California State University, Northridge

PRESS RELEASE

October 1, 1996

Contact: John Chandler or
Bruce Erickson,
(818) 677-2130
jchandler@exec.csun.edu or berickson@exec.csun.edu

Sixth Graders to Get Lessons in Making Friends

About 200 students at a Canoga Park middle school will get day-long lessons in getting along Thursday, October 3 under a special program being offered by Cal State Northridge graduate students and staff.

A team led by Charles Hanson, a CSUN associate professor of educational psychology and counseling, will spend Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Columbus Middle School in Canoga Park working with the sixth graders as a group on how to get along with their peers and peacefully resolve conflicts.

The so-called "Friendship Days" program began last month with three similar sessions for sixth graders at De Portola Middle School in Tarzana and a session for another group of the sixth graders at Columbus. The program is funded with a grant from the county of Los Angeles.

Hanson said the day's activities will include lessons in coping with problems such as name-calling or finding a knife in a locker or making friends with classmates of different backgrounds. There will also be trust-building exercises in which students are blindfolded and led by their peers.

For further information, contact Columbus school Principal Gail Hughes at (818) 348-5601, or Hanson via phone at (818) 677-4013 or via pager at (818) 387-1210.