The principal and other staff members at South Oak Cliff High School were supposed to be breaking up fights. Instead, they sent troubled students into a steel utility cage in an athletic locker room to battle it out with bare fists and no head protection, records show.
-Dallas News, "Dallas ISD records show school held 'cage fights'"
Is this an acceptable method of conflict resolution to teach our young children?
I'm not saying it's the best way for two people to resolve conflict, but if the alternative is that a teenager pulls a gun out on the street after school and blasts one round on his classmates. . . I would vote yes. The high school administrators do have a progressive idea for modern youth to resolve conflict between and within themselves: physical activity. In middle school I volunteered as a peer in the conflict resolution program and of course no one took it seriously The conflicts lasted far beyond a half hour session of "he said/she said" finger pointing and I would end up watching the same kids on the basketball courts brawling after school. (That says something about my ability as peer facilitator but hey, I was only 13!)
But given a pair of boxing gloves, head and mouth gear, and an unbiased facilitator who will call the fight when he/she feels that one party is doing too much damage... its like starting a boxing club at a high school. What a grand idea! I hear my colleagues at the NOVA (No Violence Alliance) program, which works with repeat violent male offenders, constantly referring clients to boxing clubs in the City. There must be some positive ends to such drastic means.
And yes, not everyone will benefit from fisticuffs nor would they want to engage in that kind of resolution. I'm sure the high school computer nerd wouldn't want to step into a cage with the young black football player after accidentally stepping on his Pumas.
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