“Agree to Disagree” Isn’t a Teaching Strategy—It’s a Stalemate
- Greg Mullen
- Jun 15
- 4 min read
A few weeks ago, a veteran teacher stopped me outside her room, eyes wide with frustration.
“My eighth-graders are constantly butting heads in group work. I keep telling them to 'just agree to disagree and move on,’ but the tension never clears. They act like they’ve ‘resolved’ it, then arguments flare right back up five minutes later.”
Sound familiar?
Each time I hear a version of this, I’m reminded that our tendency to think that “agreeing to disagree” is a quick fix for conflict when it usually signals a breakdown in two intertwined socioemotional competencies:
Conflict Resolution—the ability to navigate disagreement toward a mutually acceptable outcome.
Empathy & Perspective—the willingness and skill to inhabit another’s mental and emotional landscape.
Both of these competencies exist within the Social Awareness & Relationships domain of my SEL Framework and are non-negotiable when trying to cultivate a genuine peer-based, student-led, self-directed learning environment.
Why “agree to disagree” stalls genuine socioemotional development
When a teacher or student uses this phrase, one of two things is often at the core:
Under the surface | Impact on the classroom |
Avoidance: “I don’t feel safe or skilled enough to stay in this conversation.” | Conflict freezes; resentment simmers. |
Positional fatigue: “We’ve traded claims, but no one has stepped into the other’s shoes.” | Students mistake quiet for resolution; curiosity withers. |
Either way, the social system necessary for collaborative communication grinds to a halt. Self-directed learning, meanwhile, thrives on iteration, feedback, and the resilience to stay in dialogue with someone until fresh options appear. Without empathy-infused conflict skills, “self-direction” can devolve into parallel monologues and siloed, one-sided learning.
The Perspective-First Protocol
Why I Lean on This Protocol
When students (or adults!) lock horns, we often reach for the politest escape hatch we know: “Let’s just agree to disagree.”
The problem is, that phrase freezes genuine socioemotional development in our students which inadvertently strengthens their belief that conflict is something they are not equipped to handle outside of their fight/flight/freeze/fawn response and their reliance on authority.
We can teach students how to resolve conflict but it requires two socio-emotional muscles to be exercised regularly:
Empathy & Perspective – seeing the issue through another’s eyes.
Conflict Resolution – co-creating a path both sides can live with.
The following Perspective-First Protocol is my five-step routine for exercising both.
Perspective-First Protocol
Step | What You Say | What It Does |
1 · Clean the Lens | “What might you gain or lose here?” → “When did you notice the tension start?” | Surfaces values & triggers so we’re solving the right problem. |
2 · Double-Empathy Loop | “What I hear you valuing is …, and the high-stakes part is …. Is that right?” (Then switch roles.) | Forces each student to earn the right to propose solutions by first paraphrasing the other’s view. |
3 · Name the Overlap | “Sounds like respect during brainstorming matters to both of you. How would we see or hear that in class?” | Turns “me vs. you” into “us vs. the issue.” |
4 · Generate 3+ Fixes | “Let’s list at least three ways we could protect respect and meet the deadline.” | Breaks the win-lose binary; creativity blooms after option #2. |
5 · Test & Tweak | “We’ll try our favorite fix for two work periods, then rate it 1-5 on keeping respect alive.” | Makes the agreement a prototype, not a fragile promise. |
A Micro-Dialogue in Action (90 seconds)
Teacher: “Sam, paraphrase Jordan's perspective.”
Sam: “You care about clean slides and finishing on time so we don’t bomb the Q&A—right?”
Jordan: “Yes.”
Teacher: “Jordan, your turn.”
Jordan: “Sam wants the deck to look original and showcase his artwork—right?” Sam: “Exactly.”
Teacher: “Great. You both want a slidedeck that’s polished and original. Give me three ideas that hit both.”
Within two minutes the temperature drops, the ideas flow, removing the need for a referee counting score of who said what that hurt the other.
Why It Works
Empathy first, answers second. Mapping the other mind calms threat responses in under two minutes (Satpute & Lieberman, 2006).
Shared-interest language reframes conflict as co-design.
Multiple options prevent stalemate—there’s always a Plan B.
Built-in reflection lets students see their growth, reinforcing self-direction.
Why It Might Not Work
Even the slickest protocol stalls if students lack key Self-Awareness and Self-Management muscles. Here are four common roadblocks I watch for—and the slow-burn supports I layer in when they show up:
Possible Roadblock | What it Looks / Sounds Like | Long-Game Teacher Move |
Thin emotional vocabulary | “I dunno, I’m just mad.” Blank stare during the feelings check step. | Weekly “word of the feeling” mini-lesson, emotion wheels on desks, exit tickets that pair a feeling word with evidence (“I felt frustrated when … because …”). |
Low impulse control | Interrupting the paraphrase; volume spikes when challenged. | Two-minute mindfulness or square-breathing before conflict work; private self-monitor goal (“stay under a ‘3’ on my voice scale”) tracked with the student. |
Perspective-taking gap | Student insists, “There’s nothing to understand—Jordan’s just wrong.” | Use fiction or video clips to practice “Who’s POV?” in non-personal contexts; gradual transfer to real disputes. |
Distrust of the process (often trauma-related) | Flat refusal: “This is stupid—he won’t listen anyway.” | One-on-one pre-brief to co-design safety signals (e.g., time-out hand sign); start with lower-stakes disagreements to build proof of concept. |
Key reminder: When these gaps appear, I don’t scrap the Perspective-First Protocol—I shrink the arena. Maybe we practice just the feeling-label pause today, then scaffold the full loop once regulation and vocabulary catch up. It takes more time, but student development of these competencies is as (if not more) important than their math and literature lessons.
Spot the roadblocks early, coach the missing micro-skill in calm moments, and the protocol becomes possible—even powerful.
Try It—
Post the three sentence frames on your whiteboard.
Keep a timer handy to keep student paraphrases under a minute.
End with one shared metric (“respect during brainstorming”) and revisit it next class.
When “agree to disagree” tempts you, remember: real resolution of conflict often requires perspective-taking in motion. By coaching that habit in times of calm, you’re wiring your students for a world that prizes collaboration over passive-aggressive avoidance.
Greg Mullen
June 15, 2025
