Publications

“Budding mediator II” Helping children learn positive conflict management
« Graines de médiateur II » Accompagner les enfants dans l’apprentissage de la gestion positive des conflits

Université de Paix

Université de Paix and Fondation Bernheim

Namur - 2011

Book

French

English

School bullying

This practical guide is addressed to any person (animator, educator, teacher...) who wishes to assist a group of children in positive conflict management learning.

It proposes leads and advice for activities: more than 60 activity sheets, more than 50 reproducible sheets... that support children’s social skills development.

The approach is based on more than fifteen years of experiment by the pedagogic program “Graines de médiateurs” (budding mediators) developed by the institute.

It follows four axes:
• “Coexisting”: through situation activities, creating link, getting to know each other
• “Understanding”: reflection time on attitudes, perceptions and feeling regarding conflicts and the emotions it provokes
• “Communicating”: listening and expressing oneself.
• “Acting”: invites to act, as a protagonist or third party.

Like in a complex mechanism, changing one piece has effects on the whole system.

Université de Paix was founded by Father Dominique Pire (Nobel Peace Prize in 1958). For more than twenty years, the concrete work of this association is based on positive conflict management.
The practical guide “Budding mediator II” is a perfect example. A work for a real education citizenship.
It follows a first book “Budding mediator” published in 2000. After ten years of experiments, enriched by their practice on the field, the Université de Paix trainers wanted to publish a second volume, in the form of a practical guide.
More than a practical manual, “Budding mediator” is first a training programme run by the Université de Paix to help children learn conflict prevention and management.
http://www.universitedepaix.org/actions-jeunesse/le-projet-dans-les-classes
The objective of this pedagogic programme is to teach 8-12 year-old children to autonomously manage their conflict, make them able to solve their disagreement without always requiring the help of an adult. See the conference “Budding mediator” in October 2013 for detailed explanations.
http://www.universitedepaix.org/tag/graines-de-mediateurs-3

Université de Paix website:
http://www.universitedepaix.org/products-page/agir/graines-de-mediateurs-ii-guide-pratique

Julien Keutgen

Inforef

Translator - project assistant