An arm wrestling match for candy may seem like an unlikely introduction to the communication skills necessary in mediating a conflict.
"Remember, you're trying to figure out a way to do this so you can earn as many [jelly beans] as you can," said Barbara Bazarian, Great Falls Elementary School counselor. "Try to think strategically."
For Chesterbrook fifth-graders Chase Mills and Collin Juba, this strategy meant screaming "Piggies!" at one another to induce laughter and distraction.
"Think more cooperatively," Rachel Weissman said, slightly rolling her eyes as she tried to keep the 11-year-old attention spans focused.
Caitlin Simpson and Jamey Asher, a pair of fifth-grade girls from Great Falls, found a solution.
The two dropped their arms at the start of each match, winning simultaneously and each receiving a jelly bean, a strategy they found funny when explaining it to the group.
"That's one solution," Bazarian said. "So you two were laughing together."
The four girls from Great Falls quietly picked at their victory piles, while Weissman and Bazarian summarized the lessons learned. Mills and Juba were beanless during this lecture.
"We do the exercise as a way of talking about conflict styles," Bazarian said. "Some kids get tired or really rambunctious or let others win or force others to go their way."
After this lesson in conflict styles, which taught the students the difference between communicating effectively and communicating competitively, they were introduced to what is often the most difficult aspect of mediation according to Bazarian: addressing the underlying needs and issues of disputants.
Weissman and Bullen read "The Story of Big Red," asking the students to identify the facts vs. feelings contained in each paragraph.
In the story, Big Red's mother asks him to take some cookies to his grandmother. The Big Bad Wolf he meets en route later disguises himself as Granny. Luckily Granny scares the wolf away in the last paragraph.
After sifting through the many extraneous facts, such as a tangent about Mr. T, a reference lost on the elementary-school crowd as well as Weissman and Bullen, the students identified "angry, mad, annoyed, disappointed and concerned" as feelings of Big Red.
"[Big Red] was concerned because [Granny] had a wet and hairy nose," Great Falls fifth-grader Alexas Hanna said.
In addition to separating fact from feeling, the lesson explained the importance of tactfully paraphrasing what disputants say.
"You don't want to blame the wolf when paraphrasing," Bazarian said.
Next, the students role-played the different stages of mediation.
Weissman and Bullen demonstrated the introduction process. Weissman played the role of mediator and Bullen the disputant.
"Everything said here is confidential," Weissman said to Bullen. "That means that we will not repeat anything that is said outside this room unless it includes drug abuse or threats of physical harm."
"When Rachel is looking at Emily, where is she looking?" Bazarian asked the group.
"At her," they answered in unison.
"But she's not staring me down," Bullen said, raising a finger for emphasis.
The students then imitated Weissman and Bullen and for the first time began to take on the persona of mediators.
"[The introduction exercise] takes themselves out of who they are," Bazarian said. "They say to themselves, 'I'm doing this as a role and have something to do.'"
After working through each stage, the students were ready to mock mediate "The Case of the Missing Book," the culmination of the day's training.
The characters Lee and Chris are the disputants. Lee accuses Chris of stealing his book.
During the role play, the development of communication skills since the chaotic arm-wrestling competition was apparent. Acting as a mediator, Chesterbrook fifth-grader Andie Romness asked sophisticated, clarifying questions of Mills and Juba, who played Lee and Chris. "Can you tell us more about that?" Andy asked. "What do you mean by ‘replace’? Is this a one-time thing?"
As the second mediator, Chesterbrook fifth-grader James Perla assisted during the storytelling stage of the mediation.
"Remember, you guys said you wouldn't interrupt," James said.
Respect and friendship are two of the most common underlying issues in elementary-school conflicts, according to Chesterbrook counselor Sue King.
"If someone borrowed something without permission, one disputant might feel the other did not respect his property because he didn't ask, and the other disputant might have thought it would be OK because the two were friends."
Such were the issues in "The Case of the Missing Book."
Lee was angry his property was not respected, and Chris felt Lee betrayed their friendship by calling him a thief in front of the class.
The conflict finally reached a conclusion when the mediators got the disputants to sign a contract stating that Lee had to apologize for calling Chris a thief and Chris had to help pay for Lee's lost book.
The scenario gave students a taste not only of mediating but also what it feels like to be on the other side as a disputant.
"I was kind of annoyed how she got a longer time to talk," Great Falls fifth-grader Caitlin Simpson said. "And she was calling me names."
The mediators also ran into difficulties.
"They kept trying to talk to each other and fight," Romness said. "They weren't really following the rules too well."
Bazarian told the students the issue of fighting can be a serious problem that might be solved by calling the disputants in one at a time.
One student admitted it was sometimes hard to keep from laughing during the exercise.
Bazarian said her peer mediators ran into this problem last year with two first-grade disputants who were close friends. Each insisted she looked more like Brittany Spears than the other.
The students giggled after hearing this anecdote, but Bazarian emphasized the need to treat disputants' problems with respect.
Bazarian informed the students that adults can still remember the specific names and incidents of childhood bullying. A mother in the room nodded her head in agreement.
"If you have a chance to work it out and get beyond it, you give that person a gift," Bazarian said.