Peer Mediation Revisited

In light of the recent, horrific events at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, I have decided to postpone the topic originally planned for this month and focus once again on peer mediation, a form of conflict resolution many believe helps prevent youth violence. For a description of how peer mediation is actually used in schools, see the September, 1998, article, "Conflict Resolution: A Powerful Weapon Against Youth Violence."

During my most recent look at web sites related to peer mediation in schools, I found that two of the sites I had listed in the September article, The Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and Mickey's Violence and Violence Prevention Resources, no longer existed. However, I did discover several searchable sites that I had not mentioned in the earlier article, some of which have Columbine-related information and links.

I was particularly impressed by the web site maintained by Educators for Social Responsibility(ESR)at http://www.esrnational.org/. This user-friendly site provides information under the categories of Resources for Empowering Children, Kids Keeping the Peace, Creating Peaceable Classrooms, and Training Opportunities. In addition, the site contains links to ESR's largest project, Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP), a K-12 school-based conflict resolution program.

The Center for Study and Prevention of Violence at http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/ is another good site that offers information about conflict resolution within the context of violence prevention. There is a special message about the Columbine incident as well as links to a number of searchable sites related to school safety, including:

Keep Schools Safe, http://www.keepschoolssafe.org/; the National Alliance for Safe Schools, http://www.safeschools.org/; National Resource Center for Safe Schools, http://www.nwrel.org/safe/index.html/; the National School Safety Center, http://www.nssc1.org/(this site has Columbine-related links); and Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS/.

By now we should all understand that the mastery of conflict resolution techniques is as important to the education of our children as learning the 3R's.

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