How Nonviolent Communication enhances capacities of Peer Mediators?

In a world of increasing stress and conflicts of varied kind, quite often we come across news of conflicts and violence in schools. While major incidents of violence and conflicts like a student killing a fellow student or a student hurting a teacher make their way to the media; small incidents of conflicts and instances of bullying keep on happening in educational institutions. In fact, such incidents of conflicts, bullying and related disruptions remain a major challenge for educators, students, parents and administrators.

While the goal of all schools is to construct a peaceful ecosystem, incidents of disruptive behavior and conflicts always remain a hindrance for a harmonious environment. Several studies show how conflicts and disruptive behaviors contribute towards poor learning outcomes, hinders creativity and innovationand vitiates the system. The aim, hence, is to ensure a safe, supportive and overall a peaceful school environment so that it aids in learning outcomes, promotes sense of belonging amongst the stakeholders and contributes to creativity and innovation.

Conflicts are part of every society, it has always been and will always remain. It is natural and organic. But the real issue is how it is handled and negotiated. If managed properly, it will help resolve the dispute amicably. If it is managed badly, a small conflict could lead to a bigger conflict. It could even lead to violence and breakdown of relationships. Hence, the challenge for every system, whether families, educational institutions or the society at large, is to develop preventive systems in place which can manage conflicts constructively. The aim of resolving any conflict meaningfully should be put together a win-win situation so that no conflicting parties feel aggrieved or they are not coerced to accept humiliating solutions.

For encouraging constructive resolution of disputes and conflicts in schools, one of the most efficient methods is to teach students techniques of nonviolent conflict resolution. It is in this context, introducing and encouraging peer mediation as an integral part of conflict prevention architecture in schools is critical.

Peer mediation can be considered to be arestorative approachto conflict resolution between persons where a neutral third party from one’s peer group attends the persons in conflict while the persons in conflict negotiate a mutual agreement. It has a major role of reducing conflict. A peer mediator is a student in the same age as conflicted parties.

By introducing peer mediation programmes we can develop positive behaviours amongst students. It can help students to adopt healthy communication as part of their habits. In this the mediation process is led by students. Here students learn to be neutral and develop capacities to evaluate the situation in empathic manner and gain internal control over her/his attitudes and behaviours.

According to Hilary Cremin, a mediation trainer for schools in the United Kingdom, states, “Peer mediation needs to be founded on genuine empowerment ofyoung people, and a belief that disputants really are best equipped to resolve their own conflicts. “

Peer Mediation helps in: self-regulation, self-esteem, self-discipline, develop ability of trained youth to transfer mediation skills to a variety of settings including family and neighourhood conflicts, helping the students to become better problem solvers, greater sense of belonging to their institution, promote critical thinking ability, build decision making skills, develop healthy standards of relationship within the school community.

In order to ensure a successful peer mediation programme, schools will have to introduce extensive trainings in peer mediation for students. In order to be a good mediator, a student will have to: be a good and effective communicator; be able to handle issues of relationships; be friendly, should be caring; should develop altruistic traits like empathy, compassion, kindness and gratitude; try to non-judgmental; be impartial and not show biases and is a good listener.

As the core of any mediation process is how the mediator uses his ingenuity of constructive communicator, it is critical that any peer mediation training program incorporates training in nonviolent communication. It will help peer mediators to look at instances of conflicts empathetically and help them to reach out to conflicting students without any biases.

Nonviolent communication according to Senior Gandhian, Natwar Thakkar (Kundu, 2018):

“To me nonviolent communication literacy would mean how our communication efforts should be nonviolent; how our ability and capacity to communicate not only with ourselves but with our family and society be nonviolent in all aspects and overall how the entire process of communication whether between individuals, groups, communities and the world at large should be nonviolent in nature. This would entail deep understanding of the art and science of nonviolence and its centrality in all our daily actions. It’s not just verbal and nonverbal communication, nonviolent communication literacy would also include whether our thoughts and ideas are nonviolent or not. This would also mean how we can rid of our preconceived notions of individuals or groups with whom we want to communicate and stop evaluating them to suit our own ideas. More than often we are attuned to think in terms of moralistic judgments which may be our own constructions. By developing deep understanding of the art and science of nonviolence and integrating it in our communication practices we could get over with biased and moralistic judgments; this in turn could contribute to emotional bridge building.By being nonviolent communication literate, an individual/group/community will be able to self–introspect whether the message they want to share has elements of violence and whether such a message will hurt others. Nonviolent communication literacy would automatically help in strengthening and deepening relationships. When we are able to emotionally build bridges with others, we will be able to empathize with their views.”

Also Kundu (2020 & 2020) notes the different elements of nonviolent communication:

• Nonviolent Communication means complete lack of violence in the way we communicate with others.
• We should learn to communicate with ourselves and self–introspect.
• Use of appropriate and positive language
• Avoiding stereotypes in our communication efforts
• Avoid moralistic judgements
• Avoid evaluative language
• Role of mutual respect in communication
• The Power of Empathy
• Strong belief in the power of compassion
• Connecting with needs of others
• Importance of flexibility in our communication
• Practicing active and deep listening skills
• Expressing gratitude

Each of the elements of nonviolent communication intertwined and interwoven. If we look at each of the elements and also the expansive explanation of nonviolent communication further by Natwar Thakkar, it can be argued that for any successful peer mediation programme, students should be equipped in skills in nonviolent communication. By introducing students to the world of nonviolent communication, schools can contribute towards a peaceful and harmonious ecosystem and ensure a constructive conflict prevention architecture.

References

1)Kundu, Vedabhyas(2018). Nurturing Emotional Bridge Building: A Dialogue with Nagaland’s Gandhi; Peaceworks; Vol 8, №1; June 2018

2)Kundu, Vedabhyas(2020).Integrating Nonviolent Communication in Pedagogies of Media Literacy Education; in The Handbook of Media Education Research; Edited by Divina Frau‐Meigs, SirkkuKotilainen, Manisha Pathak‐Shelat, Michael Hoechsmann& Stuart R. Poyntz; Wiley; 2020

3)Kundu, Vedabhyas(2020). Orientation Course on Nonviolent Communication; Gandhi Smriti and DarshanSamiti, New Delhi; https://www.gandhismriti.gov.in/announcement/orientation-course-nonviolent-communication-0