Credentials

KAT Model Offers Integrated Approach to Teaching Dispute Resolution, Diversity and Conflict Resolution to Youngsters.

By Ann L. Rappoport, Ph.D.

Printed in SPIDR News (Washington, D.C.: Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution), Winter & Spring, 1999.

There's a civic education model being used in elementary and middle schools across Pennsylvania that teaches youngsters important principles implicit to dispute resolution.

An interdisciplinary, community issue-based process, KIDS AROUND TOWN® [KAT] was named "outstanding program of excellence" by the National Council for Social Studies in 1996, and by the Pennsylvania Council in 1995. KAT was developed by the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Citizen Education Fund in cooperation with West Chester University and first piloted during the 1993-94 school year.

A recent example of KAT in Abington School District, a diverse bedroom community bordering Philadelphia, demonstrates the potential of this model in helping students, within a strong academic context, to develop problem-solving skills that actively apply to disputes in real life neighborhoods.

One Abington fifth grader reflected back on her pre-KAT attitudes toward families of students in the district's ESL (English as a Second Language) classes: "I used to worry, maybe they were chased by the police . . ." Krista said referring to the recent immigrants in her community. "And you hear on the news how they're coming to take our jobs. It made me mad to think they were going to take my Mommy's job." Such impressions are not unusual across America and contribute to isolation and misunderstanding on our nation's playgrounds and in our school cafeterias.

But teacher Phyllis Sorof introduced a unit of study on immigration that followed the components of the KAT model: · select a local public policy issue; · research it and analyze the findings; · consider alternative approaches to address the problem or situation; · take appropriate civic action; · evaluate and assess the process.

As part of their research, Sorof's students visited Philadelphia's Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, toured the ethnic neighborhoods that characterize Philadelphia, and hosted speakers on immigration law. Sorof's class observed ESL classes in action, and interviewed students from those classes about their experiences. As Sorof's students worked with the information they gathered about immigrants, Krista discovered that they "liked them better." Stasia said, "I see them on a higher level now because of all they went through, and how strong they must be because they went through so many challenges." Suspicion turned into compassion as they learned about the horrors some of their young peers had been through in their native lands.

Watching the new immigrants struggle with their ESL work, Chad commented, "I now understand that English is a hard language . . . Now I understand when they say 'two deers' - it's a big transition." Stasia noted, "Before I didn't realize how difficult it would be to adjust to our customs." Krista added, "They don't know our games; they sometimes get confused."

As KAT's research and analysis phase spilled over into the problem-solving and civic action components, the fifth graders decided on a service project to help new residents become, as Krista put it, "more part of our country." Sorof's students took it upon themselves to create idiom workbooks to help their immigrant peers practice many funny and ambiguous expressions. KAT students brainstormed the most relevant phrases - including "keep your eye on the ball" and "my room's a pigpen" - and then wrote and illustrated booklets full of questions and exercises, as friendly drills for the ESL pupils.

The gesture was a huge success. The ESL students were delighted, and felt more connected with other students in their new school. Meanwhile, their teacher, Barb Higgins, made the most of these teaching moments. Empowering new citizens is a multifaceted, historic task of our public schools, and Higgins appropriately recognized that the job is compounded by habits subtly intertwined in the culture and built into the language. In the process of writing thank-you notes to their new American friends, Higgins' students not only practiced more language arts, but they also discussed additional aspects of communications and cultural expectations. More important, through their interviews with Sorof's students, Higgins' students shared their pride in their own heritage, sadness in their tragedies, fears for survival, and hope for belonging. In doing so, they also cultivated new public voices for themselves.

In this Abington, Pennsylvania illustration, the KIDS AROUND TOWN® model served a prophylactic role in conflict resolution. Integrated into the students' ongoing curriculum, the KAT approach changed attitudes and created positive behaviors that support civilized interpersonal communications and peaceful mediation of potential disputes.

And because the inquiry-based KAT program reflects "best practices" in pedagogy, and is structured to apply academic skills ranging from language arts to mathematics, the KAT approach is not another "add-on" burden for the teachers. KAT is an educational tool for civic development, offering an inexhaustible supply of success stories to schools interested in empowering students as tolerant, knowledgeable, competent problem-solvers.

Whether the local issue selected for study is immigration or recreational facilities, economic development or composting, KAT students learn to appreciate diversity and listen respectfully to multiple viewpoints. They learn how to analyze arguments, discerning bias and identifying scare tactics. KAT students ask constructive questions. They practice seeking alternative solutions, rather than passively accepting the simpler polarities that pit the "good guys versus the bad guys." They take responsibility for public policy and develop patience to proceed through real-world, complex processes. KAT students overcome naïve and parochial paradigms, and practice strategies of coalition-building, so useful to democratic discourse.

Krista reflected more on her KAT experience, and how it differed from other school activities. "Here we're learning about the people, not just where they live - latitude, longitude, climate. In school, we don't usually interact with people, we just read about them in books. . . And they could just be made up in books. How would you know?"

KAT experiences are authentic, hands-on. The knowledge Sorof's students gained will help them avoid unnecessary conflict, and will help them resolve it competently, if ever prevention fails.

Home | About KAT| The KAT Model | Order Materials | Lesson Plans

Join the Discussion | Resource Exchange | Your Projects | Suggestions

Copyright © 1996-1999 - League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Citizen Education Fund