Leaning Into Conflict
Why would we want to lean into conflict? As teachers, isn’t it annoying and doesn’t it slow us down when we’re trying to use every academic minute wisely? Yes, conflict resolution takes time and especially when you’re supporting students through every step BUT it’s time well invested when we gradually release responsibility to our students. Since we’re cultivating a classroom climate where productive disagreement is welcome and valuable, where students are building identities and taking academic risks for themselves, we’re expecting our learners to feel some big feelings. So when their amygdalas take over and productive disagreement becomes unproductive, how do we support restorative conversations?
One of my favorite strategies is called the OUT framework. It’s simple to remember and useful for classroom conflicts of all sizes. It’s also a simple routine that can be a short conversation or written out as a reflective essay if that’s a better fit for a situation. The framework is also grounded in neuroscience and supports our goals at AutonoMY Learning of helping students build resilient identities, connect to their communities through healthy relationships, and lighten the load for teachers.
The O stands for Owning the actions. Student A clearly describes the choices they made, including any words or actions. This supports Student A in building greater self-awareness, responsibility, and helps ensure that Student A’s prefrontal cortex is guiding the conversation with a reflective stance.
The U stands for Understanding the other perspectives. Because we are part of learning communities, every choice we make affects the others around us. Our students need MANY opportunities to exercise their perspective-taking muscles as they develop a compassionate identity over time. So after Student A has owned their actions, they list all the ways that their actions affect others around them. This might include making it hard for others to learn around them because their focus was interrupted or creating distrust between friends. I will often prompt a student at this stage to consider how their actions affected other parts of the classroom community that they don’t mention on their own.
The T stands for Telling what you’ll do differently next time. This is tough for many kids, who will want to say that they “won’t run in the halls” or “won’t tap their pencil” during quiet writing time. It challenges kids to explicitly describe what they will do and say the next time similar circumstances arise. This part of the framework empowers the student to rewrite the script on their choices and to end the conversation with a restorative, positive statement.
Once Student A has processed and verbalized all 3 parts of the OUT framework, then Student B takes their turn.
A few considerations as you give this strategy a go in your classroom:
Often, students are not ready to resolve a peer conflict with OUT or any other strategy until their body and brain are calm. If their amygdala is running the show, then they are in a defensive “fight or flight” stance, and they need to use a calming strategy and take some time before having a restorative conversation.
Notice that OUT doesn’t require active listening between students. It’s more about each person processing and taking the perspective of the other people affected by their actions. I will often include an active listening component. For example, I might have Student A tell what they’ll do differently next time and then ask Student B to say back what they heard.
I know you’ll be shocked to hear that students don’t always agree with each other’s description of what happened. In many cases, I’ll pause the OUT strategy after Student A owns their actions. If the two students disagree, I’ll give them space and time to clarify details and figure out the one true story of what actually went down. We know there can be many versions of “truth” but the process of working together to share each other’s versions of the facts is restorative to the friendship too.
The OUT strategy also works well any time a student needs to own a poor choice, not just with peer-peer conflicts. If one student’s actions affect you or the class as a whole, these 3 steps support the same reflection and perspective-taking that are needed.
