Six students file into an administrator’s office just off the front office of Shea High School in Pawtucket. With them is the school social worker, Marion Woolf, who runs the peer mediation program. A conference table comfortably seats the six, who are there to untangle a nasty web of rumor and threats. Three are mediators — two girls and a boy. Three are disputants — all girls. The lead mediator, honors-student Carolina Correa, takes charge, assigning seats, so the disputants are not sitting together.

Woolf assures us that we are in very capable hands. Correa is one of the school’s most experienced mediators. The other two are training to take lead roles next year.

With a little wave to me, Woolf leaves. Normally, adults are not present. The disputants glower at each other so intensely, no one seems to care I’m taking notes at a nearby desk.

Woolf had already spoken privately with each disputant to make sure that the angry parties would be safe when rehashing the issues. Sometimes the beef resolves itself as these “pre-meeting” talks clear up misunderstandings. Wolfe had already mentioned that most of the issues that go to mediation are “girl stuff,” and peer mediation stops a lot of fights and nastiness.

This dispute is most assuredly girl stuff.

Correa begins the work. “There are a couple of ground rules. One, don’t stand up. Two, don’t interrupt. Three, respect each other. And four, confidentiality. Nothing said here leaves this room. Do you agree?” They do.

Each girl will have time to tell her side of the story from beginning to end without cross-talk. Then they’ll ask clarifying questions and talk things over. Finally, if it goes well — it usually does — they’ll create and sign an agreement with each other.

The one to go first is the one I mentally named Third Party. She’s a good friend of Spoilt — also my name — a girl who dresses with a lot of attention and color matching, and who describes herself, rather proudly, as both spoiled and hot headed. Third Party barely knows the other main disputant, a walking Storm Cloud who is so sullen and victimized, she’s hunched over in a self-protective crouch that went ramrod-straight only during her flashes of major temper.

We start. Third Party tells a story so convoluted, I am utterly lost. Names of other kids, mainly girls, fly fast and furious. The mediators take notes. The stories and Spoilt’s haughty attitude make me think she’s a big deal around this high school campus, or at least has plenty of friends — if that’s what you call the people eager to rat out other girls for saying things that are not flattering — aka, “talking trash.”

In any case, someone was talking about someone else, and they said such and such, and that information resulted in a confrontation. The confrontation produced more talk, more bad information, more confrontations. Increasingly it appears that a cast of thousands was talking about how Third Party said Storm Cloud was threatening to fight Spoilt after school. That rumor got back to Storm Cloud through some entirely tangential person, so she confronted Third Party, which Third Party “did not appreciate.”

Whew.

The mediators listen intently. Mediation works — for kids and adults — by giving all parties the chance to be fully heard and understood. After each girl has given her version of the epic and interwoven plots, Correa asks questions to tease out what’s really important to each girl. A mediator’s job is to stay neutral, to listen like mad and to help the angry parties find the essence of their issue, so they can better understand one another’s positions. Mutual understanding resolves most fights.

It becomes clear that prior to this blow-up, Storm Cloud and Spoilt had started to be friends. Storm Cloud clearly needs friends, so she’s here in large part to salvage a socially valuable connection. At last, we’re all starting to get the picture.

Correa puts up her hands to end cross-talk among the girls that was getting overheated. “Okay. So everyone ‘heard’ something. Are you guys getting this? You ‘heard.’ That’s it. Nothing happened. Everyone just ‘heard.’ ”

Simultaneously, the three girls shout challenges to that summary. Again, Correa stops them. “It’s a sad story, but people around this school want to see fights. You guys are friends, or you were. So is it worth it to give up a friendship so others can fight? Is it?!”

That’s a definite “no” among the girls. “Good,” says Correa who moves them onto writing an agreement, which she records. They agree to speak directly to one another from now on and to respect each other. Storm Cloud and Spoilt agree to remain friends. The air is palpably clearer. Storm Cloud’s crouch has straightened out a lot.

Just under an hour has passed. Every disputant wants to know how she can become a mediator. Correa tells them to speak to Mrs. Woolf.

Afterward, Correa says, “I think we’ve prevented a lot of fights. In Shea, people want to see a fight. We have a lot of ‘he said/she said.’ So basically, we go back and get the story point by point. We hear them out and see that they have a peaceful conversation. Learning mediation really helps you outside of school too. At work, there are people you don’t like and so I stop and think, ‘hmmmm, how am I going to make this work?’ But the best part of mediation is seeing people who could be enemies be friends.”

What a lovely thing to be able to do.

Every kid needs listening and conflict-resolution skills. Every kid deserves to have mediation available for arguments he can’t resolve without a fight or feeling victimized. When schools create a culture that expects everyone to solve problems together, they can quit punishing kids for fighting. Which doesn’t make much sense anyway.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.