Conflict Resolution, Anti-Bullying for Elementary Schools
By Noel Smith
California College of the Arts alumnus, author and illustrator Marsha Strong-Smith of Santa Cruz, along with her daughter, teacher Tori Meredith, has developed a successful approach to teaching elementary school-age children simple and fun strategies to deal with conflicts and bullying.
By connecting her children’s book characters to ten simple solutions, she has created a new, easy to understand common language for elementary age children and their teachers to use when dealing with conflicts. Marsha now finds that her Solution Circle Program is being used on the playground, in the classroom and in the home.
It all began when Tori — a special education teacher for 20 years and now a physical education teacher at Helen Lehman Elementary School in Santa Rosa, California — asked Marsha if she had any ideas about creating a fun and cost-effective program that would help teachers and students deal with bullying and resolving conflicts on the playground at her school.
As a result, they developed a program that is a simple, easy to use, and doesn’t take a lot of training or precious class time when teachers are supposed to be teaching reading, writing, math and other required curriculum.
What makes this Conflict Resolution, Anti-Bullying program different?
Marsha and Tori realized that the school playground is where children begin to learn socialization skills. It is on the playground that a student’s interactions with other children are minimally supervised, unlike when in the classroom. They also recognized that it is easier for children of elementary age to choose from a pre-defined set of choices in order to resolve a conflict or emotional situation.
According to Marsha, “The UnFROGetable™ Solution Circle is divided into 10 pie-shaped sections. Each section has one of my book characters and a simple phrase that represents a solution to common conflicts and situations.” Students are encouraged to use the program with little or no adult supervision. This allows them to peacefully solve the conflict or problem on their own.
By empowering these young children to solve conflicts among themselves in a positive and peaceful way and to respect others, they learn extremely important life lessons at school. They can them take these with them into the home, when they leave elementary school, move on to middle school, high school and even beyond.
Marsha has also illustrated a coloring book showing the ten solutions for the program using the same images and phrases in the coloring book as on the Solution Circle. The book’s pages are available in both English and Spanish. This introduces these easy-to-use concepts to Pre-K, T-K and Kindergarten students before they learn to read.
The UnFROGetable™ Solution Circle Program is catching on
The first Solution Circle was painted on the playground of Helen Lehman Elementary School in 2013.
In Santa Cruz County, Soquel Union Elementary School District painted the colorful Solution Circle on the playgrounds of Santa Cruz Gardens and Opal Cliffs Schools in 2014.
Scotts Valley Unified School District has just purchased the program for its Brook Knoll and Vine Hill elementary schools and other school districts are now considering the UnFROGetable™ Solution Circle Program.
Teachers and Students are enthusiastic about the program
Teachers at Helen Lehman School are now in their second year of using the UnFROGetable™ Solution Circle.
“In the primary grades,” teacher Rosanne Muldoon remarked, “The students don’t know how to solve problems by themselves so they’re always trying to find an adult to do it for them. Now they say, ‘Let’s run to the Solution Circle and see how we can solve this problem.’”
“It’s nice to see students feel responsible for their own actions and their own solutions,” said teacher Joshua Motchar, “It’s empowering without any adult intervention. People of all ages can use the Solution Circle with its practical life strategies.”
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To find out more about the UnFROGetable™ Solution Circle, visit UnFROGetables.com