Of all the things I probably should have anticipated about teaching, conflict resolution is the one I thought about least and have found myself dealing with most often. It’s also one of the saddest and most frustrating elements of working with the kids.

The other things – outside pressures, expectations from the school, the overbearing and superficial nature of a lot of the parents – are always in the background. But the fighting and teasing and hurt feelings are near constant throughout the day.

I’ve been wanting to write a post on this for awhile, but I’ve decided to break this into two parts. First, I’ll give a few examples of the types of conflicts that come up regularly. In the next post, I’ll focus on the potential causes, strategies for addressing the problem and soliciting words of wisdom.

Vicky

Vicky is one of my homeroom students. When talking to her alone, she is very sweet, and is obviously trying desperately to gain approval. She sometimes does this by acting or talking like a baby (probably because she has a younger sister who gets attention when she acts like that), but Vicky is actually pretty smart and has a great personality beneath her perpetual fight-picking habit.

Since the beginning of the year, Vicky has stood out as someone who isn’t really nice to the other kids, trying to antagonize them under cover of seeming innocent. During the first couple of months, I’d see her outright hit one of the other kids then deny it or tell me it was the other way around, that the other child had hit her. This went on for quite awhile and I was really worried about Vicky. First of all, why would a 4-year-old be this aggressive? Second, I was concerned about her making friends and learning to work with others, as she seemed to be a bit of a loner in the class.

Then she became friends with Michelle.

Michelle is probably the nicest student on the entire floor. She’s the type of kid you want to be best friends with. She’s nice, smart,  funny, direct – and she is never mean to anyone. For all the fighting that goes on among the other children, Michelle is always above it. Not because she doesn’t have friends, but because everyone loves her. Michelle has been involved in conflicts two or three times this year, and never once has she yelled at whoever wronged her or responded in a physical way. The other kids treat her with a respect and gentleness they don’t usually show to anyone else.

So I thought Michelle might be a good influence on Vicky. And she was, at first. For a couple of weeks, Vicky seemed to have turned a corner. Less fighting, more playing with the other kids, even helping them out or showing a kind gesture once in awhile.

But then it started to switch back again. Unprovoked, she would color on Brandon’s or Andrew’s papers or notebooks, which a source of ire for all of the kids. She started pushing and shoving again, not as blatantly or harshly as before, but it’s still alarming. And she started making remarks that were very clearly meant to make the other students cry. Cutting remarks and verbal bullying used to be Julie’s territory but she has made a remarkable change, from her attitude in class to her treatment of her classmates. Vicky, however, seems to have picked up her slack.

I know that it isn’t her fault, and I feel a lot of anger toward whoever is creating the insecurities and anxiety that are probably causing her to lash out. She desperately needs attention and approval, and seems to try so hard but the ways in which she is learning to do it are setting her up for some devastating consequences later in life.

Brian

OK, full disclosure, I have a bit of a soft spot for Brian. Not that I don’t for Vicky or for the other kids, because I love them all dearly. But Brian is special.

He started at the school a few weeks ago and was unfairly placed in Alison’s class. I say unfairly because 1. She had just gotten three other new students, all of whom needed to be helped through the transition 2. The students she had had from the beginning of the year had to deal with a lot of change at one time 3. Brian doesn’t belong in Pine Class.

Oak and Pine are considered the more advanced of the four six-year-old classes, and he was put there because one of the administrators promised his mom that he would be, regardless of the fact that he didn’t know how to feed himself or use a pair of scissors.

This puts an unfair amount of stress on him, because it is very obvious how behind the rest of the students he is. And it detracts from the attention and the lessons the other kids should be getting, because so much needs to be devoted to helping Brian. Had he been placed in Cherry or Cedar, the less advanced classes, he would have been among students closer to his level and it would have been much easier for him to get used to being in school and to get caught up on the work, without being frustrated and stressed. But hey, why do anything that might actually benefit the kid, right?

Anyway, Brian kind of took a liking to me right from the beginning and we became friends. Whenever we see each other in the hall, he calls out my name or comes into my classroom and makes a heart symbol with his hands, or tells me he’s sad that he has to say bye-bye when our class ends.

There is a sweetness to him that you have to see to understand. He really means well and seems so young, I do have an urge to baby and protect him (although I am working on being aware of when I’m babying the kids too much). Liz, another co-teacher, told me last week that Brian told his mom that he wants to be my son. This was probably one of the nicest things I’ve heard since I started teaching. So yeah, he just kind of melts my heart.

The other Pine Class kids, most of whom are really nice most of the time, picked up on this attachment of Brian’s, and they started making fun of him about it. They’d try to get him to call my name in the sing-song voice he uses and would laugh when he got excited to come to class. It was fairly subtle but it was mean. At first, I don’t think he realized what they were doing but I’m pretty sure he picked up on it and then didn’t know how to respond so he just went along with them.

Alison talked to them about what they were doing, and they did stop for the most part, although I’ll occasionally hear someone taunt him. However, Brian does need and get a lot of attention, and it’s caused problems in other ways, as well.

Example: Tong Hu and Jayden. They are two other Pine Class kids, and they seem to have been most affected by Brian’s arrival. Alison and I talked about it, and both think it’s because they aren’t used to not getting as much attention as they once did. So they’re taking that out on Brian.

Last week, I walked into class and found Tong Hu holding Brian’s arms behind his back while Jayden repeatedly slapped him. I took Tong Hu and Jayden outside to talk about what was going on for them, and both said they don’t like Brian. I told them that’s OK, they don’t have to like him, but they certainly don’t get to hit him. Tong Hu seemed to get it, but the next day, I found Jayden grabbing and hitting Brian again. He can’t seem to make up his mind about whether he wants to be his friend or to fight him. One minute, I’ll see Jayden trying to help Brian with his classwork and the next, he’s mocking him or trying to hurt him.

I do think it has a lot to do with Jayden’s own desire and need for attention. Today, for example, Brian fell asleep in class and was leaning on me while he slept. I couldn’t wake him up, so I let him be. Jayden seemed to be struggling with his work, so I asked him to bring his book to me so we could go over it together.

When he got to my chair, however, the book was closed and he crawled into my lap and put his head on the desk and closed his eyes. I don’t think he was really asleep; I think he just wanted the same level of comfort and attention he saw Brian getting. I didn’t want the rest of the class to get jealous or see it as me playing favorites but no one else seemed to be having a problem and didn’t say much about Jayden, so I let him be. If this is what he needs right now, I figured, better to let him stay here than to make him do the work and feel rejected or like I’m pushing him away.

So I’m sure that it is an attention issue that’s causing him to be jealous of Brian, but it still doesn’t justify his actions. And the taunts and mocking by the rest of the class alarmed me almost more than the physical aggression because it seemed so unlike them, but also so mean.

Cedar Class

I’m using this class as an example of what happens among all of the classes. But this issue really started to hit me during a language arts session with them one day.

Throughout the entire 40 minutes of class, the kids would not stop bickering. Shirley, who doesn’t speak much English, would shout “Ricky!” every five minutes and point earnestly at the boy next to her because he was moving his arms around and kept touching her.

Then there was a chorus of other complaints:

“Daniel is pushing!”

“Kevin is THIS (followed by a re-enactment of whatever Kevin had been doing)!”

“No, that’s mine!”

“Hey, stop that!”

It wasn’t as bad as the “I do not like you”s I hear from the kids with better English, but still. It was impossible to teach but even more importantly, it was so disheartening to see them sit and pick at every little thing the other kids did. Sometimes it was just tattle-tale type complaints. And most of these shouts were accompanied by pushing, hitting, flicking, face squeezing and taking a pencil, eraser or whatever else was available out of someone else’s hand.

Then we moved to the floor to read a book before class ended. The physical fighting stopped, but the verbal complaints just got worse. There was not one moment in the last 10 minutes of class that someone wasn’t yelling at someone else, either in English or Korean, or telling me how they were being wronged. Eventually I realized that all of the, “Why don’t you tell Kevin how you feel when he does that?”s, or “Guys, don’t hit each other. If you’re angry, tell the person but no hitting”s, or “How does it make you feel when someone does that to you? Do you think Lara feels that way when you do that to her?”s were not going to make a bit of difference.

My chest felt heavy and I thought I was going to burst into tears. There are very few times in my life that I have felt that defeated. I ended class early and after the students had left, I went to the teacher’s room and started to cry. I had a lot on my mind that week anyway, but the fighting is what really did me in.

I just felt so helpless. They’re so young, but there are moments when trying to help them get along and talk to them about what they’re feeling feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s worth it, because of course I think that’s one of the most important things we can do, it just sometimes leads to moments of great sadness and feelings of helplessness.

Maybe I’m just going about it all the wrong way, which is where the next post will come in: what I’ve been doing, where I think I’ve been going wrong, what the causes might be and, again, a plea for any and all suggestions on how to better address the situation.