Developing Student Leadership Through Peer Teaching in Schools

Abstract

This paper reports on the outcomes of a major, evidenced-based program that uses drama and peer teaching to empower students to deal with conflict and bullying more effectively and become leaders in their schools. The extensive research was conducted in a range of primary and secondary schools in Australia, and was part of a larger international project using conflict resolution concepts and techniques combined with drama strategies to address cultural conflict in schools. The combination of drama and formal cross-age peer teaching emerged as highly effective strategies in empowering students to manage a range of conflicts in schools, especially bullying, and in becoming positive mentors and role models within their school communities. The research particularly revealed that operating as peer teachers enabled numbers of students to assume leadership of the entire program in their schools. The power of peer teaching to stimulate student leadership in schools emerged as a major outcome of almost two decades of action research into conflict and bullying in schools. The research began as an international research program, with projects in Australia, Sweden, and Malaysia. Established by conflict resolution academics at the Peace and Development Institute at Gothenburg University in Sweden, the program was originally focused on the use of drama in schools in a range of different cultures with the aim of resolving cultural conflict. As the projects developed in different countries, a range of concepts, techniques, and approaches were trialled, and cross-age peer teaching emerged as an extraordinarily effective strategy for addressing conflict and bullying by empowering students to take responsibility for these issues and to change behaviours and attitudes in their schools. Peer teaching was introduced by the Australian researchers from Griffith University as an experiment in enhancing both motivation and learning. The first trial was so successful that peer teaching became an integral part of the research plan and was adopted by the Swedish researchers as central to their methodology. Four research projects addressing conflict and bullying in schools have been conducted in Australia in the past 10 years, and have consistently confirmed that crossage peer teaching generates genuine understanding in learners, and empowers students to deal with cultural and other conflicts and to become effective leaders and role models in their schools in relation to conflict and bullying. Furthermore, an unanticipated outcome of the use of peer teaching was the reengagement in their education of a number of disaffected students and negative leaders who participated in the research. Functioning as peer teachers appeared to increase the self-esteem, motivation and competence of these students, reigniting their interest in learning and commitment to their education, and transforming them into positive leaders. This outcome remains a consistent thread throughout the life of the research.