In the course of his professional activity, a teacher, in addition to his immediate responsibilities related to the training and education of the younger generation, has to communicate with colleagues, students, and their parents.
In daily interactions, it is hardly possible to avoid conflict situations. And is it necessary? After all, by correctly resolving a tense moment, it is easy to achieve good constructive results, bring people closer, help them understand each other, and achieve progress in educational aspects.
Definition of conflict. Destructive and constructive ways to resolve conflict situations
What is conflict? Definitions of this concept can be divided into two groups. In the public consciousness, conflict is most often synonymous with hostile, negative confrontation between people due to incompatibility of interests, norms of behavior, and goals.
But there is another understanding of conflict as an absolutely natural phenomenon in the life of society, which does not necessarily lead to negative consequences. On the contrary, when choosing the right channel for its flow, it is an important component of the development of society.
Depending on the results of resolving conflict situations, they can be designated as destructive or constructive. The result of a destructive collision is dissatisfaction of one or both parties with the outcome of the collision, destruction of relationships, resentment, and misunderstanding.
A conflict is constructive, the solution of which was useful for the parties involved in it, if they built, acquired something valuable for themselves in it, and were satisfied with its result.
Variety of school conflicts. Causes and solutions
Conflict in school is a multifaceted phenomenon. When communicating with participants in school life, the teacher also has to be a psychologist. The following “debriefing” of clashes with each group of participants can become a “cheat sheet” for a teacher on exams in the subject “School Conflict”.
Conflict "Student - student"
Disagreements between children are a common occurrence, including in school life. In this case, the teacher is not a conflicting party, but sometimes it is necessary to take part in a dispute between students.
Causes of conflicts between students
- struggle for authority
- rivalry
- deceit, gossip
- insults
- grievances
- hostility towards the teacher's favorite students
- personal dislike for a person
- sympathy without reciprocity
- fight for a girl (boy)
Ways to resolve conflicts between students.
How can such disagreements be resolved constructively? Very often, children can resolve a conflict situation on their own, without the help of an adult. If teacher intervention is still necessary, it is important to do so in a calm manner. It is better to do without putting pressure on the child, without public apologies, and limit yourself to a hint. It is better if the student himself finds an algorithm for solving this problem. Constructive conflict will add social skills to the child’s experience, which will help him communicate with peers and teach him how to solve problems, which will be useful to him in adult life.
After resolving a conflict situation, dialogue between the teacher and the child is important. It is good to call the student by name; it is important that he feels an atmosphere of trust and goodwill. You can say something like: “Dima, conflict is not a reason to worry. There will be many more disagreements like this in your life, and that's not a bad thing. It is important to solve it correctly, without mutual reproaches and insults, to draw conclusions, to work on mistakes. Such a conflict will be useful."
A child often quarrels and shows aggression if he has no friends and hobbies. In this case, the teacher can try to correct the situation by talking with the student’s parents, recommending that the child enroll in a club or sports section, according to his interests. A new activity will not leave time for intrigue and gossip, but will give you an interesting and useful pastime and new acquaintances.
Conflict “Teacher - student’s parent”
Such conflicting actions can be provoked by both the teacher and the parent. Dissatisfaction can be mutual.
Causes of conflict between teacher and parents
- different ideas of the parties about the means of education
- parent's dissatisfaction with teacher's teaching methods
- personal animosity
- parent's opinion about the unreasonable underestimation of the child's grades
Ways to resolve conflicts with student parents.
How can such discontent be constructively resolved and stumbling blocks broken? When a conflict situation arises at school, it is important to sort it out calmly, realistically, and without distortion, look at things. Usually, everything happens in a different way: the conflicting person turns a blind eye to his own mistakes, while simultaneously looking for them in the opponent’s behavior.
When the situation is soberly assessed and the problem is outlined, it is easier for the teacher to find the true cause conflict with a “difficult” parent, evaluate the correctness of the actions of both parties, and outline the path to a constructive resolution of the unpleasant moment.
The next step on the path to agreement will be an open dialogue between the teacher and the parent, where the parties are equal. The analysis of the situation will help the teacher express his thoughts and ideas about the problem to the parent, show understanding, clarify the common goal, and together find a way out of the current situation.
After resolving the conflict, drawing conclusions about what was done wrong and what should have been done to prevent a tense moment from occurring will help prevent similar situations in the future.
Example:
Anton is a self-confident high school student who does not have extraordinary abilities. Relations with the guys in the class are cool, there are no school friends.
At home, the boy characterizes the children in a negative way, pointing out their shortcomings, fictitious or exaggerated, shows dissatisfaction with the teachers, and notes that many teachers lower his grades.
The mother unconditionally believes her son and assents to him, which further spoils the boy’s relationship with his classmates and causes negativity towards the teachers.
The volcano of conflict explodes when a parent comes to school in anger with complaints against the teachers and school administration. No amount of persuasion or persuasion has a cooling effect on her. The conflict does not stop until the child graduates from school. It is obvious that this situation is destructive.
What could be a constructive approach to solving a pressing problem?
Using the above recommendations, we can assume that Anton’s class teacher could analyze the current situation something like this: “The mother’s conflict with the school teachers was provoked by Anton. This indicates the boy’s internal dissatisfaction with his relationships with the guys in the class. The mother added fuel to the fire without understanding the situation, increasing her son’s hostility and mistrust of the people around him at school. Which caused a response, which was expressed by the cool attitude of the guys towards Anton.”
The common goal of the parent and teacher could be the desire to unite Anton's relationship with the class.
A good result can be obtained from a dialogue between the teacher and Anton and his mother, which would show the class teacher’s desire to help the boy. It is important that Anton himself wants to change. It’s good to talk with the kids in the class so that they reconsider their attitude towards the boy, entrust them with joint responsible work, and organize extracurricular activities that help unite the kids.
Conflict "Teacher - student"
Such conflicts are perhaps the most frequent, because students and teachers spend hardly less time together than parents and children.
Causes of conflicts between teacher and students
- lack of unity in teachers' demands
- excessive demands on the student
- inconstancy of teacher's demands
- failure to comply with requirements by the teacher himself
- the student feels underestimated
- the teacher cannot come to terms with the student's shortcomings
- personal qualities of a teacher or student (irritability, helplessness, rudeness)
Resolving conflict between teacher and student
It is better to defuse a tense situation without leading it to conflict. To do this, you can use some psychological techniques.
The natural reaction to irritability and raising your voice is similar actions. The consequence of a conversation in a raised voice will be an aggravation of the conflict. Therefore, the correct action on the part of the teacher would be a calm, friendly, confident tone in response to the student’s violent reaction. Soon the child will be “infected” by the calmness of the teacher.
Dissatisfaction and irritability most often come from lagging students who do not conscientiously perform school duties. You can inspire a student to succeed in their studies and help them forget about their dissatisfaction by entrusting them with a responsible task and expressing confidence that they will perform it well.
A friendly and fair attitude towards students will be the key to a healthy atmosphere in the classroom and will make it easy to follow the proposed recommendations.
It is worth noting that during the dialogue between teacher and student, it is important to take certain things into account. It is worth preparing for it in advance so that you know what to tell your child. How to say - the component is no less important. A calm tone and absence of negative emotions is what you need to get a good result. And it’s better to forget the commanding tone that teachers often use, reproaches and threats. You need to be able to listen and hear the child.
If punishment is necessary, it is worth thinking through it in such a way as to prevent humiliation of the student and a change in attitude towards him.
Example
A sixth grade student, Oksana, does poorly in her studies, is irritable and rude when communicating with the teacher. During one of the lessons, the girl interfered with other children’s assignments, threw pieces of paper at the children, and did not react to the teacher even after several comments addressed to her. Oksana did not react to the teacher’s request to leave the class either, remaining seated. The teacher's irritation led him to decide to stop teaching the lesson and leave the entire class after school after the bell rang. This, naturally, led to dissatisfaction with the guys.
Such a solution to the conflict led to destructive changes in the mutual understanding of the student and teacher.
A constructive solution to the problem could look like this. After Oksana ignored the teacher’s request to stop disturbing the children, the teacher could get out of the situation by laughing it off, saying something with an ironic smile to the girl, for example: “Oksana ate a little porridge today, the range and accuracy of her throw is suffering, the last piece of paper never reached the addressee.” After this, calmly continue teaching the lesson further.
After the lesson, you could try to talk with the girl, show her your friendly attitude, understanding, desire to help. It’s a good idea to talk to the girl’s parents to find out the possible reason for this behavior. Paying more attention to the girl, entrusting her with important tasks, providing assistance in completing tasks, encouraging her actions with praise - all this would be useful in the process of bringing the conflict to a constructive outcome.
A unified algorithm for resolving any school conflict
Having studied the recommendations given for each of the conflicts in school, one can trace the similarity of their constructive resolution. Let's designate it again.
- The first thing that will be beneficial when a problem is ripe is calm.
- The second point is to analyze the situation without vicissitudes.
- The third important point is an open dialogue between the conflicting parties, the ability to listen to the interlocutor, calmly express your view on the problem of the conflict.
- The fourth thing that will help you reach the desired constructive result is identifying a common goal, ways to solve the problem that will allow you to reach this goal.
- The last, fifth point will be conclusions that will help avoid mistakes of communication and interaction in the future.
So what is conflict? Good or evil? The answers to these questions lie in the way tense situations are resolved. The absence of conflicts in school is almost impossible. And you still have to solve them. A constructive solution brings with it trusting relationships and peace in the classroom, a destructive solution accumulates resentment and irritation. Stopping and thinking at the moment when irritation and anger surge is an important point in choosing your path to resolving conflict situations.
Conflict situations at school are inevitable. Another thing is that by directing the situation in the right direction, you can benefit from everything. It is unlikely that you will be able to learn this without the help of adults.
Children's perception largely depends on the reaction of others to certain actions. If the children are lucky with a teacher in elementary school, and conflicts are resolved exclusively by destructive methods, then the school period will be remembered with warmth and tenderness for many years.
Causes of conflicts between children at school
There can be many reasons for misunderstanding within the school walls. Even the spirit of competition inherent in schoolchildren can be considered as a provocation, stimulating them to action, knowledge, and the desire to become the best. The teacher's job is to make competition healthy.
A conflict may arise due to the following: reasons:
- desire to become a leader;
- personal animosity;
- struggle for recognition, resentment;
- unrequited feeling;
- dislike and arrogant, condescending attitude towards someone;
- the desire to be friends with someone against someone.
Sometimes children of different classes conflict at school. And it also happens that classmates are divided into clans.
Often, favorites or those students to whom teachers constantly make public comments also find themselves drawn into the situation. Children are cruel, they can dislike the strong no less than the weak.
How to avoid conflict situations
Not everything depends on the teacher, but a lot. The burden of responsibility falls on his shoulders. Avoiding conflict between children at school and trying to smooth out the situation is the sacred duty of a teacher.
Even after a disrupted lesson, “debriefing can be different.” The first way is to look for the culprit among the students, perhaps even with the involvement of the principal and class teacher. There will definitely be someone to blame, and fertile ground for fights between students in the future too.
The constructive method looks different.
The situation is as follows. Having learned about the teacher’s illness, the high school students agree to take a walk outside the school grounds. The replacement is at the last minute, but the decision to take a walk has been made and cannot be appealed.
The only girl who comes to class is an excellent student. The teacher’s reaction is one in her diary and no “debriefing” after. Unpedagogical? Hardly. Only a real child psychologist could do this.
It is difficult to imagine what scale the conflict between the remaining student and her classmates could reach during a “debriefing.”
Causes of conflicts
Whatever the reasons for conflicts between children at school, it is the teacher who has to resolve many of them. Sometimes this doesn’t even require openly interfering with what’s happening.
The teacher not only teaches literacy, he helps the child adapt to the team, learn to communicate in a civilized manner, argue, defend his point of view, give in, understand and accept mistakes, and be responsible for his actions.
Features of conflicts
Conflicts between schoolchildren and classmates can have a somewhat different nature. It is important to understand that any class is a collective. Sometimes misunderstandings can arise between older and younger students.
There can be many reasons for this, including feelings of jealousy towards a beloved teacher who has taken on other students.
What to do if a child has a conflict with a teacher
It is much more difficult if the conflicting parties are a student and a teacher. The reasons for a child’s conflict with a teacher can be different, even personal hostility.
Sometimes different methods of education make themselves felt within the walls of the school and in the family. It is important to understand the situation before taking sides. Sometimes parents don’t know exactly how to determine that a child has a conflict with a teacher.
First, you should go to school and talk to the teacher. This is the only way to understand who is to blame and what is really happening. Outcomes can be different: from complete resolution of the problem without involving outsiders to complaints to higher authorities and even transfer to another school.
You should always try to smooth out rough edges and not provoke conflict situations.
If you don’t want your child to withdraw into himself and harbor a grudge against everyone and everything, you should never scold him in public, even if he is wrong. Listening to everyone is one thing, but depriving a child of support is another.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a one-on-one conversation with the teacher or collect information about the teacher, his methods of education, etc. The peaceful way is always better.
What to do if a child has conflicts at school - tips for parents
Parents' actions in response to children's conflicts at school vary. It's always better to try to understand the situation first. In most cases, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
It is impossible to categorically take the side of the teacher or the child. You shouldn't draw hasty conclusions either.
Of course, if there are any complaints from the “beloved child,” you can start a showdown and immediately transfer the little one to another school, but no one can give guarantees that the son or daughter will be able to adapt to the new team and will not start conflicts.
Don't be afraid to communicate and express your opinion openly. This is the only way to find the true reasons for what is happening and options for eliminating the unpleasant situation.
School conflicts include conflicts between students. As noted in the review of school conflicts prepared by A. I. Shipilov, the most common leadership conflicts among students reflect the struggle of two or three leaders and their groups for primacy in the class. In middle school, a group of boys and a group of girls often clash. There may be a conflict between three or four teenagers with an entire class or a conflict between one student and the class. According to the observations of psychologists (O. Sitkovskaya, O. Mikhailova), the path to leadership, especially among teenagers, is associated with a demonstration of superiority, cynicism, cruelty, and ruthlessness. Child cruelty is a well-known phenomenon. A child, to a greater extent than an adult, is susceptible to a sense of herdism and is prone to unmotivated cruelty and bullying of weak peers.
The origins of aggressive behavior in schoolchildren are associated with defects in education. Thus, a positive relationship was found between the number of aggressive actions in preschool children and the frequency of their punishment used by parents (R. Sire). In addition, it was confirmed that conflict boys were raised, as a rule, by parents who used physical violence against them. Therefore, a number of researchers consider punishment a model of conflict behavior of an individual (L. Javinen, S. Larsens).
Conflicts between individual adolescents and peers serve as the culmination of their troubles. A number of psychological studies have shown that a teenager’s troubles in relationships with classmates are directly due to an important feature of age - the formation of moral and ethical criteria for assessing a peer and the associated certain requirements for his behavior. In the works of T. P. Gavrilova and V. N. Lozovtseva, it is noted that the personality qualities of their peers that appeal to adolescents, in principle, do not differ from the qualities that attract them in adults, and the decisive importance for them is, firstly, moral qualities, in which the attitude towards a person in general and a comrade in particular is expressed, and, secondly, a specific complex of strong-willed traits and physical advantages that make up a kind of “ideal of masculinity” of a teenager. Not only boys, but also girls want to be brave, persistent, and have a strong character. Boys also value physical strength. The presence or absence of these qualities in a teenager largely determines his authority in the team, his well-being in personal relationships, and, finally, whether he becomes a model for his classmates or not.
Studying a group of teenagers in the same class for three years, psychologists found that children who were not accepted by their classmates, along with various unattractive characteristics, suffered from one common drawback - a lack of a sense of camaraderie. This deficiency is not compensated for by anything in the eyes of teenagers, so even an excellent student (or a good athlete) can find himself alone.
The most important norms of this “code” are equality, honesty, respect, loyalty, and helping a friend. Teenagers aged 11–12 years unanimously condemn their peers who do not comply with the requirement to “behave as equals” and who oppose themselves to the team. At the same time, teenagers greatly value the ability to stand up for themselves, and the desire to protect themselves with the help of adults is condemned.
Mastering the norms of friendship is a child’s most important acquisition during adolescence. Therefore, one of the main pedagogical measures to overcome conflicts is to create such objective conditions in the team, when every teenager will be faced with the need to develop the qualities of a good comrade, a true collectivist. Psychologists have found that good results come from joint activities and the conflicting parties experiencing the success of their common activities. It is important to note that the high moral meaning of joint activities is of decisive importance. In addition, the organized activity must be meaningful for the team and correspond to the capabilities of the teenagers included in it.
The main factors that determine the characteristics of conflicts between students have been identified. We will give a description of these factors, following A. Ya. Antsupov:
“Firstly, the specifics of conflicts between schoolchildren are determined by developmental psychology. The age of students has a significant influence both on the causes of conflicts, as well as on the characteristics of their development and methods of completion.
It is known that during schooling there is a stage of the most intensive development of a person. School covers a significant part of childhood, all of adolescence and early adolescence. Conflicts among schoolchildren differ markedly from conflicts among adults. There are also significant differences in the conflicts that occur in primary, junior high and secondary schools.
Secondly, the characteristics of conflicts between schoolchildren are determined by the nature of their activities at school, the main content of which is study. Psychologist A. V. Petrovsky developed the concept of activity-based mediation of interpersonal relationships. He emphasizes the determining influence on the system of interpersonal relations in a group and team of the content, goals and values of joint activities. Interpersonal relationships in student and teaching teams differ markedly from relationships in teams and groups of other types. These differences are largely due to the specifics of the pedagogical process in secondary schools.
Thirdly, the specifics of conflicts between rural school students in modern conditions are determined by the current way of life in rural areas, the socio-economic situation that has developed today...” The school is an integral and important structural element of society. From parents, students learn about the main difficulties that adults face. From many other sources, schoolchildren know about various life problems, experience them in their own way, and project these problems onto relationships with peers and teachers.
A study conducted under the leadership of V.I. Zhuravlev in schools in the Moscow region made it possible to identify some features of conflicts and related phenomena in student relationships.
Student-student conflicts arise in the following situations:
due to insults, gossip, envy, denunciations – 11%;
due to lack of mutual understanding – 7%;
in connection with the struggle for leadership – 7%;
due to the opposition between the student’s personality and the team – 7%;
in connection with social work – 6%;
in girls - because of a boy - 5%.
11% believe that students had no conflicts.
How do schoolchildren react to these conflicts? It turned out that 61% of schoolchildren experienced a feeling of hatred towards their classmates.
This indicates that not all is well in the relationships between classmates at school. The main reasons for hatred towards peers:
meanness and betrayal – 30%;
fawning, the existence of “fake” excellent students and teachers’ favorites – 27%;
personal grievance – 15%;
lies and arrogance – 12%;
rivalry between classmates – 9%.
Students’ conflict behavior is significantly influenced by their individual psychological characteristics, in particular aggressiveness. The presence of aggressive students in the class increases the likelihood of conflicts not only with their participation, but also without them - between other members of the class team. Schoolchildren’s opinions about the causes of aggression and the occurrence of conflicts are as follows:
reason for aggression: “desire to stand out” among peers – 12%;
source of aggression: “heartlessness and cruelty of adults” – 11%;
“everything depends on the relationships in the class” – 9.5%;
“the family is to blame” for the student’s aggressiveness – 8%;
aggressive schoolchildren – children with mental disabilities – 4%;
aggressiveness is an age-related phenomenon associated with excess energy – 1%;
“aggressiveness is a bad character trait” – 1%;
“there were aggressive students in the class” – 12%;
“there were no aggressive students in the class” – 34.5%.
Conflicts between students at school arise, among other things, due to misconduct and violation of generally accepted norms of behavior. Violation of these norms, as a rule, leads to infringement of someone's interests. A clash of interests is the basis for conflict. Schoolchildren, in their own opinion, most often commit the following violations of behavioral norms at school:
smoking – 50%;
consumption of alcoholic beverages – 44%;
rudeness, rudeness in communication – 31%;
use of obscene language – 26.5%;
false – 15%;
students’ disrespect for each other – 13%;
sexual promiscuity – 10%;
petty theft – 10%;
fights - 10%;
hooliganism – 10%;
drug addiction – 6%;
bullying of the younger and weaker – 6%;
gambling for money – 3%.
The characteristics of conflicts between school students are determined, first of all, by the specifics of the age-related psychology of children, adolescents and young men (girls). The emergence, development and completion of conflicts are significantly influenced by the nature of the educational process and its organization in a particular educational institution. The third factor influencing conflicts in student relationships is the way of life and the existing socio-economic situation.
