Middie Rising - A City Unites and Defuses a School Culture War (Ep. 3 of 3)

Courageous Conversations About Our Schools

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In the final episode of this series, several people reflect on the lessons learned from Middletown’s successful efforts to avoid a costly culture war and to unify around an inclusive vision of education that all of its students. In addition to Middletown’s community leaders who share their takeaways from this story, Amanda Ripley, an internationally recognized expert on conflict, provides powerful insights into the less visible dynamics at play. Trudy Palmer, the Christian Science Monitor’s cover story editor, explains why this story offers “credible hope" for communities looking for tangible ways to unify and discover common ground. Finally, we hear from Dr. Carl Cohn, an experienced urban superintendent who explains why the lessons learned from the Middletown story are vital for school leaders across the country.
Key lessons:

• Building and maintaining healthy relationships within a community, especially before a crisis occurs, is crucial to preventing and managing conflicts.
• Creating ongoing opportunities for authentic dialogue among educators, board members, parents, and students is essential to fostering trust and healthy conflict.
• Journalists and media outlets should strive to go beyond reporting exclusively on conflict and outrage and to cover stories, like this one in Middletown, that provide “credible hope” for change.