LEHS mediators finish program at Brickett

LYNN – After a year of working with Brickett Elementary School kindergartners to teach them the importance of leadership and community service, the Lynn English High School peer mediation group led their young students on a mission of giving Thursday, visiting the residents of the Lynn Home for Elderly Persons.The group of LEHS volunteers led the kindergarten students on an unseasonably chilly walk to the Atlantic Avenue elderly home Thursday, hauling a stack of home made flowerpots complete with freshly planted flowers to give to the home’s residents.The peer mediators met with the students earlier in the day to help with the design and decorating of the flowerpots and the planting of the flowers.The project was all part of an ongoing partnership between the two schools that has seen LEHS students visit the kindergarten classrooms on three different occasions.”The goal of these visits was to encourage younger students to accept diversity as a positive aspect of life, embracing differences as exciting instead of a reason for conflict,” said Peer Mediation Coordinator Ginny Keenan. “The final visit (involved) a joint community service project where high school mediators (modeled) the importance of giving to their community and kindergartners (experienced) first hand the positive feeling that comes from working together towards the common goal of helping others.”The first meetings between the two groups focused on understanding differences and teaching conflict resolution to younger children. By teaching tolerance and kindness to students at such a young age, the peer mediation group hopes to curb the trends of bullying and violence among students.The LEHS students role-played with the kindergarten classes during the year, acting out playground and classroom situations where students would come across bullies or people that are different from them.It is similar to what the mediators do at the high school level when they meet with classmates who are having conflicts or personal issues.”One of the main goals of the peer mediation program, in addition to resolving student-based conflict, is to provide problem-solving and conflict resolution skills to our student leaders,” said Keenan. “We encourage them to seek a wide range of situations where their skills can be used and to take the initiative to help others outside of school to resolve their conflicts.”Peer mediation is a successful program organized at all three high schools to help resolve conflicts between students before things get out of hand. Volunteers meet with and speak to students who are having problems with one another, oftentimes before the issue is ever brought to the attention of a teacher or administrator at the school. In most cases, students feel comfortable talking to their peers about the problem and tend to resolve the issue more quickly, and sometimes more peacefully, than they would without the meeting.Keenan says she is hoping to continue the efforts of the students at the Brickett next year, noting that her students took a lot out of the experience.”This program with the Brickett School has been a real highlight for my mediators this year, with them clearly getting as much out of the mentoring relationship as they are giving,” she said.