New York City public schools are pioneering a new curriculum item called "emotional literacy training," a concept springing from the innovative notion that schoolchildren can, and should, be taught that shooting their classmates is not the ideal method for settling arguments. Though the idea is so new that it "has yet to gain more than a toehold in the schools," according to the New York Times, it has made some headway in New York City, with the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program. This program trains students to serve as impartial mediators of their peers' disputes; it helps children to create their own "peace pledges," outlining their personal plan for avoiding violence; and it teaches them "strategies like compromise, taking turns and other ways to work out conflicts so everyone feels good about the solution."

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