Skip to main content

National College Credit Recommendation Service

Board of Regents  |  University of the State of New York

Camphill Academy | Evaluated Learning Experience

Return to Camphill Academy

Conflict and Communication

Length: 
15 hours (variable - over several weeks).
Location: 
Camphill Communities California, Soquel, CA; The Camphill School, Glenmoore, PA; Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, Phoenixville, PA; Camphill Village, USA, Copake, NY; Heartbeet Lifesharing, Hardwick, VT; Plowshare Farm, Greenfield, NH; instructor-led individual study at various locations across North America.
Dates: 
March 2007 - Present.
Instructional delivery format: 
Traditional classroom model
Mentor-facilitated Independent Study
Workshop Intensive
Learner Outcomes: 

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to: understand how social processes can create and support healthy situations for conflicts and conflict resolution processes and thereby transform damaging conflicts into individual and institutional growth; discuss the spiritual and historical context of communication and conflict; examine the nature of communication and conflict; articulate one’s personal relationship to communication and conflict; use improved speaking, listening, and mediation skills; begin to recognize the sources of conflict; explain the levels of conflict, how conflict escalates, how conflict de-escalates; describe the process of mediation; recognize the sources of conflict.

Instruction: 

Practictioners of inclusive social development often work in organizations and institutions of a non-hierarchical nature. Such institutions encourage conflict and require high levels of communication between individuals. Conflict is viewed as a potentially health giving dynamic. The aim of this course is to give an introductory overview of how social processes can create healthy situations for conflict and transform damaging conflicts into individual and institutional growth. Topics covered include: Theoretical introduction to: the anthroposophical context of communication, speech and listening; hierarchical and non-hierarchical institutional structures and the role of conflict and communication in these structures; power - its nature, its purpose, its uses; conflict - the dehumanizing processes of conflict, the concept of the "double," transformational faces in conflict; types of conflict - destructive vs. constructive, hot vs. cold; the Karmic nature of conflict; the contexts of conflict - personal, interpersonal, within groups, between groups; identifying the subjective manifestations of conflict; identifying the objective causes of conflict - mechanisms of conflict, escalation levels, de-escalation, de-escalation roles - friends, witnesses, mediators; mediation - framework and agreements, methods of mediation, perception building tools, mediation tools, mediation processes, concluding mediation processes, reviewing mediation processes; the Inner Path as a training for the healthy management of conflict - the six exercises, the eightfold path, the role of sympathy and antipathy in generating conflict: empathy as the solution.

Credit recommendation: 

In the upper division baccalaureate degree category, 1 semester hour in Curative Education, Communication Studies, Conflict Resolution, Psychology, Social Science, Social Therapy, Social Agriculture, Inclusive Social Development, Organizational Development, Management Studies, Community Studies, and any discipline that could benefit from such a complementary learning experience (9/07) (10/10 revalidation) (11/15 revalidation) (10/20 revalidation).

Top