Let’s Be Peacemakers

I’d like to bring your attention to our student and staff conflict program. It is called PeaceWise, and it’s a program we teach and use throughout the entire College. PeaceWise is a Christian program that equips young people to deal with challenging relationships and conflict in healthy, constructive and life-changing ways.

It features what is called a “slippery slope” diagram, which is divided into three sections that outline the various responses we can choose during situations or conflict. The first section has what is called “escape responses”, the last section has what is called “attack responses”, and the middle has “peacemaking responses”. Obviously, we direct all our students to the peacemaking responses.

There are several peacemaking responses, but I want to talk through three of them here.

Response 1: Overlook an Offense

You deal with the offense by yourself. You simply decide to forgive and walk away from the conflict. Forgiveness is the key.

Response 2: Talk It Out

This involves going directly to the other person and talking it out together. We confess our own wrongs and kindly and respectfully point out the other person’s wrongs. This response is to be used if you can’t overlook what the other person did.

Response 3: Get Help

When the conflict is difficult, ask someone else, an adult, to help you decide how to handle the conflict, so it doesn’t get worse. You can ask someone else to meet with both of you and talk together to find a solution to the problem. If the conflict cannot be resolved this way, then a person in authority can decide the solution.

Let’s all be peacemakers.

Derek Bendall, Head of Secondary