Monthly Archives: June 2005

Today is Father’s Day here in the U.S., a day when those of us who are fortunate enough to have fathers (or, perhaps I should say, are on speaking terms with our fathers) take time to express our thanks to the dads who made a difference in our lives.

This post is dedicated to my own father, Maury Levin, loyal Red Sox fan and all-around great dad, who taught me many important lessons—the rewards of virtues like honesty, hard work, and perseverance—and also imparted skills vital for day-to-day living—how to pitch and hit a baseball, calculate a tip, read a map, and cuss fluently in Yiddish.

My dad is also a fan of games and puzzles—a predilection I seem to have inherited. (Readers of this blog have probably noticed this—I’ve posted any number of times on the subject of online negotiation games.)

I especially like lateral thinking puzzles. A lateral thinking puzzle tells a brief story with a minimum of details and poses a challenge to be solved on the basis of the few facts provided.

Puzzles are great to use in mediation or conflict resolution trainings. They’re fun as warm-ups, of course, but more importantly they invite creativity and encourage flexibility in problem-solving in the participants. What puzzles teach groups is that an idea from one member of the group can spark an idea in another member, which motivates and inspires the group as a whole. It’s intriguing to see how collaboration produces clever solutions more quickly and effectively than individuals acting alone.

Anyway, my dad got his 15 minutes of fame recently when he submitted his own puzzle to “Says You!”, a game show produced by NPR station WGBH in Boston. “Says You” describes itself as a “game of words and whimsy, bluff and bluster”. My dad’s submission was actually chosen and used on-air to stump the “Says You” panel of puzzle-busters.

My dad’s puzzle, a series of literary challenges, is available here (in PDF format) for your enjoyment. Although not a lateral thinking puzzle, it nonetheless requires creative thinking, and, like most challenges, is way more fun to solve with a group of people than on your own.

And, if you’d like to wrestle with some lateral thinking puzzles, just click here.

At any rate, here’s wishing a very happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there—my own especially. Thanks for everything.

I was going to save this post to coincide with the release of the remake of “War of the Worlds” on June 29, but I decided I simply couldn’t wait.

The following definitely falls into the “We couldn’t make this up if we tried” category.

For those mediators who are no longer feeling challenged by ho-hum disputes between neighbors, business partners, or warring nations, there’s a course designed with you in mind: Exopolitics 102: Citizen Diplomacy with Extraterrestrials, available through Exopolitics.org, a web site devoted to exploring “the political implications of the extraterrestrial presence”. This 14-week program scheduled for this fall provides a special section on “Applying Principles of ‘Citizen Diplomacy’ to Extraterrestrial Affairs”, which includes a module on “Key Principles of Conflict Resolution, Mediation & Track Two or ‘Citizen’ Diplomacy”. (One can only imagine what the case studies are like.)

Beam me up, Scotty…

More and more people are getting the message that certain fundamental life skills, including conflict resolution, are key to getting and keeping a job.

In support of that point, consider a great story in this morning’s Phoenixville News about the Chester County Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC), a non-profit organization in Pennsylvania dedicated to providing adult literacy and life skills programs. Its goal is to provide training to prepare individuals to gain independence and employment.

OIC recently honored its second graduating class of the Independent Career Action Network (I CAN) Program. This program, aimed at out-of-school youth in the 16-to-21 age bracket, in addition to teaching basic job and learning skills—resume writing, job application strategies, interview techniques, and time management and office technology skills—also teaches conflict resolution skills, along with active listening, problem solving and anger management techniques.

For more on this program or what you can do to support it, please visit the OIC web site.

Yes, I know it’s hard to think of snowy February when it’s June and summer here in the northern hemisphere.

Nonetheless I’m delighted to announce that Online Guide to Mediation (that’s me) will be hosting the February 6, 2006, edition of Blawg Review.

Describing itself as a “carnival of the blawgs” (although, sorry, no fried dough or Ferris wheels), Blawg Review is a moveable feast—each Monday it’s hosted by a different law blog, which sums up a week’s worth of the new and noteworthy in law blogging. Then, like the genuine article, this virtual carnival pulls up stakes and moves on to another location. This gives visitors to Blawg Review an opportunity to sample a variety of law blogs.

So please go ahead and check out this week’s Blawg Review #10, which is hosted by Evan Brown at InternetCases.com. And this coming Monday be sure to pay a visit to Al Nye the Lawyer Guy, who is next week’s Blawg Review host.

By the way, you don’t have to be a lawyer to enjoy these carnivals. This week’s Blawg Review features blog posts on medical marijuana; tort reform (which IMHO everyone should be worried about, not just personal injury lawyers), and blogging basics, which offers a link to an article Al Nye wrote for the Spring 2005 Maine Bar Journal (in PDF format, on page 39) with plenty of great tips on blogging for anyone who wants to join in on the blogging craze.

Two stories involving schoolchildren and conflict resolution were reported on the Internet from opposite ends of the U.S. within the past 24 hours.

The first story, which appeared on the web site for the Christian Science Monitor, concerns a new Washington State law dubbed “The Family Preservation Act” which establishes a curriculum to teach public school children relationship skills, including conflict resolution.

With a little diligent digging, I was able to locate the text of the new law on the Washington legislature’s web site. (Scroll down that page and click on the words Bill As Passed Legislature for the statute in PDF format, or paste the following URL into your browser: http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2005-06/Pdf/Bills/House Bills/1252-S.E.pdf.) The statute provides that the “model curriculum shall include, but is not limited to, instruction on developing conflict management skills, communication skills, domestic violence and dating violence, financial responsibility, and parenting responsibility.” The statute encourages, but doesn’t require, schools to implement the curriculum.

This legislation, apparently prompted by alarm over the rising divorce rate and the growing financial burden that divorce places upon state resources, generated some controversy prior to its approval by the legislature. At least one legislator expressed concern that such a curriculum would promote antagonism towards nontraditional families or single parents, a concern that I share.

(I myself am all for teaching kids conflict management skills, but I’m not convinced that it’s the job of our public schools to teach our children how to have “successful and fulfilling family relationships” as the statute claims. I figure that’s my job as a parent, thank you very much.)

The second story comes straight from Boston, my home town. The Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General has just released its report on Elements of a Successful Peer Mediation Program. This report provides a list of recommendations and questions to serve as guidelines for any school in the process of developing its own peer mediation program for its students.

The Attorney General’s Office has identified five elements vital for the success of peer mediation programs: appropriate staffing; quality training to adequately prepare mediators; appropriate mediators who truly are peers, reflect the diversity of the school, and can uphold confidentiality; support by the entire school system, including teachers and administrators; and ongoing consultation. This report also describes five phases necessary for the development of a successful peer mediation program: Developing a Vision for Peer Mediation; Information Gathering and Planning; Program Design; Program Implementation; and Program Management.

You can view the full report by clicking here.

There was construction underway over the weekend on Online Guide to Mediation’s sidebar (that’s the column over there on the right). Please take some time to check out the latest additions:

1. A brand-spanking-new blogroll. (Just scroll down to find it–it’s below my list of links.) This is an inventory of the blogs I enjoy reading, broken down by categories—alternative dispute resolution blogs, law blogs, blog directories, miscellaneous blogs, and blogs with great names. (The last category gave me some consternation, since I didn’t want anyone on my blogroll whose blogs weren’t included in this category to believe for one minute that I didn’t think the names of their blogs were great, too. For the record, I think they’re all great.)

By the way, if you’re looking for an easy way to manage your own blogroll, I would recommend Bloglines. It’s a terrific way to keep track of your RSS news feeds as well. (Thanks, George, for the helpful advice.)

2. A link to the new ADR Web Ring which Mediation Mensch Dina Beach Lynch and I have co-created. You’ll find it right at the very end of my sidebar. Dina and I extend an open invitation to anyone with an interest in alternative dispute resolution (or who is ADR-friendly) to join our web ring. If you have a blog, web site, wiki, directory, search engine, or online community, we want to know about it. Join the ADR Web Ring and get your web site listed so the rest of us can see what you’ve been up to. Not sure if your web site belongs? Go ahead and submit it anyway—we want to be inclusive, not exclusive.

The out-of-doors apparently offers benefits well beyond fresh air and scenery, as a story in the Los Angeles Times today reports.

According to a recent study of at-risk fifth- and sixth graders in schools in rural areas in Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California, children who participated in a week-long outdoors environmental studies program not only improved their science scores and showed a great appreciation for the environment, but also demonstrated increased confidence, were more cooperative, and showed a greater openness to conflict resolution.

The study, Effects of Outdoor Education Programs for Children in California, was conducted by the American Institutes for Research on behalf of the California Department of Education.

You can view the executive summary of the study by clicking here.