Let’s teach students to disagree well

Whether it’s a dinner table conversation that turns to politics or a business negotiation, healthy and respectful conflict management and artful persuasion are tools for everyday life. These are critical topics to teach today’s students – negotiating through a conflict can build empathy and an understanding of how to bridge differences. This results in better communication and stronger relationships in their personal and professional lives. 

• Don’t fear conflict in the classroom: foster respectful discussion instead
• Talking about taboos: how to create an open atmosphere for discussing difficult subjects
• Four steps to robust and respectful classroom discussion

Higher education can play a key role in incorporating these areas into coursework. Educators can integrate principles of civil discourse and conflict resolution into a range of subjects because disagreements occur in every discipline and workplace. The ability to find common interests and reach a course of action is a transferable skill that learners can cultivate throughout their lives, as long as they’re given the tools to do it in their education.

Teaching the art of disagreeing better

A framework for resolving conflict is based on the understanding that a disagreement doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. The goal isn’t for one person to “win” and the other to “lose” but rather for both sides to feel heard and to find a way forward. This process involves three steps:

• One person recognises a disagreement and then seeks to learn what is most important to their antagonist. What can’t they live without?
• The seeker expresses respect for what is important to their antagonist, discusses what is most important to themselves, and works with the antagonist to recognise the important items to both sides and to agree to find a way forward with respect for firmly held beliefs, principles and needs.
• The contestants discuss the situation and action steps until they reach a negotiated solution or answer where everyone might not have achieved what they wanted but everybody gets to keep some of what’s important to them.

Integrating these principles in the classroom

University and college faculty can bring discussions about conflict and how conflict is managed into their lessons. Here’s how:

• Have students analyse different published interpretations of data, then research the authors and discover what is important to them in their research agendas.
• In an online discussion board, the instructor can instruct the class to argue with them. Take one point of view for the first half of the week, then switch to another point of view to expand that side of the debate for the second half.
• Assign students to write their true perspective on a topic that includes conflicting opinions, and then have them write a second essay that takes the opposing side of the argument and develops it thoroughly. In a third essay, the student can describe what they learned.
• Students can brainstorm on conflicts they’ve known or experienced, with the goal of articulating what was important to each person in the disagreement and what a well-negotiated outcome would be for everyone.

Universities can also create course offerings focused solely on the art of conflict management. For example, my university’s Disagree Better class, a public-facing project that is part of Governor Jared Polis’ statewide focus on civil discourse in public life, is available as an elective in the university’s curriculum and as a professional training offering for industry partners. Students report a significant boost in their own perceived powers of conflict negotiation after taking the class: 

• Prior to taking Disagree Better, 44 per cent of students indicated they felt uncomfortable having conversations where they disagreed.
• After taking Disagree Better, all students indicated they felt comfortable or very comfortable having conversations where they disagreed.
• 89 per cent of students felt the class provided them with tools to have productive conversations in both a personal and professional setting.
• 78 per cent indicated that they would be interested in similar topics related to conflict management following this class.

Learning to see the world through another viewpoint is one of the goals of teaching students how to manage conflict. Taking up another perspective and understanding what is important to another person or group, and why it’s important, is a cornerstone of critical thinking. 

Higher education can teach students the skills to learn how to navigate human-centred and human-caused conflict. Conflict management requires applied, real-time critical thinking, reflection on others’ priorities and communication expertise in talking to others to define problems and find solutions. Help students understand that no one has to win or lose if we’re all looking for a way to keep something of value to us while solving a shared problem. They can leave zero-sum brinkmanship behind and develop true leadership skills, which are increasingly important in a factionalised world. 

Audra Spicer is provost and chief academic officer at Colorado State University Global.

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