What if young people care far more than we give them credit for — and just need someone to ask?

Dr. Stephanie Serriere is a professor of education at IU Columbus and director of the iEngage youth civic empowerment camp. A former elementary teacher who has taught around the world, her research focuses on youth civic engagement — supporting the issues that are real and relevant to young people's lives. In 2025 she received Indiana University's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Building Bridges Award. In this conversation, she shares what she's learned about listening to young people and helping them become peacemakers.

Stephanie explains why adults have to reposition themselves and open up space for youth to talk about what they really care about, how her camp helps kids research real community issues and take action on them, and why consensus isn't about winning a vote but about listening and building agreement together. She makes the case that disagreement is healthy, that being comfortable with discomfort is a skill, and that even when a young person's idea doesn't win the day, the seeds you plant can grow in ways you'll never see.

We cover listening to young people, youth civic engagement, consensus-building, including quieter voices, letting go of outcomes, and why disagreement is part of being human together.

📚 Learn more about Dr. Serriere and her work at Indiana University Columbus and her reseach including her co-authored book Civic Education in the Elementary Years.

Learn more about the iEngage camp at IU Columbus.

Other topics discussed in the interview:

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and iCivics — the founder and the civics-education games that sparked the iEngage model

Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation — a framework for youth involvement, from tokenism to genuine collaboration

Vivian Vasquez, Negotiating Critical Literacies — including her story of kindergarteners petitioning to be included

National School Reform Faculty — source of the "Fist of Five" consensus technique and other facilitation tools

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

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What if peacemaking is a skill we could learn as young as age three?

Dr. Emily de Schweinitz Taylor is a certified mediator, developmental psychologist, author, and mother of five. She holds master's degrees in international policy and conflict resolution and a PhD in developmental psychology, and she hosts the podcast Conflict Coach with Dr. Emily Taylor. In this conversation, she shares what a career in mediation — and raising five kids — taught her about handling conflict well.

Emily explains why relationships matter more than winning, why we can't force peace through pressure or control without breeding resentment, and how research shows even young children can learn to negotiate and repair conflict. She walks through the five conflict approaches — avoid, accommodate, compromise, compete, and collaborate — and why "conflict fluency" means being able to shift between them. And she shares the heart of her coaching work: listening deeply, helping people find their own answers, and remembering that real connection requires both listening and sharing.

We cover conflict fluency, the five conflict approaches, teaching children to mediate, perspective-taking, self-determination, and why lasting peace comes from exchange, not accommodation.

Dr. Taylor is the author of Conflict Fluent and Raising Mediators. https://www.raisingmediators.com/

Learn more and find her podcast Conflict Coach with Dr. Emily Taylor on BYU Radio wherever you get podcasts. https://www.byuradio.org/conflict-coach/episodes/season-1

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

Have a question about today's topic? Click here to leave me a quick voice message.

What if building peace across our differences starts with just one relationship?

Liz Joyner is the founder and president of The Village Square, a nonprofit out of Tallahassee, Florida that for nearly two decades has brought people who don't think alike into the same room — and helped them build trust across their differences. In this conversation, Liz shares the practical, human-sized tools she's learned for bridging divides in our own lives and hometowns.

She explains why there's no substitute for direct contact with people different from us, how a single cross-cutting friendship can change the way we see everyone we disagree with, and her "rings of a tree" approach to building diverse groups that actually hold together. She also makes the case that peacemaking works best when it's local, proximate, and — refreshingly — not too serious.

Her advice for the everyday peacemaker is simple: start small. Reach out to one person you like but whose views you don't understand. Because the human superpower isn't avoiding disagreement — it's the reciprocal kindness that grows when we stay in the same room.

We cover building empathy across differences, why local peacemaking matters most, the core catalyst model, reciprocal kindness, and starting close to home.

Learn more about The Village Square at villagesquare.us. Liz's essay "The Threads of a Nation" is at villagesquare.us. She also references The Big Sort by Bill Bishop, on how Americans have clustered into like-minded communities.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

Have a question about today's topic? Click here to leave me a quick voice message.