With school underway again, now is the time to set the tone for the academic year, while the energy is palpable and the students are primed to absorb the culture of their classrooms. When the newness and excitement fade, there will be a predictable increase in frustrating classroom behavior and interpersonal conflicts.
Parents will be watching closely to see how teachers react to misbehavior, quick to offer their opinions — that a response is too lenient, too strict or too permissive — when their own children are affected.
Traditionally, school administrators have responded to disciplinary issues with punitive actions, such as lost recess, detention, suspensions and revoked privileges. There are a number of problems with punishments: They disproportionately affect students of color, contribute to a school-to-prison pipeline and further isolate children who are often in most need of prosocial environments, which promote healthy peer relationships. Still, schools tend to rely on these responses because they are easy and appease most parents.
After all, it doesn’t take any additional training for a teacher to send a misbehaving child to the office. Punishments are also a quick way to satisfy the parents of children who have been targeted; protective moms and dads tend to seek retribution.
[Read: Mindfulness in Schools: When Meditation Replaces Detention.]
In the long run, however, punishing kids for misbehavior has not proven effective at changing children’s hearts and minds. Students who are punished grow even more hostile toward their targets, and they often threaten to retaliate against peers who report mistreatment to adults.
A better option is to teach children who act out to understand the impact of their behaviors on others. If we can teach them to feel empathy for the people affected by their actions, they will be more willing to repair the harm they have caused.
Shifting from a punitive to a restorative model works best with several guiding beliefs in mind:
— When students exhibit unkind behaviors, it is because they need to further develop core social competencies, such as empathy, compassion and conflict resolution skills.
— When students act out or mistreat others, this misbehavior presents an opportunity to teach them those missing core social competencies, which will be more effective in changing their behavior than punishing them.
— Developing healthy social and emotional skills and positive relationships takes practice, and over time communities thrive when every student is seen as having something valuable to offer to the group.
As teachers, educators and parents, we continually ask, how can we teach and inspire students to emulate prosocial, kind behavior in their communities? How can we instill the knowledge and values that lead children to act as witnesses and allies when they encounter injustice and cruelty?
The most effective way to change the behavior of a group of students is to motivate them to take ownership of the culture in their community. Creating a culture where every student feels seen and heard requires schools to do the hard work of moving toward restorative practices and away from exclusionary, punitive practices.
[Read: Getting Dinner on the Table During Back-to-School Season.]
School administrators, staff and parents need to undergo three transformations in their thinking as they work to move from a punitive approach to being restorative:
| Punitive Approach | Restorative Approach |
| Misbehavior is viewed as breaking school rules. | Misbehavior is viewed as harm done to people and the community. |
| An authority figure, such as a dean or principal, doles out punishment. This can create an adversarial relationship with the student who misbehaved. | In response to the misbehavior, there is an open dialogue and negotiation among all affected people, via conferencing or classroom circles, which primarily focus on trust-building or peacemaking. |
| Accountability is defined as the student having received a punishment to deter or prevent repeat offenses. | Accountability is defined as the student understanding the impact of the misbehavior, taking responsibility and talking with affected people about ways to repair the harm, leading to an action plan. |
Transitioning into a restorative school is an ongoing process, and for a number of years, your school may need to gently incorporate restorative practices alongside traditional discipline. The good news is that restorative practices occur along a continuum.
In the simplest forms, a teacher can switch to using affective language and affective questions in the classroom. For example, instead of telling a student, “That’s the third time I told you to stop talking. You need to leave and go down to the principal’s office,” a teacher can say, “I feel frustrated when you speak during my class, because I spent time preparing this lesson. I’m also concerned that you are distracting other students from paying attention, and they won’t be able to learn. How can we work together to help you focus?” If a teacher is concerned about interrupting the flow of the class, another option is to tell the student to stop the behavior in the moment, and after class, the teacher can pull the student aside for a quick discussion using affective language. It’s never too late to have restorative conversations.
Schools that are ready to take more formal restorative measures can do restorative justice training and prepare their teachers to run facilitated classroom circles. The beauty of classroom circles is that they are appropriate for every age. My husband is a veteran high school math teacher and has used peacemaking circles to handle intense conflict and complicated issues among his teenage students.
[Read: When Kids Go Back to School, It Can Be Hard On Parents, Too.]
On the other end of the age spectrum, our youngest daughter attends a public elementary school where she has participated in weekly facilitated circles since kindergarten. Last year, in her second-grade class, the children regularly asked each other, “How can I make it better?” after making a mistake that affected a peer.
That is what we all should be asking of our schools. When kids misbehave, what we really need to know is, “How can we make it better?”
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Why Schools Should Take a Restorative Approach to Discipline Issues originally appeared on usnews.com
