Presented by Adam Piccoli

How much do disagreements potentially negatively impact our students’ emotional well-being? As educators, it is common to witness a student struggle to concentrate on schoolwork after enduring bitter arguments with parents, peers, or close friends. This workshop will describe practical techniques based on scholarly research from modern-day psychologists, educators, and neuroscientists. Teachers, sales professionals, and even FBI hostage negotiators have also field-tested these strategies. The workshop will focus on the following areas: Rogerian rhetoric, using self-skeptical language, how to demonstrate empathy with proper word choices, practical anger management techniques while arguing, effective vocal tonality for persuasion, and using inquiry techniques to change minds. Specific examples will be delineated of how to implement these strategies into ELA writing tasks and class discussions. The audience will be given opportunities to create their own classroom activities incorporating these strategies. The audience will learn how to use these strategies to manage student behavior and have more productive disagreements with anyone in their everyday lives. Using these strategies for productive disagreements with our students, we can help improve their long-term social-emotional health and our own.