A.N. Other, B.N. Other (eds.), Title of Book, 00–00. © 2005 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

KATHY BICKMORE

INCORPORATING PEACE-BUILDING CITIZENSHIP

DIALOGUE IN CLASSROOM CURRICULA

Contrasting Cases of Canadian Teacher Development (Forthcoming 2015 in: Régis Malet & Suzanne Majhanovich (Editors), Building Democracy in Education on Diversity. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers)

INTRODUCTION

Facilitated dialogue about questions of social justice and other conflictual issues is a key component of education for peacebuilding and democratic citizenship (Davies, 2005; Hahn, 2010; Harris & Morrison, 2003; Hess & Avery, 2008; Sears & Hughes, 2006). Education for democratic social justice and sustainable peace disrupts the existing social order, surfacing conflict and uncertainty. Such peacebuilding citizenship dialogue is rarely fully implemented or sustained in most North American classrooms, especially those serving non-affluent and heterogeneous student populations (also Kahne & Middaugh, 2008).

Public school teachers are generally held accountable for controlling students, and for delivering a large amount of pre-specified curriculum content to diverse students in limited time: this can make the uncertainties of deep mutual engagement and conflict talk terrifying. Deborah Britzman (2003, p. 3) explains, “a key paradox in learning to teach: there can be no learning without conflict, but the conflict that animates learning threatens to derail the precarious efforts of trying to learn.” Many teachers have had little opportunity to gain confidence or skills for handling complex conflictual subject matter, especially in relation to social inequality, either in their own student years or in typical teacher education (Boler & Zembylas, 2003; Tupper, 2005). Teachers frequently report feeling unprepared to lead discussions on conflictual issues, and yet teacher professional development rarely addresses this challenge (Donnelly & Hughes, 2006; Torney-Purta, Richardson, & Barber, 2005). In response, they may engage in what McNeil (1986) called defensive teaching, which over-emphasizes control and avoidance of complexity. At the same time, conflict (confronted constructively) has the potential to provoke learning and progressive social change.

Drawn from a larger study on implementation of peace-building dialogue in school settings, this paper examines case studies of three contrasting professional development initiatives in which public school teachers did have opportunities to develop skills, understandings, and confidence for facilitating such conflictual conversations in their classrooms. The case studies focus on concrete ways these teachers were taught to address difficult social or interpersonal conflicts, to develop agency by voicing their own perspectives in relation to those

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conflicts, and to create ways for their diverse students to likewise voice and hear a range of views.

CONFLICT, DEMOCRACY, PEACEBUILDING, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (IN) EDUCATION

Given existing imperfectly-democratic societies, “interrupting” the status quo —by inviting problem-posing, praxis, and critical dialogue about conflicts— is essential to living democracy and to building sustainable peace (Curle, Freire, & Galtung, 1974; Davies, 2004; Freire, 1970). In contrast, traditional teaching that adopts a so-called neutral stance, masking the extent of social conflict, reinforces dominant-system beliefs and practices and marginalizes difference and dissent (also Apple, 1979; Merelman, 1990).

Around the world, young people who report they have had significant opportunities in school to participate in discussion of conflictual political issues in open, inclusive classroom climates tend to develop democratically-relevant skills and dispositions — such as openness to alternative points of view, tolerance for dissent, sensitivity to inequity, critical thinking skills, deepened understanding of subject-matter, and inclination and efficacy to participate in democratic processes (Hahn, 2010; Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr, & Losito, 2009; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schultz, 2001). Even when their teachers prefer to avoid talking about controversial issues, students of all ages often express interest in discussing them, and describe the occasions when conflicts are discussed as their most meaningful classroom experiences (Claire & Holden, 2007; K. Simon, 2001; Yamashita, 2006). Similarly, when students have opportunities to participate in inclusive, well-facilitated dialogue for restorative justice and interpersonal conflict resolution (instead of punitive discipline), they often develop democratically-relevant skills, dispositions, and relationships that can help them address future conflicts peacefully and fairly (Bickmore, 2002; Jones, 2004; McCluskey et al., 2008; Morrison, 2007).

Public school is a key location for such peacebuilding citizenship learning opportunities, particularly for less-privileged students: in the 38 countries participating in the International Civics and Citizenship Study (Schultz et al 2009), students had more opportunities to engage in discussions of civic and political issues at school than at home. Kahne and Sporte’s (2008) survey of 4000 non-affluent ‘minority’ students in Chicago public schools shows that school-based “civic learning opportunities,” including conflict discussion pedagogies, are especially valuable for students of lower socio-economic status, who often have fewer opportunities for such civic learning outside of school. However, the literature cited above makes clear that such opportunities for thoughtful educative dialogue are rare in North American public schools.

Those outside versus inside the “culture of power” (Delpit, 1995) have unequal opportunities to learn to communicate persuasively —and to be ‘heard’— across difference in classrooms. Group identities, unequal positioning, and

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narratives about selves and Others are communicated through classroom discourses and interactions among students, teachers, and subject matter (Arnot & Dillabough, 1999; Bickmore, 2008; Camicia, 2007; Garrett, 2011; Hollingworth, 2009; Howard, 2004; Kumashiro, 2000; Mátrai, 2002; Rubin, 2007). Dialogic pedagogies, too, may reinforce inequity when they do not adequately acknowledge and address these differences and inequities among participants (also Levinson, 2003). Peers, teachers, and students themselves may perceive some dialogue participants’ voices as more “authoritative,” legitimate, and valuable than others (Ellsworth, 1989; R. Simon, 1992). Declarative speech patterns may be seen as ‘masculine’ and qualified statements as ‘feminine,’ differentially influencing diverse students’ speaking and [in]attentiveness to others (Gordon, 2006). Such status-linked differences are especially pronounced in conflictual conversations.

Observational research shows it is complicated for teachers to address sensitive, identity-linked conflicts in ways that open ‘safer’ spaces for culturally diverse and marginalized students (King, 2009; Subedi, 2008). Debate processes that emphasize winning over those with opposing views evidently tend to further marginalize lower-status and less confident students, compared with more cooperative, inclusive discussion processes which emphasize developing mutual understanding (Hemmings, 2000). Dull and Murrow’s observations of 26 classrooms (2008) showed that teacher questioning to gather basic information and review content (recitation) was much more prevalent than values or “sustained interpretive” questioning that could have invited conflict dialogue into their classrooms. They also found that this over-use of lower-order informational questions (ignoring or silencing conflicting perspectives) was disproportionately higher in classrooms with heterogeneous or lower-income students. Thus opportunities for constructive democratic conflict dialogue learning opportunities in classrooms are generally less available to the very young people who are already most marginalized as citizens.

Conflicts may be addressed in ways that seek to bridge differences, or in ways that encourage hostility —in relatively peaceful but racialized contexts such as North America (Schultz, Buck, & Niesz, 2000) as well as in divided societies (Bekerman, Zembylas, & McGlynn, 2009). Equitable and inclusive conflict dialogue, in the context of diversity and inequality, requires carefully-planned interactions to transform social relations—contesting dominant narratives in the wider world, and changing patterns of dialogic interaction inside the classroom (Tawil & Harley, 2004; Williams, 2004).

TEACHER COMPETENCIES AND LEARNING TO FACILITATE EDUCATIVE CONFLICT DIALOGUE

Many teachers say they would like to teach (or to teach more) about and discuss conflicts, but that their working conditions impede it. They feel constrained by administrative and standardized testing pressures to ‘cover’ vast amounts of content (Pace, 2011), difficulty accessing resources that show multiple sides of

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conflictual issues (Finley, 2003), fear that their students would be too immature or that parents would object (Byford, Lennon, & Russell, 2009; Wilson, Haas, Laughlin, & Sunal, 2002), and rigid school schedules (McLaughlin, Pfeifer, Swanson-Owens, & Yee, 1986). Some teachers prefer a ‘caring’ relationship with students that avoids educative ‘dissonance’ (Houser, 1996), and/or choose whether to open challenging discussions based on how secure they feel about their classroom control (Larson & Parker, 1996). Teachers often have had minimal exposure to such teaching, although they do benefit when such professional development is available (Hess, 2009; Kelly & Brandes, 2001).

In classrooms where teachers are skilled in facilitating conflictual dialogue in open classroom climates, students are more likely to handle such conflictual interactions competently, confidently, and constructively (Hess & Avery, 2008; Malm & Löfgren, 2006; Schulz, et al., 2009). Based on an interview and observational study of five Dutch secondary teachers attempting to engage their students in discussion of diversity, Radstake and Leeman (2010) describe five professional competencies to lead such discussions effectively: to establish order or ground rules for discussion, to develop trusting relationships with students, to be knowledgeable regarding diverse perspectives on the topic being discussed, intercultural sensitivity including a positive perception of diversity, and capacity to challenge patterns of domination during discussions. Similarly, Hess’s (2002) case studies of three US social studies teachers who were exceptionally skilled and experienced in facilitating classroom discussion demonstrated the importance of preparing students for quality discussion of conflictual issues, for example by requiring background reading. Additionally, these teachers scaffolded instruction to help students learn how to participate in, while also learning from, discussion. These teachers involved students in creating ground rules for interaction and acted as facilitators, guiding students to communicate directly with one another. Other scholars agree that competent teacher discussion facilitators share power with students, and demonstrate significant knowledge about the issues and about students’ lived experiences, to build their democratic capacities (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2004; Bartlett, 2005; Frankenstein, 1987; Hadjioannou, 2007).

Examining their own initial teacher education teaching, Parker and Hess (2001) argue that it is necessary to teach not only ‘with’ discussion (opportunities to learn content knowledge, democratic values and skills through actual participation in conflictual dialogue) but also ‘for’ discussion (naming, modeling, and examining the pedagogical techniques of various discussion models). Thus, they advocate engaging teachers-in-training in multiple forms of discussion using carefully selected texts, including “Structured Academic Controversy” (Johnson & Johnson, 2009) and “Deliberations” (Parker, 2003)—and then debriefing each form of dialogic pedagogy and its democratic rationale. Dean and Joldoshalieva (2007) articulate similar principles, describing a professional development course on facilitating conflictual issues discussion they led with Pakistani social studies teachers. Similarly, Avery (2003) recommends teaching conflict perspective taking skills to teacher candidates through role play, simulations, seminars,

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structured academic controversy, public issues discussions, demonstration lessons on international issues, and debriefing. To help teachers understand what effective conflictual dialogue pedagogies might look like, Hess (2003) and Radstake and Leeman (2010) recommend joint reflection on videos of discussions with students in various grades. Other scholars concur that teacher learners need opportunities to reflect on their teaching and its impacts on diverse students (Howard, 2003; Lin, Lake, & Rice, 2008; Milner, 2003).

It requires sophisticated content knowledge for teachers to facilitate open, constructively-critical student discussion of complex topics, in light of global diversity and justice concerns (Parker, 2004; Thornton, 2005). To be anti-oppressive, teaching would challenge the inevitably ‘partial’ (both incomplete and biased) nature of both curriculum resources and students’ prior knowledge, questioning the stories underlying social phenomena and “disrupting the repetition of comforting knowledges” (Kumashiro, 2004 p.47). Thus effective justice discussions are not merely a matter of adding information about marginalized people and human rights violations, but rather challenging the origins and juxtapositions of knowledges (also Pang & Valle, 2004; Woyshner, 2002). Further, when facilitation of peace-building dialogue is culturally responsive, explicitly recognizing marginalized students, classroom climates are more ‘open’ for them to share their perspectives (Avery, 2001; Hahn, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1995).

As part of a larger study of safe and inclusive schools programming in Canadian schools (Bickmore, 1993, 2004, 2011; Bickmore & MacDonald, 2010), my research team interviewed over 90 educators in three large urban districts and examined the teacher resource materials, professional development staffing, and services available (from school boards, ministry of education, teachers’ federation, or city organizations) during 2004-05 (Bickmore, 2005). What was striking in the menu of workshops and professional resources available for school staffs was the emphasis on short-term control for security purposes — e.g. crisis intervention, threat assessment, discipline, anti-bullying, internet safety. Even many of the workshops potentially related to peacemaking (e.g. problem-solving, managing conflict, fixing broken teams) and peacebuilding (e.g. cross-cultural competency, youth homelessness, teaching in cultural mosaic classrooms), were generally of short duration and oriented toward quick-fix management of disruption. Teachers and school principals reported that curriculum changes, coupled with budget cuts, had intensified staff workloads such that there was reduced time and few resource people to facilitate opportunities for teacher learning. Some staff (especially novice teachers with high needs and motivation) said they didn’t know how to access even basic print and electronic resources supposedly disseminated by their school districts. Thus, as in the literature reviewed above, the discourse and resources for teacher professional learning evident in these Canadian school districts, in general, bore no resemblance to what the research suggests is needed to support effective teaching for democratic social justice and peacebuilding citizenship.

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RESEARCH METHOD The project from which this paper is drawn involves qualitative, constructivist analysis of contrasting ways in which dialogue on difficult issues may be implemented in public school and teacher development contexts. The goal in the part of the project reported here is to refine understandings of contrasting ways educators may learn to facilitate different kinds of educative conflict dialogue processes, and of how these processes may function as part of democratic peacebuilding education. Data presented in this paper are based on 30 1-6 hour observations in three teacher development sites, classroom materials related to those lessons, and a 40-60 minute interview with each professional development trainer in two of these sites. Such qualitative, constructivist, comparative case study methods facilitate rich description of complex phenomena, juxtaposing the perspectives of diverse participants with a wider perspective on their social contexts (Charmaz, 2000; Miller & Glassner, 1997).

Case study sites are selected purposively, to represent very different approaches to teacher training for facilitating conflictual dialogue in schools. The case study sites profiled in this paper are three non-governmental organization teacher professional development initiatives based in urban central Canada, working with teachers in in one urban school district. One, TE3 is a five-day citizenship education program focused on innovative teaching of particular cases of difficult Holocaust- and genocide-related history, offered to teachers from various districts: here, the conflict dialogue facilitation is focused on historical and contemporary intergroup relations issues, rather than on discrete episodes of interpersonal harm. Another, TE5, is a series of three in-service professional development workshops on how to teach and facilitate peacemaking circle processes (derived from aboriginal traditions, passing a talking piece), designed to facilitate development of understanding and problem-solving to repair damaged relationships after incidents of harm, carried out in a city school by a professional from a restorative justice organization who also taught in the same school district. Finally, TE7, is a two-day professional development training on how to facilitate formal restorative justice conferences in response to school misbehaviour and aggression conflicts: in contrast to TE5 (which focuses on broad principles and skills), TE7 teaches a specific victim-offender mediation conferencing procedure in which facilitators are expected to follow a prescribed script. The inquiry focuses on diverse teachers’ opportunities, in these three settings, to develop confidence, skills and agency for facilitating various risky, conflictual dialogue pedagogies —surfacing uncertainties and difficult knowledge, and sharing agency and voice with diverse students— to create spaces for potentially transformative learning toward peacebuilding.

FINDINGS Below are case studies drawn from observations and facilitator interviews in each of the teacher professional development contexts.

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Professional Development TE3: Dialogic teaching about and through difficult history TE3 was an intensive (36 hours in 5 days) teacher professional development course on human rights citizenship education—based in histories of the Holocaust and other genocides and exploring analogies to contemporary (in-school and beyond-school) social exclusion and human rights conflicts—offered during school holidays by a non-governmental organization. The 27 participants (6 males, 21 females) were mostly teachers of secondary school history, social sciences, and language arts at public school districts and one independent Jewish school. Participants were predominantly white and middle class, but included African-Canadian, East Asian, South Asian, Latina, Jews and Gentiles from urban, suburban and rural contexts. In an interview, the TE3 facilitators (referred to here as F7 and F8) described TE3’s main focus as to facilitate reflective learning on concepts related to social conflict and aggression (such as identity, inclusion/exclusion, and responsibility to confront injustice), through (and, well-grounded in) rigorous content knowledge about genocide-related history (Feb.10, 2011). Thus TE3 was not focused on conflictual dialogue facilitation per se, but it included study, reflection and dialogue about social injustice conflicts (in particular, extreme social exploitation and violence and how people might help to prevent it), to help prepare teachers and their students for future participation in conflictual social interactions. In the course, participants occasionally expressed divergent and/or conflicting perspectives as a part of the learning process. As in the teacher education literature reviewed above, TE3 facilitators prepared teacher participants for this conflict education by teaching ‘for’ (and to a lesser degree ‘with’) discussion – explicitly modeling various activities teachers could implement or adapt to teach their own students, followed each time with debriefing discussions to reinforce key points and invite assessment of each activity’s usefulness for particular purposes.

At the beginning of the course, to prepare participants for the conflict education/ dialogue to follow, facilitator F7 guided participants to start (as learners, and as teachers) by reflecting on their own multiple, intersecting identities, before getting into the history: “What forms my identity? This is important to many students, as it impacts who they are. How does my identity impact the choices that I am making as I engage in my day-to-day life? Students look at the consequences of this division [between] we and they – othering” (Aug.16, 2010). In addition to introducing concepts of diverse, fluctuating social identities, activities in which participants shared information about their identities seemed to build classroom community relationships. This theme of identity (in the context of inequality and conflict) was raised throughout the course, for example in guest speaker presentations of in-depth historical content. One guest used photographs to demonstrate the huge diversity among Jewish people in Poland and Germany between World Wars I and II. Another guest led participants through categorizing the wide range of identity groups killed by the Nazis — some (such as Roma and

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Sinti peoples) targeted for genocide including murder of children, others (such as Soviet soldiers) targeted for more limited political-military objectives. These guest presenters asked participants to reconceptualize what they ‘knew’ about the victims of the Holocaust by confronting difficult knowledge – showing that genocidal aggression cannot be explained by the identities of its victims. In an interview (Feb.10), F8 explained that “the ways people’s identities shape the way they respond” was an important element of the TE3 curriculum. Thus reflection on social identity differences and ‘othering’ was one way TE3 prepared teacher participants to talk about conflicts in history and contemporary society.

On the first day, the TE3 facilitators required participants to locate themselves in a conflict and to take divergent perspectives, by physically taking a stand in relation to a school-based aggression scenario. Participants read the autobiographical narrative of an adolescent girl who herself had been bullied, facing a choice about how to act in the face of peers’ intention to bully another girl (Aug.16). First, the facilitator (F8) asked participants to reflect individually: “What do you think she will do – join the in group, or take a stand? … What do you think you would have done in that situation?” Then, he invited participants to stand in a line reflecting a spectrum of potential responses—from certainty that the narrator would join with the ‘in-group’ in harassing the girl, to certainty that she would resist them and stand up for her. Thus, all participants communicated their divergent viewpoints on an interpersonal conflict relevant to their life experience—non-verbally, by placing themselves. Next, F8 affirmed the range of ‘valid’ answers and asked participants to explain their reasoning: first to people standing nearby (with similar viewpoints), then to the whole class (in which responses had varied widely). This opportunity to explain their perspectives first to a few others with similar perspectives seemed to encourage participants to participate in the full-group discussion of divergent perspectives. They repeated the process, next eliciting participants’ values: what did they think the narrator should do? During this 30-minute discussion, F8 encouraged participants to change their places in the opinion spectrum if the dialogue had changed their view: two or three did so. This demonstrated that TE3 valued open-minded dialogic exchange and opinion change on conflictual questions.

A TE3 activity later in the week also began with participants discerning and voicing perspectives privately, then in dialogue with a small group before full-class discussion — this time about a large-scale controversy. First, participants wrote in private journals about the proposition: “It is possible to achieve justice for the crimes committed during the Holocaust” and quantified their responses: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. Corners of the room were labeled with those decision points: participants moved to one and talked with others who had chosen the same response, then each opinion cluster explained their decisions to the whole class. As above, every participant communicated their (opposing) viewpoint, at least by choosing where to stand. Again, F8 modeled respect for all perspectives and for perspective change, and then elicited debriefing that highlighted common ground: “I forced you into four –what seemed– polarizing corners, but what is happening here? Are they really polarized?” A

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participant replied: “We are defining things differently, and by nature of our definitions we put ourselves in different places, but we aren’t that different.”

A later session guided and scaffolded conflict dialogue, demonstrating a process for facilitating classroom conversations on difficult topics by provoking emotional disagreement among participants. F7 introduced a YouTube video (not a TE3 resource), reminding participants that such popular culture often becomes part of contemporary classroom conversations. F8 explained, “we will show you a strategy through which you can safely navigate strong emotions and feelings.” The 3-4 minute video depicted a Holocaust survivor and his daughter and grandchildren dancing on the grounds of the Auschwitz death camp to the popular song, “I Will Survive.” After the film, as was usual in TE3, F8 first gave participants a focusing prompt and time to journal privately, asking them to enter the conversation as individual learners (teaching ‘with’ conflictual dialogue) before considering how they might use such an activity with their students (teaching ‘for’): “It’s not time for you to put your teacher hat on. This is us processing this: is this an appropriate memorial?” Then, arranged in groups of four, F8 instructed each person to speak in turn for three minutes, uninterrupted (without peer response or questions), about their response to this question. Then individuals journaled again: “What this raised for you,” before F8 allowed participants to voice their agreement or disagreement to peers. Each participant quantified their opinion about the video’s appropriateness as a Holocaust memorial; then each group calculated their average score (from 1 = appropriate to 5 = not appropriate) and presented it to the whole class. Small-group average scores ranged from 1.1 – 3.3, indicating substantial difference of opinion remaining within most small groups and in the whole class. Last, participants debriefed the dialogue activity structure and its potential usefulness for their own teaching.

These three lessons asked teacher participants to enter into and take stands on various conflicts, demanding increasing levels of complexity and emotional connection. The task sequences moved participants back and forth, between actually discussing the conflicts and time to reflect individually on the perspectives aired. Like the talking-circle processes described below, this slowed down the discussions and kept the ‘heat’ from rising during the conflictual dialogue. Each time, some participants explicitly modified their opinions in response to what they heard from peers. In contrast to the dialogue activities above, once participants were told to debate either ‘for’ or ‘against’ a proposition: “’The International Criminal Court is the best way to deal with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.’ Think for two minutes, then each side has one minute, then three minute dialogue.” F7 explained that these assigned positions ensured that more than one perspective on the ICC would be aired and examined, while no side ‘won’ or ‘lost.’ Teacher assignment of perspectives presumably minimizes social risk of voicing unpopular views. In debriefing, there was extended discussion (including disagreement) among participants about the usefulness of such a format for secondary school teaching.

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At the end of each day, TE3 facilitators invited participants to anonymously record on cards any thoughts, feelings, questions, or concerns arising. Facilitators sometimes raised such ‘exit card’ concerns in the check-in discussions that occurred each morning. This strategy gave voice to quiet learners, including those who may have held unpopular views or felt marginalized. On one such morning, F7 re-opened an issue from the previous afternoon’s difficult discussion on the rise of Anti-Semitism. At the time, one participant had told the class she had felt vulnerable “as a Jew in a mixed group,” but time had run out before there had been any explicit response. Before opening the floor that morning, F7 corrected statements made in the afternoon discussion by two other (Gentile) participants. Their statements had suggest that certain Jews’ behaviour might have provoked Christians’ historical anti-Semitic behavior. F7 asserted: “when using history as a case study, we can’t blame the victim ever,” then prompted private journal reflection: “Why does studying difficult history sometimes make us feel vulnerable? What might we do with that vulnerability? Are these teachable moments?” After this preparation F7 opened the floor to a 10-minute whole class discussion, focusing on the journaling questions rather than the afternoon incident. Reflecting on this in the interview, F7 argued that a classroom climate could be too open to conflicting viewpoints: “There are places … where multiple opinions are valid. Then, there are times when I have to be aware as a facilitator about [participants’] safety. ... [and] to be responsible for the [historical] content in the room.”

TE3 facilitators led teacher participants to engage as learners in each learning activity (designed for secondary students), to help them to learn the content and become familiar with each pedagogical tool (preparing for factually grounded, pedagogically sound teaching ‘with’ conflict dialogue). After most activities, debriefing discussions offered educators opportunities to consider, with colleagues, how (and why) they might approach similar conflictual topics within their own classrooms (teaching ‘for’ conflict dialogue). Unlike most of the activities designed for secondary students, these discussions on pedagogy were not directively structured: facilitators primarily elicited open-ended comments.

In summary, this TE3 intensive teacher training course was packed with historical and conceptual content, such that actual episodes of dialogue among the teacher learners (in the full-class format) were generally short and teacher-centered. Facilitators posed many values and interpretive questions throughout the course, but conserved class time by guiding participants to address these questions first (sometimes only) individually and in small groupings. TE3 gave participants time to individually formulate their own thoughts and feelings on conflictual issues in preparation for each discussion, and invited expression of viewpoints via physical movement, pair/small-group and whole class dialogue, arts, and other activities to engage every participant. These pedagogical strategies broadened the opportunities of diverse learners to speak for themselves and to see/hear the contrasting views of others, despite time scarcity in this intensive course. At the same time, potentially-conflictual talk almost never became heated, and most discussions were not sustained long.

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These pedagogical strategies seemed effective in building inclusivity into classroom dialogue: at the beginning of the course, most class members participated in low-risk brainstorming while only about ten percent of the group participated verbally, initiating or responding to more complex questions. By the last day of the course, in contrast, about 90% of the group had spoken out in some large-group interpretive and values discussion, and each discussion verbally engaged a fluctuating group of about 15-30% of the class. 100% participated in the non-verbal place-yourself activities and in small group discussions.

The TE3 course emphasized teaching ‘with’ discussion of disruptive knowledge. For instance, lessons on eugenics and the roots of anti-Semitism in the Christian church challenged omissions and mystifications in dominant history discourses. Usually, TE3 pedagogies were only small-scale ‘tastes’ of discussions teacher participants might introduce (and perhaps sustain) with their own students. At the same time, TE3 taught ‘for’ discussion: modeling and debriefing various tools inviting diverse students to develop, communicate, and exchange explanations for divergent viewpoints on social conflict topics. They emphasized minimizing the risks of conflictual classroom discussion, in terms of both harmful speech by students and timeline scarcity/uncertainty. Professional Development TE5: Peacemaking circle dialogue as a pedagogical tool TE5 was a series of three in-service professional development workshops (in released time, totaling 12 hours) for teachers from three public elementary schools, on implementing peacemaking dialogue circles as a pedagogical and human relations tool in classrooms. Facilitator F2, a teacher in the same school district, was a volunteer with a restorative justice non-governmental organization that used this dialogue process. First (Feb.3, 2010) was a half-day needs assessment and preparation workshop, involving four teachers at public ‘alternative’ primary school A4 (and research observers). In this session, F2 elicited perspectives on conflict that had been occurring at A4, and introduced the way peacemaking circle processes worked. The second TE5 workshop (Feb.9) was a full-day circle process training for those four teachers and an administrator from A4, two teachers and an administrator from another public alternative elementary school (A2), and three teachers and an administrator from a nearby ‘regular’ public school (A3). Participants were predominantly white/Anglo middle class females. Last (Nov.22) was a half-day follow-up workshop for two of the above A4 teachers and two new teachers at A4, to review peacemaking circle facilitation guidelines and to demonstrate how the circle process (in addition to its uses for peacemaking) could be infused into academic curriculum as a pedagogical strategy.

F2 began the full-day professional development workshop by introducing the circle process, a method derived from aboriginal traditions to facilitate constructive dialogue about conflicts. Session activities modeled (teaching ‘with’) and facilitated analytical discussion of (teaching ‘for’) each phase in this dialogue process. The teachers and facilitator sat in a circle, on equal terms — a key

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characteristic of this approach, designed to encourage open, inclusive verbal and nonverbal communication. Like TE3, TE5 presented participants with an experiential model of participation in this kind of conflict dialogue process, then discussed how to facilitate it.

F2 introduced the peacemaking circle process as a whole: the use of a talking piece (an object with symbolic significance symbolizing who has the floor), the establishment of norms for equitable, effective dialogue, and the phases of the process. She explained that passing the talking piece sequentially around the circle offered each person explicit opportunities to speak, while others were obligated to remain silent and listen. In the circle, F2 invited the teachers to each tell something they were hoping to learn from the workshop. She modeled how to act as circle process facilitator, for example taking the risk to respond to her own questions before passing the talking piece around.

F2 modeled and explained principles and initial phases in the circle process — each time, posing a question for every participant to answer in turn, later inviting participants’ questions and debriefing. For instance: “Think about an educator who demonstrated the values that you would like to bring to your classroom.” Each time, F2 summarized what she had heard, and later had participants compare their responses to those in a prepared hand-out. To introduce behavioral expectations, F2 asked participants, in groups of three, to brainstorm: “What do you need to feel safe to participate in a group?” Small groups reported back, and F2 encouraged teachers engage all students in creating such norms together, in explicit behavioral terms, for instance inviting quieter students to specify what “no put-downs” would look and sound like.

To guide participants to probe their own values and roles in conflict education, TE5 used an opinion spectrum exercise similar to that used in the TE3 course. First, F2 asked participants to stand along a line between ‘Judge’ and ‘Facilitator,’ describing their perceptions of the roles played by their own teachers, and then to explain why they had placed themselves where they did. F2 then invited participants to move to the places on the same spectrum that represented their own approaches as teachers. Like TE3, F2 affirmed the validity of diverse choices.

In the afternoon, F2 led participants through a quick consensus-building process (clustering around a decreasing set of newsprint posters) to choose one case of social conflict in their own schools to address in a circle process simulation. The teachers chose a scenario involving a group of students bullying a peer. F2 guided the group to identify stakeholders and clarify details about the conflict, and each participant chose the role of a stakeholder to enact in a 45-minute simulated circle peacemaking process. F2 asked the group a sequence of questions: when the talking-piece came to them, each participant (in role) expressed divergent perspectives on this conflict and its causes, and later suggested ways to help repair their relationships. This pedagogical strategy—recognizing multiple stakeholders and conducting a peacemaking circle with participants playing those roles—ensured that conflicting perspectives were voiced and addressed. As in TE3, TE5 participants practiced ‘with’ dialogue before debriefing and planning how to teach

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‘for’ dialogue. However, in TE5, participants played imagined character roles, somewhat distanced from the emotional content of the conflicts. As in the TE3 pedagogies, the circle structure slowed and controlled the dialogue process (including equalizing opportunities to speak), compared to what generally would happen in free-flowing open discussion of similar conflicts.

Nine months later, F2 held a half-day follow-up workshop on facilitating peacemaking dialogue circles in classrooms. After reviewing key elements of peacemaking circles, this TE5 workshop focused on how to use circle processes to infuse conflict education into the academic curriculum. F2 described her intent to enhance students’ learning and engagement by incorporating dialogue on curriculum topics, while simultaneously preparing students for future dialogue on ‘real’ conflicts—having them practice the circle process with less-risky (academic) topics before using it for more emotionally difficult post-incident problem solving. She presented a sample social studies and language arts lesson that again used a role-played peacemaking dialogue circle, based on a narrative about The Battle (Massacre) of Wounded Knee on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, in 1890. As before, F2 guided participants to identify the stakeholders in this conflict, including those whose voices had been silenced or misinterpreted in typical history narratives, then asked each participant to take on one of these roles in a peace-building dialogue simulation involving representatives of Lakota people and European settlers. As inspiration, F2 read aloud a short speech attributed to famous Squamish peacemaker Chief Seattle, abridged in a children’s book called Brother Eagle, Sister Sky. (Chief Seattle died in 1866 and lived in another part of North America, thus was not actually involved in the Wounded Knee conflict.) Participants prepared for their roles by brainstorming in four pairs of “allies” —politicians and military, settlers, aboriginal elders and warriors— the wants and needs of their characters. F2, playing the fictionalized role of Chief Seattle, then facilitated a circle dialogue in which each participant in turn voiced the perspective (as they understood it) of a stakeholder in the Wounded Knee conflict. After the role play, F2 guided the group (in their own roles as teachers) to debrief and ask questions about the circle process and its uses in classroom lessons. Last, the teachers planned together how to implement conflict dialogue in their classrooms, for example brainstorming story books with age-relevant conflict topics. In a closing circle, each participant shared one thing she had learned and one thing she would try in her classroom.

As in TE3 and the earlier TE5 sessions, teacher participants engaged in sample dialogue processes first as learners, observing F2 modeling the role of facilitator in those circles (teaching ‘with’ discussion). To also prepare teachers ‘for’ facilitating educative conflictual dialogue, F2 explained and invited questions and comments on key elements of what she did as facilitator and why. Debriefing, teachers discussed how they might implement this type of pedagogy in their classrooms.

Professional Development TE7: Formal restorative justice (conflict management) conferencing

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TE7 was a two-day training course (in released time, totaling 13 hours) for 23 inner-city secondary teachers (including a few guidance counselors and vice principals) in one urban school district—primarily representing one high school and its two feeder middle schools. Participants included 17 females and 6 males, the majority white/Anglo and middle class, but including several people of African, East Asian, or South Asian heritage. All had attended one or two previous two-day training workshop(s) led by the same organization, laying a foundation for this one by introducing the idea of restorative justice and simple strategies for informal restorative dialogue in classrooms. The two facilitators (F20 and F21) worked for a training organization specializing in the implementation of restorative justice practices in schools. This particular course reviewed principles and rationales for restorative justice, and focused on how to facilitate formal restorative conferences: victim-offender mediation, designed to guide perpetrators and other stakeholders directly affected by harmful incidents to comprehend harm done, accept responsibility, and engage in dialogue for problem solving and relationship repair. TE7 taught a tightly prescribed step-by-step process for the restorative conferences: instead of creating and adapting their own questions based on key principles and passing a talking piece sequentially (as in TE5), TE7 taught facilitators to literally follow a script, asking a standard set of questions in a given order to each type of stakeholder (offenders, those they had harmed, and each one’s supporters).

Over the two days, this course offered large-group presentations alternating with eight episodes of small-group dialogue practice. The first two small-group dialogues, and the last, invited participants to share their own experiences and beliefs; the other five were restorative conference simulations, in which each participant played the role of a stakeholder or facilitator, followed by debriefing. Large group activities (with facilitators facing participants sitting in rows) involved short lectures with slides, videos showing and explaining restorative justice conflict dialogue scenarios, and a few minutes for question and answer, occasionally developing into brief discussions between one or more vocal participants and a facilitator. Facilitators distributed a resource manual, and assured participants that everything covered in the course was repeated in the book.

In contrast to TE3 and TE5, which were entirely voluntary, many of the participants in TE7 had been assigned to attend this course. Especially on day one, some expressed considerable skepticism about the TE7 agenda—nonverbally through posture, occasionally verbally. For instance, in the morning of day one, a highly-verbal white male teacher asked the facilitators, “don’t you think [if we use restorative justice in school] we’re not preparing them for the actual criminal justice system?” In the large group session opening day two, a rather passionate eight-minute discussion erupted: two teachers (white female and male) challenged two vice principals’ claims that repeated disrespectful behaviour by students had been reduced by restorative justice practices. Both facilitators affirmed the vice principals’ claims that restorative practices reduced recidivism, summed up their

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key points on the power of restorative justice, and moved on to show another video.

In reporting to the large group after the first small group sharing dialogue, the same verbal male teacher who had challenged facilitators the day before stated that some of his Middle-Eastern students and their parents, “have a completely different attitude toward women … they do not have a high respect toward women in their culture.” Not challenging this broadly racialized claim, F21 replied: “We all come from different backgrounds. But when we come to Canada, don’t we have to adapt to the morals of Canada?” Rejecting the teacher’s interjection that their process imposed values, F21 continued, “We are not talking about moralistic things here … Restorative justice is not about shaming anyone, it is about enabling a conversation so that they can think about right things for a certain community, especially if their values are different.” Thus the TE7 facilitators taught a conflict dialogue process that they framed as universally applicable. Unlike TE3 or TE5, TE7 did not directly confront questions of social difference, discrimination or bias.

In the five restorative conference simulation role-plays, in groups of five, each conflict dialogue participant was given a card describing the perspective of the offender, victim, or supporter in an interpersonal conflict scenario they were to voice (ad-lib), and the participant acting as conference dialogue facilitator was given a script of questions (such as asking what had happened and who had been affected) and comments (such as recognizing that it had been difficult and valuable for someone to speak up) to address to each stakeholder. After each role play, TE7 facilitators (instructors) provided questions to guide debriefing feedback to each (teacher-learner) conference dialogue facilitator, first in the small groups and then reporting back to the whole group. Each scenario was a bit more complex and highly emotional than the one before, and (teacher-learner) participants switched roles (e.g. from victim to offender or to conference facilitator) for each one. Sometimes, constructive disagreements arose in small groups’ debriefing, such as about how and at what point a facilitator should stop an angry tirade. Thus TE7 modeled (usually via video) and guided teacher participants’ development of particular skills and procedures for guiding individuals in escalated interpersonal conflict situations toward constructive, dialogic problem solving, using one particular process. Introductions and debriefing conversations focused on evaluating participants’ practice of these discrete skills, and on reinforcing the value of such processes. Critical challenges and social context issues occasionally were raised, but time was allocated for minimal or no response to those questions.

The last TE7 dialogue exercise took place in two mid-sized groups (researchers observed the 13 teachers from school A8)—this time with individuals speaking for themselves, not in role play—for about 25 minutes about how they would like to implement restorative justice practices in their schools. This dialogue involved some passionate disagreement among teachers (related to the floor or wing location of their classrooms in school A8) about whether many restorative interventions already were being implemented, how well they were working, and whether A8’s administrators (not present) were supporting such transformation. Notably, given the skepticism expressed earlier in the TE7 course,

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even those who said that little restorative work was taking place were arguing that more such peacemaking dialogue should be occurring. To close the course, F20 invited each participant in turn, in a full-group circle, to mention “something you found interesting, or a surprise, or an ah-ha moment.” Every participant responded with something positive about restorative justice practices, such as “this process is about doing things with kids, not to them,” and “I’m convinced … that this is a very powerful practice,” and “I would like to be part of a restorative circle.”

Thus TE7 focused on teaching teacher participants to carry out one tightly prescribed process, although the skills thereby recognized and practiced could be applicable to various kinds of conflictual dialogue and peacemaking facilitation. The type of conflict addressed in TE7 was narrower than TE3 or even TE5: all of TE7’s scenarios involved ‘misbehaviour’ or harm done by some toward others (in a policing or discipline situation), rather than addressing multiple equally-validated points of view such as legitimate dissent or peer disagreement. Associated social conflict and equity questions were not addressed. On the other hand, the focused subject-matter and heavily guided (rather than emergent) process meant that participants had many opportunities, in the two days, to develop skill, confidence, and apparent commitment to this particular approach to peace-building dialogue.

CROSS-CASE DISCUSSION

To some degree, all three of these professional development cases demonstrate ways to transcend the heavy weight of institutional pressures against implementation of dialogic conflict pedagogies in public school classrooms. Although teachers participating in the TE3 initiative donated their time, TE3 had been able to secure funding to cover most of their professional development tuition, allowing them to spend a full week in the genocide history citizenship course. TE5 and TE7 participants had the rare opportunity to participate in professional development for dialogic peace-building during regular school work hours. Perhaps due to time pressure, in all of these professional development initiatives, teacher participants shared their views on conflicts more often than they really sustained back-and-forth discussion of contrasting perspectives.

The cases illustrate different emphases in how educators might foster implementation of peace-building dialogue in classrooms: while the TE5 and TE7 peacemaking circle and restorative conferencing workshops focused primarily on a process for inclusive sharing and listening to participants’ conflicting perspectives, the TE3 genocide history citizenship course focused primarily on developing a knowledge base about particular buried perspectives in histories of social justice conflict, and a sequence of controlled reflection and dialogue processes for shaping participants’ understandings of and engagement with that knowledge base. TE5 taught broad principles and a flexible process for facilitating various kinds of peace-building dialogue circles, emphasizing learning opportunities for participants. TE7 taught a pre-specified, step-by-step peace-building dialogue process, leaving less room for participant diversity or autonomy, instead allocating more time to building competence and confidence with one approach (scaffolded

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by text materials, video models, and multiple practice sessions with feedback). All three teacher education initiatives taught ‘with’ dialogue—meaning participants practiced dialogue themselves in order to learn about conflict, unfamiliar viewpoints, and dialogue strategies (in their own voices or in role)—as well as ‘for’ facilitating dialogue (how to guide students). Only in TE7 did a few conversations get ‘hotly’ conflictual (anger and aggression expressed in role plays), and virtually none of the discussions were sustained for very long.

A key element of dialogic peace-building education for democracy is recognition of alternate perspectives, in particular those previously marginalized in contexts of injustice. Both TE3 and TE5 emphasized redressing inequalities of voice —TE3 primarily through the use of individual reflection prompts and task structures that required each individual to discern and communicate their own perspectives before any open discussion, TE5 and (to some degree) TE7 through inclusion of multiple stakeholders (each with allies) in dialogues, and TE5 also through the use of a sequentially-passed talking piece to give every participant explicit opportunities for voice. TE3’s individual reflection and scaffolded small-group and taking-a-stand interactive processes, TE5’s talking-piece circle processes, and even TE7’s protocol of questions to each stakeholder substantially changed dialogic dynamics—bringing a broader spectrum of perspectives into the conversations—compared to whole-group ‘open’ discussions in the same classrooms. Given scarce time and resources, facilitators chose to emphasize teaching substantive subject matter to uncover previously-silenced perspectives ‘out in the world,’ or to emphasize restructuring dialogue processes to equitably include the diverse viewpoints and identities ‘inside the classroom.’

The TE3 genocide history citizenship course engaged participants in building knowledge and prompting reflection on ways various people have accepted or stood up against oppression, in various historical contexts. The TE5 peacemaking circle workshops also brought into the dialogue previously discounted voices (diverse aboriginals in the Wounded Knee scenario), through the facilitator’s choice of stories and stakeholders to represent rather than through historical study. Although the final TE5 circle workshop modeled using the circle preparation and dialogue process to unearth subaltern perspectives on a social justice conflict, no time was allocated to investigate in any depth this episode of lopsided intergroup violence, nor the complex roots of the conflict in colonial social relations. Instead, participants drew upon their own (minimal) prior knowledge of the aboriginal-settler conflict and this particular episode in North American history. TE7 did not even attempt to build substantive knowledge of particular social conflict or equity issues, preferring to focus on the dialogue process itself. Conflict dialogue pedagogies uninformed by marginalized perspectives could reinforce existing injustices (wrapped up, for instance, in who was considered at fault in the TE7 conflict scenarios).

The teacher development cases profiled here established respectful communication norms and multiple, graduated and scaffolded ‘ways into’ conflictual conversations—such as individual reflection and small group work, and practice with lower-risk, distant, and role-played conflict situations prior to

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addressing ‘hot’ conflicts rooted in participants’ own experience. Because conflict is riskiest for the most marginalized people in any group, this establishment of safer, intentionally inclusive climates would be even more important for those participants. Facilitators demonstrated to teachers, to varying degrees and in different ways, how to delegate (some) authority and share (some) responsibility with students, to transform the traditional teacher-student relation such that students might practice discerning and presenting their own viewpoints, and grappling with the divergent viewpoints of others. Each professional development initiative, in different ways, encouraged ‘dissonance’ for democratic learning —TE5 and TE7 emphasizing open expression of discomforting perspectives by stakeholders in interpersonal conflict scenarios, TE3 presenting and probing discomforting perspectives on complex historical conflicts.

Interviews and observations in these teacher-education cases affirm the perspective in scholarly literature cited above, that preparation is a crucial element of constructive democratic dialogue in education. Circles workshop TE5 emphasized preparation for interpersonal equity: inviting into (role-played or ‘real’) conversations all stakeholders, especially where voices had been absent or demeaned in earlier episodes of a conflict, and explicitly teaching process norms to help redress power imbalance. TE7 modeled inclusion in the scripts and roles for its dialogue scenarios (compared to mainstream justice or school discipline regimes, both victims and perpetrators had more opportunity to express their own concerns), without explicitly naming principles of inclusion or equity. The TE3 genocide history course guided participants to first discern their own standpoints in relation to historically-grounded presentations or texts, followed by pair or small-group sharing, to help them find their voices in advance of whole-group dialogues. TE3 and TE5 facilitators gave every participant opportunities to communicate their perspectives (by physically moving to a location representing a viewpoint) before opening the floor for whole-group discussion. Unlike TE3, TE5 guided participants to develop and name procedural elements of democratic dialogue (such as identifying missing stakeholders and listening respectfully, challenging typical habits such as dominating the floor, silencing dissenting views, or ignoring evidence). The TE3 genocide history course consistently prompted participants to make choices, but framed these in individualistic rather than collective democratic terms. Thus these three cases illustrate different theories and ways of preparing teacher participants for constructive, inclusive, and democratic approaches to conflict.

Dialogue education is ‘democratic’ when it helps participants to develop a sense of ‘caring to’ engage, a sense of efficacy in ‘being able to’ engage, and a set of skills and understandings for ‘knowing how to’ engage in dialogic problem solving. This requires building substantive knowledge about previously unfamiliar perspectives. By eliciting constructive confrontation of conflicting viewpoints, primarily TE3, to some degree TE5, and to a small degree TE7 presented some opportunities for such foundational knowledge-building. All three courses developed participants’ familiarity with processes for talking about conflicts. TE3 modeled and practiced (once each) a vast number of reflective and dialogic

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pedagogies, without allocating time for teacher participants to practice leading those processes or to get feedback on their facilitation skills. TE5 modeled and practiced one broad, fairly flexible approach (peacemaking circles), applying it to different kinds of problems. TE7 concentrated on one specific procedure (instead of substantive social conflict concepts), providing lots of opportunities for practice and feedback on how to facilitate it.

As advocated in the literature cited earlier, each of these professional development initiatives endeavored to de-mystify and to reduce the risks of conflictual conversations in classrooms, by teaching procedures to scaffold, slow down, and encourage a broad range of voices/ viewpoints to be discerned and expressed in those dialogues. All three cases demonstrate feasible ways to implement democratic peace-building dialogue in schools.

These case studies illustrate contrasting ways teachers may be prepared for, locate themselves in, and actually enter into constructive, inclusive dialogue about social and interpersonal conflicts. They highlight different kinds of explicit opportunities for teachers to learn how to facilitate dialogue about conflicts, including both content knowledge (to help overcome ethnocentric ignorance about buried perspectives) and pedagogical process (step-by-step procedures to carry out conflictual dialogue relatively equitably, in ways that would de-escalate destructive conflicts and facilitate rebuilding relations of improved understanding). Teachers had opportunities for guided practice with sharing views and dialogue about conflicts, and for debriefing with colleagues the issues, practices, and consequences of those practices.

Thus these case studies begin to demonstrate some possibilities for implementation of constructive facilitated dialogue about social justice and other conflict questions, as education for peacebuilding and democratic citizenship, although they do not resolve the stickiest problems of how the prevailing injustices that surround and infuse these classroom conversations might best be interrupted and transformed. Should such (scarce) professional development emphasize helping teachers develop confidence in leading ‘safe’ pedagogical processes (spaces and supports for diverse participants to enter into democratic peacebuilding dialogue), or developing teachers’ competence with ‘sound’ pedagogical content (accurate, provocative subject matter that disrupts previously-unrecognized areas of ignorance)?

Democratic social justice education is conflict education. Learning to teach (for change) requires engaging with seemingly-impossible conflicts. Professional development opportunities, such as those described here, can help teachers to talk through some of the issues, and to practice pedagogical forms that deconstruct some of the barriers to such talking-through. There is no more important task for contemporary teacher professional development than to launch into this uncertainty: to help teachers develop critical, reflective praxis for democratization by facing social justice conflicts —presenting, practicing, and probing alternatives to dominant narratives, and to the pedagogies by which they are typically circulated at school— thereby cracking open spaces for building sustainable, just peace.

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AFFILIATION

Kathy Bickmore Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto k.bickmore@utoronto.ca