High School Students Learn Trust and Communication Skills in Modified Conversation Cafés

by Alec R. Colovos

I am a high school teacher in Spanaway, Washington. I was so impressed with the Conversation Cafés I participated in over the summer that I went into my communication arts classes on the first day of school and turned them into Conversation Cafés.

I first found that in order to ask high school students, forced into a class by compulsory education, to participate in a Conversation Café, it was necessary to modify the structure, because of the need to build the kind of trust that all of us who go to a Café simply assume. The CC agreements, however, are perfect and all encompassing as they stand, and are almost exactly what
I had been asking of students prior to ever hearing about Cafés, so we use them exactly as written.

(read a perspective from one of the students)

During the first quarter of the semester, while I’ve been teaching the students computer skills, I have also had them in Café after Café, talking about whatever the group they are in wishes to talk about, building trust in each other, in the whole group and in themselves, so that we will be able to move to more meaningful conversation in the second quarter. I took a lot of feedback from students on what would help make this happen and we came up with the following structure:

• Step zero: Relax and breathe!
• Step one: Brainstorm potential topics you would like to talk about. (1 minute)
• Step two: Begin this conversation with one other person. (5 minutes)
• Step three: Get into groups of four and choose a topic from your combined brainstorm lists so you can continue the conversation. Start by using a talking stick and letting each person state their position on the topic and explain why they feel this way.
• Step four: Continue talking in your group of four but this time make a point of looking at the topic from the perspectives of various people. For example, when we talked about the use of tasers, you gave your opinion, but what would you be thinking if you were the policeman who had to make the choice, or the suspect about to be subdued, or an innocent bystander, or a family member of any one of the previous people?
• Step five: Get back into the full group discussion by creating the smallest circle possible.
  Step six: We will have three minutes of silence where no one is to talk and each of you is to simply write down your opinion on the topic now that you have had all of the preceding conversations.
• Step seven: Whole group discussion.
• Step eight: In the paragraph you will be writing today, share with us your final opinion on our topic. It would be interesting, if you did change your opinion significantly over the course of today's conversation, if you were to share how and why that change occurred.

I realize this has taken liberties with the defined structure you folks have shared with us, and you should know that that structure has worked wonderfully at the various Conversation Cafés I have attended with adults. But in my classroom, where I have students who didn't choose to be there and who didn't necessarily feel safe on day one, this structure has allowed us in less than a month to reach the following:

Every single student is talking in the groups. Many students now realize that I see value in the topics that matter to them and so feel validated as human beings. Numerous students have talked about how this is the first time in their life they have felt the reality of their life was as real and important as the "real world" that adults keep telling them they haven't gotten to yet. Two students who had lost their friendship because of a falling out were able to discuss the incident and are now friends again. A student having problems in his relationship was able to discuss it with a girl in class who explained or shared her thoughts on why this person's girlfriend was responding the way she was and the boy left class no longer angry or upset with his girlfriend and feeling it was time they had a serious conversation.

If I actually knew what was being talked about and said in all of the groups going on in my classroom at the same time, I would probably have more examples like the last two, where a student has left my classroom having experienced a significant breakthrough in communicating and perhaps realizing that not all conversation has to be superficial.

Editor’s note: Mr. Colovos is planning to have the students use the full-fledged Conversation Café Process and Agreements, now that they have grown trust and skills through using the modified process … but it hasn’t happened (quite) yet. So, stay tuned to our next quarterly newsletter to hear how that goes!

Melissa B., a student in Alec Colovos’ High School Communication Arts class,
reflects on her experience of Conversation Cafés:

Well, I think that we really start to rely on our classmates and peers around us for answers and help on our work instead of always looking to our teachers for every little thing. And when we get out into the "Real World" we won’t have our teachers there with us, still telling us what to do. In school we need to learn things that will help us to get a job and to live on our own successfully.

It also in a way forces us to really step out of our comfort zone and really make that big step in talking to people, because I can say that most people are uncomfortable interacting with others. And this helps us to really listen to what they are saying, not just saying what we want to say and that’s that. And we actually sit there and think about what we are going to say because if someone else is talking then, so that we don't forget, all we have to do is write it down, and if it doesn't make any sense on paper then you're more likely not to waste anyone else's time with asking it, and then it will save you from embarrassment.

It gets us more involved in the class and we actually want to have our class discussions. And I think it’s really interesting to see the different points of view people have on the different topics. And because this system is the way it is, it enables us to think outside the box and to really jump out on a limb with some ideas that we have, but really no idea is worth throwing away, because as I've learned, just because I think something is dumb and not interesting it doesn't mean that to someone else it is. But really, as simple as this whole concept is, its results are radically different from those students who take just a regular "communications class.” After all, the whole purpose of a communication arts class is to show and teach us how to communicate with others.