Handling difficult situations

This was our last learning session for Peer Mediation. We started off with a co-operative activity where we worked in groups of 6 to create a macine. Each group could decide on their machine and mime it. After 5 minutes it was "Do or Die" and we had to perform for the rest of the group. The machines were great; there was a washing machine, a fridge, a trike, a toaster and more. We had to guess what each group was.
Today we learnt how to manage difficult situations. When they ask for mediation, some people have problems with:
Lying
Lack of co-operation
Keeping self control
Mostly we can use body language, hand signals and "I" statements to help us mediate.
Next we had a new game of Elephant and Palm Tree and finally we reflected on the things we enjoyed and learned this session. As always, the games were a hit.
Next week we will be organising our timetable for duties so we need to decide on our working teams as our homework activity.

Week 5 The Mediation Process

We started off by doing a trust walk which is where your partner helps you to get around the room with your eyes closed. Your partner needs to give you instructions so that you don't fall over or bang into people. It made us realise how important it is that mediators can be trusted.
We practised the whole mediation process today and most pairs had a turn at mediating for the first time. There were lots of things to remember but we have already learnt the skills we need in our earlier sessions.
We learnt a new game called "Touch Blue" this week. There is a caller and and they have to call a colour and a body part like "Yellow" and "Ankle". You have to touch a piece of clothing on one person and the body part of another. It can get tricky and you need to help each other out.
We all agreed that the games are an enjoyable part of mediation lessons.

Open and Closed Questions Week 4

This week we were learning the skill of open and closed questions. We use both types of questions when we are mediating. We use closed questions when we want to find out simple answers at the start. We use open questions when we need to find out more information in the actual mediation.
During the introduction stage of the mediation we use these closed questions.
What is your name?
Do you agree to the four rules?
- No name calling?
- No interruptions
- Be as honest as you can.
- Try to solve the problem.
Next we use open questions like:
- What happened?
- How can we solve the problem?
As usual we played some co-operative games and at the end we used our reflective thinking skills to say what we had enjoyed, learnt and what could be improved.
Most people loved the games and enjoyed learning the new skill too. Several people felt that we could improve on the noise level. Some of it was fun noise in the games
butwe agreed to try to monitor the noise during the rest of the time.