Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Last Week - Post 1
I think that a big part of the negative perception of conflict comes from narrowing our definition to the situations where it is not handled competently. Redefining conflict more broadly has certainly helped change my view of conflict so I would imagine that others might experience the same affect when they learn more about it too. This is supported by the feedback I received from my workshop attendees. 4 of the people have told me since how they are applying the tools in their lives and one described her new outlook on conflict as a huge weight lifted off of her.
The trouble is that conflict management skills are not taught broadly enough. These skills have real world practically for absolutely everyone. Conflict is an inevitable part of life, I don’t understand why conflict management shouldn’t be part of public school curriculum. Everyone runs in to someone with poor conflict management skills at some point in their life if not quite frequently and I think we build up an aversion to dealing with conflict. It can also be a sensitive matter, tied-up in face saving and it’s hard to be objective and not defensive. Essentially, our society, as it stands, is set up to be a harmful conflict environment and as a culture we often deride the components of a nurturing conflict environment as being soft, sissy or hippy-dippy. Even I’m guilty of this sometimes. I feel that I’m much more open to it now though.
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Hey AnnaBeth,
ReplyDeleteHow cool is it that your workshop participants are benefiting from your workshop? Real cool! Haha. But seriously, I think your point of incorporating some sort of conflict management into the public school curriculum would be just as important as a basic health or pe class. As you say, it is inevitable and conflict will happen to everyone. If we trained people in ways to effectively manage it from the beginning, maybe we could see healthier relationships being formed. There is nothing wrong with being soft, sissy or hippy-dippy! (love the word choice!) If we could change a the worldview of conflict, we could change the world - one relationship at a time. Thanks for the post - **Kenzie Marie
I think that it is awesome that people left comments saying they are benefiting from your workshop. Congrats! All that hard work paid off!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that conflict management skills are not taught broadly enough. I think in business’s ,especially retail, conflict management workshops should be taught. Not everyone is fortunate enough to attend school and be educated on conflict so there is a lot of people out there that aren’t sure how to handle confrontational situations. Maybe conflict should be apart of public school curriculum, especially in junior high because there is a lot of bullying happening now and a lot of kids don’t know how to approach is or deal with it. Not saying conflict management will stop bullying, but maybe it will be helpful. I think a lot of kids struggle with conflict and drama in high school and I think it would be very beneficial for them to learn about it and know that it happens to everyone
AnnaBeth,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you opinion on the negative view that most people have about conflict. Our minds are so narrow when in comes to conflict, probably due to an unwanted and very emotional experience regarding conflict. Maybe some people even just associate conflict with drama due to stories they’ve heard regarding conflict. I think that is so amazing that your workshop feedbacks showed that just by educating people about conflict, they can easily change their minds about conflict being so negative. I also agree with your statement that conflict management skills are not taught enough, so people will naturally have bad experiences with conflict. If everyone could learn a few key concepts about conflict, I’m sure everyone would have less of it.