Paulette Trottier stands facing three dozen Grade 5 and 6 students in a conference room at the Best Western Jasper Inn and Suites. The kids, looking earnest, have put their clipboards down on their chairs and are standing too, their eyes fixed towards their teacher.

“Are you ready?” asks Trottier. “Let’s go.”

And with that, the assistant principal at Jasper Elementary School begins half reading, half singing a poem to the kids about how to calm down when they feel they are losing their tempers.

“Hands on hips,” the poem begins, and the students follow the instructions in unison.

“Hands on knees, touch the floor, if you please,” Trottier continues, and the class follows suit.

“Now, swing to the left, swing to the right, relax your body, now squeeze it tight. Stand up tall, reach arms up high. Tip back your head – and give a big sigh.”

The room explodes with enthusiastic, over-the-top exhalations from the kids, followed by a cacophony of giggling and chatter. Finally it subsides.

“Ahhh... I feel really calm right now,” one young girl remarks.

The exercise is one of many the students run through as they are trained to become certified conflict mediators for their peers. In this case, they are learning how to stay emotionally stable when a situation becomes heated. Later they go through similar exercises teaching them how to interpret body language, how to listen effectively and how to resolve disagreements.

It’s a program that’s been going on at Jasper Elementary for about 20 years, Trottier says, and students are eager to participate.

This course is not a mandatory part of the school’s curriculum. Students have to write a letter explaining why they would like to become mediators before they are accepted to take the training.

“They show me that they have an interest and they want to put in the time,” Trottier says. “Then, after that, they come over here to do the one day of training and then they have one or two days a month that they are on duty.”

Every morning at Jasper Elementary, she says, there is an announcement to let the entire school know which students are “on duty” for that particular day. Two mediators are assigned for indoor duty and two for outdoor duty during recess, and if any other students end up having a disagreement, they know they can seek out the mediators’ assistance to help sort out their differences.

There is a formal process each pair of mediators follows when students come to them with a dispute. First they greet the aggrieved parties and then each mediator takes one aside to ask him or her what happened. Once the mediators get both sides of the story, they ask each aggrieved party “What are you going to do to resolve this?” rather than asking what they think the other person should do to resolve it.

“It usually works out really well,” Trottier says. “They’re really taught to take ownership of the problem and come up with their own solutions – how they’re going to change their own behaviour.”

Of course, she adds, if disputes become physical the mediators are taught to seek an adult to intervene. The matter then goes to the principal or assistant principal.

The broader goal, aside from peacefully resolving disputes between students, is to build confidence and maturity in the Grade 5 and 6 kids who participate in the process as mediators. Trottier says the entire day of mediation training is designed to make the students feel like they are being treated as adults, so they understand the responsibility that is being bestowed on them and take their roles seriously. That’s why the training takes place at a hotel conference centre rather than simply a spare room in the school.

“They really feel that they’re at a conference,” Trottier says. “It makes them feel grown up and special.”

After they complete the training and before they become full-fledged mediators, the students must sign a “Mediator’s Promise” and have their parents sign the document, too. The document congratulates the students on being selected for the job but reminds them that they have a responsibility to keep what is said during mediation sessions confidential, to attend regular mediator meetings and to make up any classroom work they miss due to their duties.