My Fault, Making Amends

People disagree about all types of things, and that’s okay. Conflict is a normal part of life. It’s important to know how to handle conflict effectively, so people don’t get their feelings hurt. Today, we’re going to do an activity called My Fault, Making Amends to practice solving conflicts in a way that supports everyone involved in the disagreement.

1. Show students the My Fault, Making Amends Poster, and review each step:
   • Take responsibility: I did _____ (knocked over your tower, cut you in line, etc.).
   • Apologize: I’m sorry I did _____. (Facilitators may need to support students with this step).
   • Work to try to fix the problem. I would like to ____. To resolve this, I/we could ____. We choose to resolve this conflict by _____.
2. Using role-play scenarios, have student volunteers practice using My Fault, Making Amends in pairs or as a class. As a group, have students track each step on the Poster.
3. If possible, write down the specifics for each scenario on the board as students work through the role plays.
4. As conflicts arise, walk students through this process. Help students mentally check off each step as they complete the process.

• Why is it important to solve problems?
• Is there a time this week you could have used the My Fault, Making Amends Poster to settle a disagreement? What happened? How could My Fault, Making Amends have helped you?
• What are other ways you could make amends with others?

For primary school students:

• Use puppets to role play the different scenarios. Ask student volunteers to take on the role of one of the puppets and help you act out the scene.
• Help students practice by using the following scenarios to help students work through the different steps on the poster: * Someone cut in line * Someone refused to share * Someone called you a name

For middle school students:

• Each week, nominate a different student to be the Resolution Referee. When different conflicts happen at school, ask the Resolution Referee to lend a listening ear to the group experiencing the conflict and help solve the problem.
• Design a poster with students. Ask older students to help you add, remove, or rename steps from the process based on student or classroom needs. Additional steps might include: making a plan to follow up with each other to make sure the solution works for everyone, sharing their resolution with the class, etc.