My Plan

I hope to start mediating as a volunteer soon. I set up a(n amateurish) webpage that describes mediation and my goals. Float me an email if you hear about anyone interested in mediation. : )

http://www.angelfire.com/dc2/mediation/

最近調停をやりたいだと思いますから、ﾎﾑペジをつくりました。そのホムペジは僕のゴールが書いています。もしかしたらあなたはだれかが調停をやりたいだった、すぐ教えてくれてありがとうございます。

Man, I really gotta work on my けいご.

マナー、大一章

大きい町のせいかつあんまり好きじゃないなくなった。大きい町か東京か日本のせいかどかしらないけど。多分、少しずつ。　

早稲田大学で英 語を教えている。そのために、最近、山手線を乗っていった。その時、だれかが僕にばつかれた（この言葉はぜったいあってない）。そんなに いったかたじゃないけど、ちょっといったかった。僕のかおがあたたくなった感じで、たたかっくなった。いろいろなわざを考えたー. うちの中でK1見たいけんかだった。ちゃんと上に見て僕のかたきを見ると。。。。おばーちゃんだったよ。彼女は変なうでのかっこで電車をおりた。強く僕に 押した。俺はすっごいおこったけど、ちゃんとマナーをおぼえていたと、何もやらなかった。だけど、ほんとにおこった。たまに本とにオレゴン州に帰りたい。


OK, that was my attempt at Japanese. まちがいがいっぱいあるよね。がまんしてね。：　）

Manners, Part1

So, I'm feeling the need to rant a bit about big-city life. I'm not sure if it's just big-city life, or life in Tokyo, or life in Japan. Mostly a bit of each, I suppose. So, I was trying to get off the Yamanote line the other day, in Takadanobaba - where I teach at Waseda. All of a sudden, I feel a sharp pain in my side. It wasn't bone-breaking, but I definitely felt it. I felt my temperature rising, and I felt the need to kick some butt. I began envisioning handlocks, arm throws, right hooks, side kicks - all sorts of way I could whoop some businessman butt. I looked over to see my nemesis, and lo & behold it was an old woman, maybe 75 - 80 years old. She had her arms raised up, in sort of a chicken-wing stance. It was suprisingly effective for getting people out of the way, especially when she rotated her hips and shoulders and put her weight into it. I started to push back (!), and then I remembered my manners - the elderly are always right. Man, she ticked me off though. I resigned my self to passively-aggressively pushing other people as soon as they pushed me... Man, I can't wait to get back to Oregon.

My latest essay

Communication and Conflict Resolution Program for Honan High School

Roger Wagoner

NCR 543 Reducing School Violence through Conflict Resolution

Professor Deborah Thomas

May 12, 2005

This paper summarizes the target population, mission statement, scope of services, program description, evaluation, staff and budget for the communication and conflict resolution program for Honan High School, located in Toshima Ward, Tokyo.

Target Population

The first semester of the year-long program will begin with educating all staff about communication skills, conflict and its resolution. The staff is Japanese, with the majority, approximately four-fifths, being male. The second semester of the program will include students. The student body is approximately 99% Japanese, with about 1% being Chinese-Japanese and Korean-Japanese.

Mission Statement

The mission of the conflict resolution program for Honan High School is to educate the school community about communication, conflict and conflict resolution techniques, hoping to create a peaceable, non-violent atmosphere that allows for mutual understanding between students, teachers and school staff, with the goal of reducing attrition.

Scope of Services

The conflict resolution program will train approximately fifty teachers and staff members in the first phase of the program. Phase two of the program, identical in content to phase one but adapted for age, will include the student body of Honan High, approximately 500 students.

Program Description

The program will begin with educating the target population of staff in the fall semester of 2005, from September to December. The program coordinator, currently Roger Wagoner, will visit the school and give monthly seminars on Saturdays, with each class being approximately four hours for a total of sixty hours. A question-and-answer session will happen in the last hour of each seminar. The program will educate the target population of staff and teachers about conflict and resolution techniques, including: 1) orientation abilities and attitudes such as nonviolence, empathy and tolerance; 2) perception abilities such as empathizing and suspending judgment; 3) emotion abilities such being able to express oneself in a non-inflammatory manner; 4) communication abilities such as listening and speaking to be understood and reframing; 5) creative-thinking abilities, including brainstorming and 6) critical-thinking abilities, which includes comparing, contrasting and choosing options.

The second half of the program, to be conducted in the winter semester, January to April 2006, will expand the training to include the same topics for students at an age-appropriate level. All three years of the school (not four as in the U.S.A.), which is fourteen homeroom classes, will take a weekly class and study at the same time, with adjustments in the program to adapt to age-specific pedagogical concerns. With those basic skills in place, the ground will be set for the beginning of the peer mediation program which will begin the following year, beginning in the spring of 2006 (The Japanese school year starts in the spring). To record the efficacy of the program, two instruments will be used.

Evaluation

A survey, modeled after the work in “The Handbook of Conflict Resolution Education”, will be given four times in a one-year period. (Bodine & Crawford) The survey will be used to measure staff, parents’, students’ and other community members’ opinions of conflict and conflict resolution in the school. The first survey will occur this spring semester, May 25, 2005, before the staff education program begins. The survey, included in the appendix, has been translated into Japanese by the program manager and Ai Ikeda, a Japanese volunteer. The conflict resolution program manager will give the same survey again at the beginning of the fall semester, approximately September 2005.

The survey will be given a third time after the completion of the staff conflict resolution seminar, in December 2005. The goal will be to measure any short-term effects of the training. A fourth and final survey will be completed at the end of the school year, in March 2006, following the completion of the students’ program. The goal will be to measure the combined effects of the staff training as well as the student program.

The second instrument used will assess the program’s main goal of reducing student attrition. The student count at the beginning and end of the year will be compared to the previous three years. If the difference is significant above α = 0.05, the program will be considered successful.

Staff

Roger Wagoner will volunteer to be the conflict program manager. He is a part-time English teacher at Honan high school, and is studying to get his Master’s degree in Behavioral Science with an emphasis on Mediation and Conflict Resolution through California State University, Dominguez Hills. He will work in conjunction with the Japanese staff to ensure harmony with the Japanese culture. Other staff includes a Honan administrator, whom will help schedule the program and print surveys in the first phase of the program. In addition, a Japanese teacher will teach together in class with the program coordinator. In the second phase of the program, the administrators will work to create a schedule enabling the outside coordinator to teach every class and all students to attend the class. There are currently ten first-year classes, four second-year classes, and three third-year classes. A Japanese staff member whom is currently the second-in-command, Mr. Tomiyama, of the English department will team-teach with the outside consultant. The consultant will teach in English, and the Japanese teacher will translate the concepts into Japanese.

Budget

To expedite processing the grant, the coordinator has written three different versions of the program: the first semester is the training for teachers, semester two is training for students, and the ideal version includes both semesters.

The first semester focuses on training teachers in the basics of conflict resolution. Item one (See table below) is the amount dedicated toward paying Honan High School’s Japanese coordinator. The conflict resolution program volunteer coordinator is American, and needs the help of a Japanese native-speaker to coordinate, administer and help with printing and distributing the posters and surveys. He or she will work at most one hour per day for the year. Item 1.1 is the addition of a Japanese teacher to team-teach with the program coordinator. They will be responsible for translating the concepts into understandable Japanese ideas. The second item is the cost of printing handouts focused on conflict resolution and listening skills. Fifty will be printed for the teaching and administrative staff and 600 will be printed for the students. The third item is the surveys designed to assess the status and effectiveness of the conflict resolution program. 200 Surveys (four assessments at 50 each) will be given over a one-year period for the staff, and 2000 surveys (four assessments at 500 each) will be given to students in the same period. Item four includes the cost of posters designed to promote the program. The volunteer coordinator will make the posters, ten for each of the semesters. The fifth item is a party designed to increase the motivation of staff and students alike. The party includes ten dollars for each staff member and two dollars for each student. Both staff and students are expected to bring some money to assist with paying for the parties. Line six is the cost it would take to have the coordinator paid, if he were not a volunteer.

The total for the first semester is $4,547.00 and the total for the second semester is $5,292.00, bringing the total for the year to $9,839.00. The requested grant amount is the former total for the year.

	Semester One: Teachers’ Program	Semester Two: Students’ Program	Total for both Semesters
1. Honan Personnel	$1000.00 (.1 FTE)	$1000.00 (.1 FTE)	$2,000.00 (.1 FTE)
1.1 Honan team teacher	$3000.00 (.3 FTE)	$3000.00 (.3 FTE)	$6000.00 (.3 FTE)
2. Training booklets	$25.00	$250.00	$275.00
3. Assessment surveys	$2.00	$22.00	$24.00
4. Promotional posters	$20.00	$20.00	$40.00
5. Party	$500.00	$1,000.00	$1,500.00
6. Conflict Resolution Coordinator	($7000.00) (.5 FTE)	($7000.00) (.5 FTE)	($14,000) (.5 FTE)
Totals	$4,547.00	$5,292.00	$9,839.00

Appendix

Conflict Resolution Program: Assessment form

Answer each question by providing the response that most accurately reflects your personal view of Honan High School.　

豊南高校に対する、あなたの見解にもっともふさわしいものを選んでください。

1. I am a(n) a. student ___ b. staff member ___ c. parent ___ d. other (details) _______

　私は　　　　生徒　　　　教員　　　　　　　両親　　　　その他

2. Conflicts interfere with the teaching and learning process:

教育過程において発生する困難の発生率　

a. Often ___ b. sometimes c. rarely ___

　よく起こる　ときどき起こる　まれに起こる

3. Problems between people at this school are caused by:

　人間関係によって発生する問題の原因は

	Often よく	Sometimes ときどき	Never 全くない
a. Expectation to be competitive 　競争心を持つことによる
b. Intolerance between adults and students 大人と生徒間に発生する不寛容さの違いによる
c. Intolerance between students 生徒間で発生する不寛容さの違いによる
d. Poor communication 意思疎通の乏しさによる
e. Anger and/or frustration 怒りや欲求不満による
f. Rumors うわさによる
g. Problems brought to school from somewhere else 学校外から持ち込まれる問題による

4. Without exceeding 100% as the total, what percentage of the problems referred for disciplinary action are problems:

合計が100％を超えないように、問題の要因として考えられる項目にパーセンテージをつけてください。

	Percentage
a. Between students　 生徒間
b. Between student and classroom teachers 　生徒と担任間
c. Between student and other staff members 　生徒とその他の学校職員
d. Between student and school rules 　生徒と学校規則
e. Other 　その他
Total 合計	100%

5. Indicate the types and frequency of conflicts experienced by students in this school:

　学校で起こる妨害行為に当てはまる項目を選んでください。

	Often よく	Sometimes ときどき	Rarely まれに
a. Put-downs/insults/teasing からかう/バカにする
b. Threats 脅す
c. Intolerance of differences 相違点についての寛容さ
d. Loss of property 盗難
e. Access to groups グループへの接触
f. Rumors うわさ
g. Physical fighting 肉体的なけんか
h. Verbal fighting/assaults 　口頭的なけんか/ 口論
i. Schoolwork 宿題
j. Other その他

6. Indicate the effectiveness of each of the following actions in causing a student to change a problem behavior.

生徒が起こす問題行為改善のために行われる処置として、有効的なものを選んでください。

	Very effective とても 有効的	Somewhat effective 有効的と いえる	Not effective 有効的ではない
a. Talk with a teacher 教師と話し合う
b. Time-out 授業から外される
c. Detention 反省のための部屋に入る
d. Conference with an adult 大人との面談・相談
e. Suspension 謹慎
f. Contacting parent(s) 両親への学校側からの連絡
g. Expulsion 退学処置

7. Without exceeding 100% as the total, what percentage of influence do the following groups have in the way the school operates?

合計が100％を超えないように、学校運営における、それぞれの項目の影響値にパーセンテージをつけてください。

	Percentage
a. Students 生徒
b. Teachers 教員
c. Parents 両親
d. Principals and school administrators 校長先生や学校職員
e. Superintendent and district administrators 院長先生
f. Board of education 教育委員会
g. Other その他
Total 合計	100%

8. In this school, I am generally:

学校において、普段受けている扱いについて解答してください

	Most of the time ほとんどいつも	About half of the time ときどき	Not very often 頻繁では ない
a. Treated fairly 親切に扱われている
b. Treated with respect 尊敬をもって扱われている
c. Given equal opportunity 平等な機会を与えられている
d. Treated with compassion 思いやりをもって扱われている
e. Accepted 受け入れられている

9. I am allowed to solve problems that affect me:

自分が持っている問題について、自己解決を許されている

a. Nearly always ___ b. Sometimes c. Not very often ___

ほとんどいつも　　ときどき　　　頻繁ではない　　

10. This school should do a better job teaching students to:

学校が生徒にもっと教えるべきことに当てはまる項目を、選んでください。

	Definitely yes 全くその通りだ	Maybe おそらくそうだ	Definitely no 全く違う
a. Tell another person how you feel 自分の感情を人に伝えること
b. Disagree without making the other person angry 相手を怒らせないように、同意しないことを伝える
c. Respect authority 人を尊敬すること
d. Control anger 怒りを制御すること
e. Ignore someone who is bothersome 不快を与える人を無視すること
f. Solve problems with other students 他の生徒が持つ問題に助言すること

11. When I need help, I usually ask for it:

助けが必要なとき、それを求める。

a. Nearly always ___ b. Sometimes ___ c: Almost never ___

　ほとんどいつも　　ときどき　　　　　ほとんどない

12. If I needed help, I think I could get it from:

もし助けが必要なら、それを頼める人として当てはまる項目を選んでください。

	Definitely Yes	Maybe	Definitely No
a. A parent 両親
b. A brother or sister 兄弟姉妹
c. Another family member その他の家族
d. A teacher 先生
e. A counselor カウンセラー
f. Another school staff member その他の職員
g. Another adult その他の大人
h. Another student他の生徒

13. I think this school has:

この学校に当てはまる項目を選んでください。

___ More problems than most other schools

　　他の学校より、問題を多く持っている。

___ About the same amount of problems as most other schools

　　他の学校と同じくらいの問題を持っている。

___ Less problems than most other schools

　　他の学校より、問題を少なく持っている。