Written by Margaret Fisher, and updated in 2019 by the BJA Public Trust and Confidence Committee member Jennifer Garber. For more information, contact the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), Temple of Justice, 415 12th Ave SW, PO Box 41174, Olympia, WA 98504-1174. For an electronic copy of this lesson, or to view other lesson plans, visit Judges in the Classroom on the Washington Courts Web site at: www.courts.wa.gov/education/.
- Begin the class by introducing yourself
and telling a little bit about what you do. Tell students that today's class will deal with solving conflicts.
- Write the word “conflict”
on the board and then brainstorm with students what words they associate with conflict. Write these words on the board. Students should identify words such as fight, argument, mad, solution, shout, etc.
- Ask students
if we could generally categorize words as positive or negative, how would we categorize the words we associated with conflict? Go through the list of words on the board and quickly put a plus for positive or minus for negative or “0” for neutral next to each word as the class directs you. Most of the words will likely be categorized as “negative.”
- Explain to students
that most people associate negative ideas with conflict. However, conflict is a natural part of living. Improving skills to solve conflict enhances the quality of everyone’s lives.
- This class will focus
on ways to settle conflicts.
- Introduce the trigger video
by telling students they are about to witness a conflict. They should pay close attention to the details of the conflict and what is really going on.
- To help them focus on the video, you are going to give them a handout. Each handout represents the viewpoint of either Betsy or Katie, the two people in conflict in the video. Handout 1 asks questions from Betsy’s point of view, and Handout 2 asks the same questions about Katie’s point of view. (You will pass out Handout 1 and Handout 2, alternating so that every other student gets the same handout (the cooperating teacher can assist). This is in order to assist with pairing students later in the class.)
- Ask students
to jot down their answers to the questions as the video is playing and immediately after the video is over. Review the questions on both handouts before starting the video.
- Show the video
. Give students a few minutes to jot down their responses on the paper.
- Begin by asking students
what happened in the video. Clarify the facts with students. Students should identify that Katie has called Betsy and made an arrangement for the upcoming Orenco Concert (Orenco is a fictitious band). Katie offered to lend Betsy the money for Betsy’s ticket if Betsy would stand in line on Saturday and buy the tickets. Katie asked Betsy to buy 5 tickets total, including three tickets for her friends who had already paid her. Betsy waited in line on Saturday but was only able to buy 4 tickets according to the ticket seller’s policy. Katie has taken all four tickets for herself and three friends, and informs Betsy that she is responsible for buying her own ticket. Betsy has complained to Katie and to Mr. V., a teacher at school.
- Ask students
what is the conflict in this case. Write students’ definition of the conflict on the board. It should be some version of: relying on Katie’s offer to loan Betsy money for her concert ticket, Betsy waited in line to buy five tickets but only could get four, which Katie now demands, leaving Betsy without a ticket.
- Ask the students with Handout 1
what does Betsy want? Betsy wants to go to the Orenco Concert for the amount of money the ticket costs.
- Ask the students who had Handout 2
what does Katie want? Katie wants to go to the Orenco Concert with her friends. She feels obligated to provide a ticket for her friends who gave her the money.
- Return to the students with Handout 1
and ask what is Betsy’s position? Why does Betsy feel the way she does? Their answers should be something like: Betsy believes that she is entitled to one of the four tickets that she bought. Her view is that she actually had the money because Katie had offered to loan her the money for her ticket on Saturday in exchange for being the one to actually go down, wait in line, and buy the tickets. In her mind, fairness requires that someone who didn’t waste their Saturday buying the tickets should go without a ticket.
- Return to the students with Handout 2 and ask
what is Katie’s position? Why does Katie feel the way that she does? Their answer should be something like: Katie believes that she and her three friends are entitled to the four tickets since each of them had the ticket money on Saturday, the day the tickets were bought.
- Tell
students that you are going to work on the conflict resolution skill of generating options. The main rule for generating options is that everyone can make suggestions about how to solve this conflict without discussion of it as a good or bad suggestion. All the suggestions will go on the board. Later in small groups, the students will examine the consequences of the various suggestions. Students who worked on Betsy’s side with Handout 1 should make suggestions that Betsy might make. Students who worked on Katie’s side with Handout 2 should make suggestions that Katie might make.
- List students’ ideas
on the board. Some ideas might include:
- Betsy buys a fifth ticket, but Katie and her three friends pay for the cost of the ticket that is above the original price of the ticket.
- Katie gives Betsy her ticket.
- One of the three friends who did not stand in line for the ticket has to get her or his own ticket or not go.
- Katie buys the fifth ticket and gets the price above the original cost divided between the three friends who didn’t buy tickets.
- Betsy finds her own ticket with her own money if she still wants to go.
- Tell students
that they are going to have a chance to solve this conflict. They’ve had a chance as a large group to think about both sides and to consider some possible solutions, but now they’ll be in pairs to try to work it out.
- Have students
get into pairs (a student with Handout 1 playing Betsy, paired with a student with Handout 2, playing Katie). (The teacher can help get the students into these pairs.)
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- Tell students
they have about seven minutes to work out the conflict over the tickets. Tell students that they should write down their solutions.
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- After seven minutes or so are up
, ask how many pairs were able to reach agreement. Chart this on the board. Ask how many pairs were unable to reach agreement, charting this number as well.
- Congratulate those pairs
that reached agreement and ask why the pairs were able to work it out. From their answers, you would want it to be highlighted that students spoke in problem-solving language (no triggers or accusing tones), a solution workable to both sides was seen as achievable, Katie and Betsy saw that it was important to keep their friendship, etc.
- Turn to those
who were unable to agree, and ask for selected teams to report what the difficulties were. You might hear that one side refused to listen or negotiate, that their language was provoking, that they didn’t have any room for negotiation, etc.
- Tell students
that what they have been doing is negotiating and that this law-related skill that they use in everyday life is an important part of the legal system. For those who failed at reaching a negotiated solution in real life, they may turn to another person to help them solve their problem. There are people trained especially for this job called mediators who help people in conflict, like Betsy and Katie, reach a voluntary solution.
- There is also a process
known as arbitration that involves a person listening to both sides and then deciding how to resolve the conflict. The people in dispute don’t control the outcome. Arbitration is sort of like a court hearing but it is not quite as formal.
- Finally, there is litigation
, a formal way of solving conflicts, in which both sides, generally through lawyers, present their case to a judge (or jury) to be decided. Throughout litigation, however, the persons in dispute are usually negotiating to solve their conflict before going to trial. If that fails, the case may well end in a trial in which a judge or jury decides.
- Describe to students
how your particular judicial responsibilities relate to solving conflicts. You might end the lesson advising students to increase their abilities to solve their own conflicts because of the satisfaction it will provide them and, from your perspective, that using the courts should be used only when absolutely necessary.
