to assist in teaching the course at UCLA. As a result,
all 25 undergraduates have been certified as mediators by the city
attorney’s office.
“What’s really meaningful about the course is that
it involves both UCLA and the community,” Leap said. “In
mediation, both sides are changed,” said Wilms, “but
Jorja and I were changed, too. It’s the best experience I’ve
had in my 25 years of teaching at UCLA.”
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