An Inquiry Into Conflict

     Our next unit of inquiry is into the central theme of How We Express Ourselves. We are really trying to get the children to see how conflict brings out different forms of expression from peaceful protests, songs, poems, riots etc.  So the first day  I chose some kids at random and gave lots of special privileges and candy, or whatever I could find to start to create some conflict within our room.  Honestly, at the beginning no one was getting upset!! I was glad my children got along so well, but it was throwing off our social experiment. I had to up the ante and start handing on the big guns, like pencils, stars- I even had some teachers come in and give out prizes.  Then we had some conflict (directed toward me)!
     I never really shared what was happening- I just asked the kids to go home and reflect upon their feelings today and how they were expressing themselves in time of conflict.  They came in on Tuesday with some great ideas!!  ** I did let parents know on Facebook what had gone down so there were no concerns about why someone was intentionally left out**
Here is a picture of our chart the kids made- we first discussed their feelings- then they added what they new about conflicts within our world, school, or community.

It was a great discussion, and I found a lot of gaps in their understanding of war, and different types of conflict occuring now.