Dealing with conflict and arguments 

Transcript of Dealing with conflict and arguments

In schools conflict is always going to be there. Always.

There's never a perfect school.

If it's not peer pressure it's going to be bullying or something or other.

In school I see conflicts every single day.

It happens a lot.

Morning, afternoon, after school.

Every week I see a fight over some little thing.

It's very important that students learn how to deal with conflict

because if you're not going through a conflict yourself

you're either seeing it through your friends or your family,

so we need to know how to deal with it in the right way.

- Is Mr Ahmed here yet? - How do you know? Who told you?

- Well, it doesn't matter. - Who told you? I want to know.

- Well, Sarah and us... - You told them?

Shola Abuda, how can you do that to your mate?

- Tell her about what? - You're out of order.

- I didn't mean to. It just slipped out. - It just slipped out?

- (shouting) - I don't want to talk to you.

(shouting continues)

It just slipped out.

- You're out of order. - Get off me.

Don't ever listen to the crowd.

Other people make up different stories which make the conflict more serious

and it'll bring in more attention to other people, so other people come in.

They start to talk like how they feel,

how their reaction to the conflict is.

Whatever their reaction is influences you because it's more of them,

and you feel like, "If more of these people believe this is a bad situation,

then I should be reacting like this."

The person that you're having an argument with

is going to get under a lot of pressure.

He's not going to know what to do.

When you're in the situation and a lot of people are screaming,

the best thing to do is to pull yourself away,

get out of the room, go to a corner

and then get the person who was mainly involved

and start talking to them,

get to the truth and know exactly what's happened

rather than what people think has happened.

Stay calm.

It's important to stay calm because when the conflict's happening

you have other voices within you.

The voice of the crowd, the voice of the person you're having a conflict with,

so you have to step aside, take a moment and stay calm.

You'll find it a lot easier to communicate with them

because you're not angry.

When you're angry you don't listen to anyone,

you just think what you're saying is right.

If someone's shouting at you and you're getting really angry,

you have to count to ten, step aside and just stay calm,

and when you feel you're ready to go back in,

go back in and try and resolve it.

Be sensitive to people's feelings.

Picture being in that person's shoes.

You've got to see what it's like if you were in that same position.

No one thinks to think, "What if I was that person?"

If you're being nasty to someone, inside, their feelings...

They're going to feel sad or upset.

You need to not think about yourself all the time.

You need to sit down and say, "OK, this person's hurt."

You're not alone.

At secondary school you will come across everything.

You will deal with situations you never thought you'd deal with.

Situations where you think, "Why?"

"I'm only a kid. Why am I thinking about that?"

But you deal with situations a lot.

The main thing to realise is that there are people out there.

They may not be sharing your personal experience

but they're sharing an experience along your lines.

Talk to people, get to know people and share the experiences

because they're there to be shared.