- Students are autonomous individuals capable of making their own decisions and choices; they are active subjects, not passive objects.
- Students are never merely victims of forces over which they have no control; they always have the potential to change their relationship with that which has limited them.
- Student conduct is based on the individual’s experience and interpretation of the world.
- A classroom is a microcosm of the complex challenges of modern society, which naturally and inescapably produces conflict and the experience of disturbance in everyday life.
- Students and staff are both disturbed and disturbing; disturbance is the result of tension or unresolved conflict-not the result of a disabling condition in and of itself.
- Students and staff get their needs met principally through conscious decisions to identify and manage conflict.
- There is no education without cooperation and no cooperation without consensus. Consensus is established by the ongoing process of the identification and resolution of conflict.
- While conflict can be difficult and disturbing, it can also be a catalyst for creativity and an opportunity to imagine, experiment, and establish new and better ways to meet one’s needs.
- Independence and self-responsibility are fostered by respect for the individual’s autonomy and shared decision-making-not by manipulation, control, or behavior modification.
Our goal is not prevention, nor is it compliance and conformity; it is radical self-discipline—the ability to control ourselves when we least feel like it. The most important work we do is our day-to-day, moment-to-moment interaction with students. It is here that we either recreate the old paradigm or invent a new one.
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