Promoting a learning environment steeped in respect, scholarship, and accountability requires the classroom to possess a certain cultural competence. Like with all competencies, students arrive to the classroom at different places. Just as we differentiate for content, we too must differentiate for cultural competence with the goal of getting students on the same page.

This is especially important as secondary school focuses more on collaborative learning as an instructional method. Collaborative learning activities require students to have an open mind, a healthy respect for others who hold both similar and opposing opinions, as well as for students to feel safe enough to express thoughts, viewpoints, beliefs, and ideas in the classroom.

However, what happens when the collaborative group has different opinions? Often conflict erupts and needs to be quelled. While conflict management and conflict resolution are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Conflict management generally refers to an individual’s conflict “style” or their reaction to conflict while conflict resolution utilizes the skills employed to resolve a conflict.

I mention this distinction because when classroom disagreements between students arise, the student behaviors are typically conflict management behaviors and the teacher behaviors are typically conflict resolution behaviors.  Understanding this concept as a teacher allows you to help your students learn to operate in an environment of productive — respectful disagreement.

I assure you from personal experience, as someone who use to do mediation work for the EEOC in Atlanta, that respectful disagreement is rare. It is so critical to teach students to agree to disagree, focus on the problem, not the person, and not to personalize uncomfortable feelings.  It is easy to get caught up in disagreements over values, judgments, and beliefs; especially ones held close. It is vital to teach young people how to navigate those disagreements, and sometimes the cognitive dissonance that goes along with disagreements over such personal issues, with mutual respect.

In the end, conflict is merely the inability to communicate effectively, tolerate differences of opinion, and a strong penchant for personalizing the problem – making the person the target of the conflict, not the problem. These deficits create intractable positions and an “us” versus “them” mentality, making conflict resolution virtually impossible.

This is why I believe that fostering communication, a safe space for disagreement, and a culture of openness and tolerance in the classroom is so important. If students learn to manage their emotions in the face of differing opinions as well as learn to pay attention to the feelings (not just the words spoken) of the other person, they will be much more able to manage conflict stress, while remaining calm and moving towards amicable solutions to problems; even if the solution is agree to disagree. If students are taught these skills early, they will most certainly carry this skill set into their adult lives, and perhaps there will be fewer cases to settle at the EEOC.