Early this morning, when most of our McGuffey families were enjoying a lazy Winter morning at home, nine students from Grade 5-8 along with three teachers and three parents, gathered to learn about peer mediation and conflict resolution.
While staff brought snacks, Chris Taylor brought his huge toolbox of experiences and training with mediation to help us. Chris is Assistant Director of Ethics and Conflict Resolution at Miami University, husband of Elizabeth, our music teacher, and dad to students Sam and Will.
We did exercises in empathy and role playing and had great discussions about peace, conflict and community… we needed a lot of snacks to keep up our stamina.
A great big thanks to all who attended and the parents who provided transportation. We plan on developing a team of “Peace Helpers” to help with all kinds of conflict as we work to build everyone’s skills in this area across the school.
A few students noticed a surprising resemblance between our facilitator and the Gnome who has been coming to visit us during the Read-a-thon.
Thanks to the Lebanon Citizens National Bank for letting us use their community room!
