In the last blog, we explored how the simple mantra of “Be Fun to Play With, Be Fun to Play Against,” which is the basis for understanding sportsmanship with our lower elementary students, directly correlates with various skills of SEL.

Here is a quick review of the SEL skillset:

·      Self Awareness

o   Identifying Emotions

o   Expressing Emotions

o   Mindfulness

o   Self-Confidence

o   Recognizing Strengths

·      Self Management

o   Managing Emotions

o   Resilience

o   Stress Management

o   Impulse Control

o   Self Motivation

·      Social Awareness

o   Empathy

o   Discovering Differences

o   Diversity Appreciation

o   Civic Engagement

o   Respect for Others

·      Relationship Skills

o   Conflict Resolution

o   Active Listening

o   Cooperation

o   Teamwork

o   Communication

·      Decision Making

o   Identifying Problems

o   Solving Problems

o   Analyzing Situations

o   Goal Setting

o   Leadership Skills

The mantra Be Fun to Play With, Be Fun to Play Against still works with upper elementary, but they are older and more mature. There conflicts can be more complicated, and we need more than the mantra to solve some disagreements. A common example is when one student criticizes another student who was distracted or not paying attention, because they missed a play or made a mistake. The criticizer wants them to pay attention and play better, and this makes sense. A distracted teammate is not fun to play with. However, the student receiving the criticism usually does not like it, and they may not want to play anymore. The criticizer is not being fun to play with either. Each point of view is valid, so how do we approach a topic like this?

If the disagreement cannot be handled in the moment by the students and they need a teacher mediator, after listening to both sides of the disagreement, I will ask one simple question to the student is being portrayed as the aggressor.

“What was the intended outcome?”

Another way to ask this question is, “What did you want to happen?”

These questions get to the source of the conflict in a way that does not make anyone good or bad. Instead, the motivations and intentions of the students become apparent (identifying problems). We can have a logical conversation about the choices and consequences made, and emotions can be identified and expressed with “if, then” statements. Because of enhanced empathy, we have a better chance that both parties will reach a satisfactory compromise (conflict resolution).

Let’s take a deeper look at the motivations of the criticizer. After I ask them what they wanted to happen, their answer is usually that they wanted the other student to pay attention. Logically, this would probably improve the performance of the teammate, thereby improving the performance of the whole team. However, in this case, the criticism leads to the other player shutting down and not wanting to play anymore. They feel embarrassed and sad, so their performance suffers. This is the opposite of what the criticizer wanted, but that is what commonly happens. Additionally, the criticized student will have negative feelings centered on the criticizer, which may last far longer than that day. This could lead to poor performance in the future, or not wanting to play with this student at all (analyzing situations).

After making that apparent to the criticizer, we conclude that public criticism may not be the best course of action anymore. It didn’t get the result they wanted; it actually made the situation worse. It hurt the feelings of their classmate, and hurt feelings take time to heal. We can now explore alternate solutions with the criticizer because we know criticism in this scenario didn’t work. We can game plan with new solutions if this scenario happened again. For example, the student could privately remind the student to pay attention next time (goal setting).

The student who wasn’t paying attention is not off the hook. We know that distracted teammates are not fun to play with, so we need to find out how or why they were distracted. Maybe it was a simple accident or mistake, so we know they will try harder next time, and it is as simple as that. Maybe they were talking to a friend and have been ignoring their responsibilities as a good teammate. Maybe this was not the first time this player has made a mistake this game and actually they have made lots of errors due to an ongoing conversation with someone else. We need this context to truly analyze the situation. There is a good chance that the criticizer did their best to manage their emotions, but after too many errors from the distracted player, they had had enough. When a teammate is not trying their best, this is very frustrating, especially when the other players are putting in maximum effort. We have an expectation that everyone on our team is putting forth the same effort we are, and when that expectation is not met, we can get upset. So, we need to remind the distracted player that to be a good teammate, they need to put forth a good effort, which makes them fun to play with.

We can only expect our teammates to do their best, and we know they will make mistakes. If the distracted student just made a simple mistake, we want to equip them with language that will help them acknowledge their mistake and they will try harder next time. This will build resilience and self-confidence, because criticism in the future will be met with a plan of action, and they will not take it personally. This communication with the teammate will prove they are actively listening and show that they are being a good teammate.

By asking students what they wanted to happen, everyone gets a better understanding of each other. To be fair, this line of questioning rarely happens in the moment. With amped up feelings and the intensity of the game, most of the time they are not ready to have this conversation immediately. We usually need a time after the fact to have a mediation or peace talk. However, if the behavior is not an isolated incident to those specific students, and it is something I am observing happening with several members of the class, I have no problem stopping the whole game and having this conversation with the whole class. I need to fight my own impulses to let things slide and continue the game for the sake of getting maximum playing time at the expense of how the children are treating each other. We want the students to know that the way they treat each other is as important as the game itself.