Peaceful Solutions - Changing Habits of Thought

Belief Cards

Do a brief version of the "belief cards" exercise shown in the video. Ask participants to form groups of four and give each group a set of two cards with the text below. Go through the cards one at a time, allowing several minutes for the groups to discuss each card. Then invite a spokesperson from each group to summarize what the group came up with. Discuss how underlying beliefs affect expectations and our behavior.

Belief Card Text:
Belief Card 1: Watching a fight and doing nothing is supporting the fight.
Belief Card 2: People are basically mean.

(Belief Card text is from the manual for the Victims, Aggressors, and Bystanders program. See suggested reading.)

Explain that the video features a program that focuses on our underlying beliefs, or habits of thought, and explores the roles of aggressor, victim and bystander in conflict situations.

Discuss:

the role of bystanders in escalating or de-escalating conflict;
"hostile beliefs" and how they feed conflict and violence;
the "Think First" process; and
the "hot head" and "cool head" concept.

Questions
1. ". . . for some students the issue of respect is paramount. Without it, they believe that they do not have power and are, therefore, not safe. Ironically, students who believe that respect is everything may go to great lengths, even risking their own safety, to get it.
-- Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders: Thinking and Acting to Prevent Violence (page 52)

Comment on this quotation.

2. Ann Junk says a classroom can form a team that is thinking the same way, and that "if that team . . .can go out into the community and respond to situations in a different way than violently, that is going to help our situation in the world." Comment. What underlying beliefs does this statement reflect?

Try It Out
The "Think First" Process. Participants can practice the four-step "Think First" process. Use the following role-plays or make up your own. You may want to try the fishbowl format described in the sidebar on page 22.

Role-Plays
1. A parent walks into a teacher's classroom during the teacher's prep period without an appointment. This parent begins complaining, in a loud and hostile manner, about the midterm report the teacher sent home. Enact the scene, with the teacher using the Think First process.

2. Four colleagues (A, B, C, and D) are planning an interdisciplinary unit on the Middle Ages. Every idea that B suggests, D shoots down. B is getting more and more frustrated. Enact the scene, with all participants trying to use the Think First process.

3. A teacher has longstanding problems with a student. There had been some improvement, but today the student is way out of line, chatting, laughing, walking around, and disrupting the teacher's lesson, which is very important to the unit the class is beginning. Enact the scene, with the teacher using the Think First process.