Conflict is necessary for progress, and students need to learn the skills to navigate conflict and peacefully resolve it.

“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” — U.S. Rep John Lewis (2018)

It feels as if we’re living in a world on fire. Conflicts abroad and at home feel unresolvable. That is the world more than 21 million teenagers in the U.S. are facing as they step into adulthood over the next four years. Parents and teachers shoulder a heavy burden trying to prepare children for an uncertain future in a world rife with conflict.

But what if leaning into conflict is an essential element of that preparation? Conflict, after all, can be a necessary component of progress. No matter what technological advancements the future holds, it’s unlikely they’ll come to pass without some conflict. It’s when we’re confronted with opposition that we realize our views may need to be re-examined. And that is when progress can occur.

Is it possible to bring conflict into the classroom in a way that builds skills without destroying community?

Making space to Speak Truth

Since 2015, the Center for Inspired Teaching has run a program called Speak Truth in which high school students design and lead deliberations around topics of their choosing with peers from a wide range of schools.

Speak Truth sessions take a few different formats:

Twice-monthly citywide events: Students volunteer to facilitate and receive training to lead the discussions. Students learn about the opportunities through postings from their schools and by word of mouth, and these sessions take place in libraries or online after school. Students attending these sessions come from a wide range of public, charter, and independent schools.
School-based events: Teachers use our Speak Truth Guidebook to create these student-led discussions in their own schools. We have partnered with teachers and schools to support implementation both in class and after school.

In both citywide and school-based programs, adults play the role of coaches. They prepare students to lead the discussions, but the discussions are run wholly by the students themselves. The discussion format is wide open, but the preparation to lead these sessions is highly structured and involves:

Choosing a topic for discussion based on the student-facilitator’s interest and what they think will spark conversation among their peers.
Researching to find reputable texts on the topic.
Crafting open-ended questions that invite myriad perspectives.
Learning strategies to ensure all voices are heard and participants engage respectfully with one another.

The point of a Speak Truth session is not to be right or come to a consensus, but to listen and deepen personal understanding of the underlying issues at play around controversial topics and to understand the variety of perspectives people bring to these issues. Speak Truth is designed to cultivate curiosity — which is the opposite of judgment and an essential habit of mind when trying to solve problems.

Most teenagers access their news through YouTube and other algorithm-driven social platforms (Vogels, Gelles-Watnick, & Massarat, 2022). On the internet, peacefully resolving conflicts is neither celebrated nor incentivized. Because so much online information is consumed without the space for reflection and respectful conversation, people are driven into echo chambers and grow ever more isolated from others with different views. Speak Truth exists to help students step out of these bubbles and authentically listen to what their peers have to say.

Because so much online information is consumed without the space for reflection and respectful conversation, people are driven into echo chambers and grow ever more isolated from others with different views.

We are in Washington, D.C., and most of our Speak Truth sessions have taken place across schools, though very effective sessions have taken place within individual school communities as well. When we pull together students from public schools, public charter schools, and independent schools across the region, the pool of students in the room (either in-person or via Zoom) is diverse in a wide variety of ways. In a discussion of gentrification, students will hear from peers who have been pushed out of neighborhoods their families lived in for generations because of rising property taxes. They also will hear from students who have moved into gentrifying neighborhoods as enthusiastic newcomers to a changing community. Student-facilitators present statistics and articles on the topic, but the discussion takes on a vibrancy that goes beyond what’s in these resources because the people in the room have experienced this topic in very different ways.

We have gathered students of all genders to discuss the dehumanization of Black women in the media, with examples pulled from social media posts most students had seen but responded to in very different ways. In another session about the impact of opioids in schools, it became clear as students shared personal experiences related to national data that the socioeconomic context of schools has a big impact on the kinds of drugs students are exposed to. Another session about how access to health care affects teenagers was held in a room where several students recently arrived in this country and others had lived here for their entire lives. While every session is grounded in text that helps to explain the issue, students’ questions and reflections make these experiences feel different from standard classroom discussion.

Speak Truth conversations have taken place both during the school day and after school. Teachers find these discussions are well worth the time because of the level of engagement their students experience. Students consistently rate Speak Truth as more engaging than what they typically experience during the school day.

Deliberation grounded in the 4 I’s

The Inspired Teaching approach imagines teachers as instigators of thought who center instruction on the 4 I’s: Intellect, Inquiry, Imagination, and Integrity.

Speak Truth deliberations are structured around four questions that relate to the 4 I’s:

What do I need to know to understand all sides of this issue? (Intellect)
What am I curious about and what questions can I ask my peers to learn more? (Inquiry)
What would have to change for this issue to become less polarized? (Imagination)
What role will I play in community with others to address this issue moving forward? (Integrity)

Speak Truth sessions can vary in length but typically follow the same structure (see Table 1).

Although just one or two students prepare and lead the discussion, all participants gain experience in holding space for one another as the conversation unfolds. And all students practice expressing their views thoughtfully in front of an audience.

A student-centered process

Students are the only voices in the room during a Speak Truth session, though adults are always present both for physical safety reasons within a school building or library and because it is important to observe what transpires. In nearly a decade of running this program, we have never had to take over from the facilitator. However, a student who is new to the role often benefits from a sticky note with a suggestion for how to invite more voices to speak or ask a clarifying question to help peers reflect upon a potentially offensive comment. Teachers play the role of coach, but students always take center stage.

Some students take naturally to participating in and leading these discussions. Others need time to build the confidence required to jump into a conversation. In any given session, the student-facilitator may ask a question, and then several students will begin to talk back and forth, building on each other’s responses.

Observational data collected over the years has shown that more reserved students who participate in these sessions multiple times grow exponentially in their confidence, first listening for entire sessions, then beginning to pose questions, and eventually volunteering to lead discussions of their own.

Shifting away from high conflict

As long as the jobs of the future require humans to work with one another, today’s students will need to learn how to navigate conflict. Much of what students learn in Speak Truth is how to navigate conflicts that arise from a lack of understanding of the perspectives and lived experiences of those with different views.

In her 2021 book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How to Get Out, investigative journalist Amanda Ripley explains that our society is increasingly drawn to a kind of conflict that doesn’t lend itself to problem solving:

That’s the main difference between high conflict and good conflict. It’s not usually a function of the subject of the conflict. Nor is it about the yelling or the emotion. It’s about the stagnation. In healthy conflict, there is movement. Questions get asked. Curiosity exists. There can be yelling, too. But healthy conflict leads somewhere. It feels more interesting to get to the other side than to stay in it. In high conflict, the conflict is the destination. There’s nowhere else to go. (p. 27)

When we introduce this concept in Speak Truth, it resonates with students. Not only have they seen high conflict play out on the national stage, but they can also relate to it in their personal lives. They are familiar with the feeling of being in a disagreement where resolution seems impossible. They often speak to the experience of seeing friends, family, and public figures taking a stand with more interest in being right than in hearing what someone else has to say.

In Speak Truth, students learn that there is another way of approaching disagreement that doesn’t require compromising beliefs. We help students learn to build the skills required to engage in the “good conflict” that comes from understanding where people stand on an issue and using that understanding to build bridges.

Skill-building activities

Most of us don’t inherently know how to engage in productive conflict. And in a world that thrives on bad conflict, students aren’t likely to come across a lot of resources that teach them about bridge building. In Speak Truth, teachers introduce student-facilitators to activities they can use to help their peers build these skills. Here are a few examples:

Take a Stand

A line is placed on the floor, stretching from one side of the room to the other. (Blue painter’s tape works well.) A piece of chart paper reading “Strongly Agree” is placed on the wall at one end of the line, and “Strongly Disagree” is placed at the other end. The teacher reads a few statements, beginning with general/safe (“Strawberry is the best flavor of ice cream,” “I love watching horror movies,” “Cats are better than dogs,” etc.), and students “Take a Stand” somewhere on the line to show to what extent they agree or disagree with the statement. Statements then shift toward the topic at hand (“The voting age should be lowered to 16,” “It’s a waste of time to vote in a local election,” “I would consider running for office one day,” etc.) with students continuing to take a stand on the continuum between strong agreement and strong disagreement.

This activity begins in silence, with students showing what they believe only by where they stand. Once students understand the flow of the activity, the teacher then invites students to speak with one another at different points and explain why they’ve chosen to stand in a particular place in response to a statement. This activity introduces students to the practice of speaking with others with whom they agree and disagree.

Looping

This active listening technique was developed by Gary Friedman and Jack Himmelstein of The Center for Understanding in Conflict (The Good Conflict Center, n.d.). Students can use this technique to talk in pairs about an issue for which they have strong feelings. One student speaks while the other listens carefully. The listener attempts to paraphrase what they heard, then asks the speaker if the summary was accurate. The listener then corrects and retells where needed and continues to dig deeper with clarifying questions. Then the speaker and listener trade roles and repeat the exercise. When students experience looping, they are often surprised about how much they miss the first time they listen, and how good it feels to be heard and asked for clarification.

‘Necessary trouble’

In the spring of 2023, we gathered students to watch a film called “The First Step” (Kramer, 2021), which documents a rare story about cross-party coalition-building. It makes a complex policy fight about criminal justice reform and its relationship to the national addiction crisis relatable, placing viewers at the center of challenging conversations where people disagree directly, and breakthroughs occur in real-time. We’re using this film to build out curricular resources so teachers can implement Speak Truth across the country in the 2024-25 school year. That first student-led discussion is informing our curriculum.

As long as the jobs of the future require humans to work with one another, today’s students will need to learn how to navigate conflict.

Students were riveted by the film’s recounting of adults working through conflict to overcome political barriers to change. “We just want to be kids right now, not have to worry about adult problems,” one student reflected, “but the problems are going to be there when we grow up, so we need to practice talking to each other. We need opportunities to see how people do work things out.”

At Inspired Teaching, we show teachers how to build student expertise. Teenagers are not experts on how to solve homelessness, but they are experts on their own observations, experiences, and wonderings related to the topic. Young people deserve opportunities to practice talking about the things they wonder and worry about without the need to be right or fear of being wrong.

Conflict will be a regular part of our students’ lives as they grow and mature. Good conflict, or what the late John Lewis might have called “necessary trouble,” should be a regular part of their learning in school today. They need to practice the leadership, cooperation, and community-building skills to engage with curiosity and optimism as they lead us in solving the problems of tomorrow.

References

The Good Conflict Center. (n.d.). How to loop.

Kramer, B. (Director). (2021). The first step. Meridian Hill Pictures. www.firststepfilm.com.

Lewis, J. (2018, June 27). Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. #goodtrouble. X. https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1011991303599607808?lang=en.

Ripley, A. (2021). High conflict: Why we get trapped and how we get out. Simon & Schuster.

Vogels, E.A., Gelles-Watnick, R., & Massarat, N. (2022, August 10). Teens, social media and technology 2022. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech.

This article appears in the May 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 105, No. 8, pp. 32-37.