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Weekly Tribes: “What would you do…?”

Michele, a Tribes TLC trainer in northern California, is also a speech pathologist and works a lot with middle schools students and their communication skills.

She came upon a brilliant idea that has really started to make a difference in student interactions.

Prepare real life situations, on slips of paper and put in some sort of container that can be passed around.  (Example:  Someone you know has just called you a name that you do not like, and others are laughing…)

Students pass the container, pull out a situation and are challenged to answer with a pro-social response to “What would you do in this situation to alleviate it, rather than perpetuate the negativity?”

If the student with the situation does not have an answer, he/she is invited to say, “I need some help with this!”  At this point, other students offer suggestions.

It is kind of a ‘mini suggestion circle’; the solutions come from the students, and reinforces the reality that if one doesn’t know what to do, one can ask for help.

Students’ suggestions were often well-thought, constructive possibilities.

This could easily be used for playground situations, agreement ‘infractions’, aggressive (bully) behaviors, bus drama, etc.

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