Presents suggestions to help teachers who must work with difficult principals, offering 10 ideas for how to make meetings with such principals more effective. The paper also notes what to do if the principal is unreachable and describes how four teachers handled their own problems with difficult principals. (SM)

The article presents several activities designed to sharpen students' listening and observation skills and help them practice finding and evaluating alternatives to classroom conflicts and conflicts they may encounter elsewhere. Activities include solution skits, role playing, reading and writing conflict stories, and making comic strips. (SM)

This article describes a tense situation in which two middle school teachers had a fight in a public area on parent conference day. Another teacher and an educational psychologist present their views on how to handle such a situation, support teachers, and foster collegiality. (SM)

Guidelines to keep conflicts from wreaking havoc at staff meetings, parent conferences, team meetings, and PTA functions include confronting tensions early, attacking problems not people, examining oneself, choosing issues carefully, requesting feedback, building trust, working together, and being prepared. (SM)