Using Restorative Practices to Create Classroom Community

Sidney Morgan, Restorative Justice Coordinator Portland Public School District 10/10/15

Ice Breaker… Your name. If you were the weather, what would you be?

Learning Objectives �  Understand what Restorative Practice/Justice is

and why and how it can be used in schools and classrooms

�  Learn a Restorative Practice to help create positive classroom community

History, Institutional Isms, Privilege, and Unconscious Bias are Real…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48&feature=youtu.be

�  What assumptions are the characters in the video making?

�  What assumptions did YOU make?

�  Did any of your assumptions change after viewing the video?

What is Restorative Practice? …and why should we use it?

Definition Restorative Justice is a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific incident and to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations, in order to heal and to make things as right as possible.

–Howard Zehr

Restorative Justice is not new.

It is based on building and rebuilding relationships.

Restorative Justice & PBIS

•  Bringing students who have been suspended, expelled, incarcerated back into the school community

Restorative

Reintegrative • Office disciplinary referrals • Bullying • Truancy • Alternatives to suspension/

expulsion • Circles to restore/repair in the

classroom

Responsive practices

• Relationship building circles

• Circles to deliver curriculum

• Circles to establish group agreements/behavioral expectations

Preventive/Proactive practices

RJ in PPS

Madison High School

Boise-Eliot/Humboldt K-8

Chief Joseph/Ockley Green K-8

Beaumont Middle School

George Middle School

Rigler K-5

Grant High School

Disproportionate Exclusion Rates can not be Explained by more Serious

Offenses Most common reason for the exclusion of students of color:

�  Insubordination

�  Willful Defiance

�  Fighting (most common for white students, too)

http://www.indiana.edu/~atlantic/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/African-American-Differential-Behavior_031214.pdf

Disproportional School Discipline is a Civil Rights Issue

�  Suspensions & expulsions have dramatically increased since the 90s

�  Directly & indirectly increase risk of juvenile justice involvement – feeding “school-to-prison pipeline.

Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, “School-Based Restorative Justice as an Alternative to Zero-Tolerance Policies: Lessons from West Oakland.

Disproportional School Discipline is a Civil Rights Issue

�  56% of African American and 38% of Latino youth reported being suspended from school as a gateway into the juvenile justice system, ranking it the number one self-reported problem behavior for minority students

�  66% of youth who are incarcerated never return to school

JUVENILE INCARCERATION: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON

Source: Hazel, Neal, Cross-National Comparison of Youth Justice, London: Youth Justice Board, 2008.

24.9  46.8   3.6   18.6  23.1  11.3   0.1  51.3   68   33  

69  4.1  

336  

Juv.  Incarcera,on  Rate  per  100,000    

q  Values

q  Norms of the community

q  Fear of legal consequences

q  Fear of social disapproval

q  Sense of involvement and belonging

q  Internal controls

q  Desire to avoid embarrassment

q  Gender roles and expectations (socialization)

q  Feeling of inclusion

q  Education

q  Laws and policies or regulations

q  Peer standards and expectations

q  Personal capacities

q  Culture

q  Socioeconomic needs

q  Personal/individual needs

What are the forces shaping our behavior which cause us to follow the rules and obey the laws?

Adapted from Kay Pranis

What Difference Does the Difference Make?

�  The majority of teachers in most places are still white women

�  How do you think this influences who is disciplined and how?

�  How does race, culture and language influence your interactions with students?

Social Discipline Window

TO

Punitive    

WITH

    Restorative

NOT

Neglectful

FOR

  Permissive

Low – Support (Encouragement, Nurture) – High  

Con

trol

(Li

mit

Set

ting

, D

isci

pli

ne)

Low

High

Figure: (Watchel, 2005) “Restorative Justice in Everyday Life: Beyond the Formal Ritual”  

Creating Community With Restorative Practices

Fair Process Is… �  Engagement – talk to the youth or adult

�  Explanation- Everyone involved and affected should understand why final decisions are made as they are.

�  Expectation Clarity- Once decisions are made, new rules are clearly stated, set/re-instate expectations. Understand new standards and penalties for failure.

Fair Process Is Not… �  Decision by consensus

�  Does not set out to achieve harmony

�  Does not set out to win people’s support through compromises that accommodate every individual’s opinions, needs or interest.

�  Democracy in the workplace

�  Managers forfeiting their prerogative to make decisions, establish policies and procedures.

Restorative Justice in Schools Punitive Approach

•  Misbehavior impacts/harms people and relationships

Restorative Approach

•  Those responsible and those impacted create agreement to make things right.

•  Misbehavior defined as breaking school rules

•  Focus on identifying violation and establishing blame

•  Focus on establishing responsibility to repair harm/make things right

•  Administrator determines punishment

•  Punishment (the inflicting of physical and emotional harm) as way to reestablish balance, as a result both, victim and offender, are pulled down

•  Isolation of person responsible •  Reintegration into community

•  Restoration of community to where both, victim and offender, are pulled up

Restorative Practices �  School-wide language adoption (in school policy,

handbooks, administrative directives, & classrooms) �  School discipline adoption �  Circles �  Restorative Inquiry �  Restorative listening dialogue �  Victim offender dialogue �  Conferencing (reactive: post incident or re-entry) �  Mediation �  Meaningful community service

Tools �  Assume difference, share impact, clarify intent

�  Use non-evaluative words, state interest

�  Don’t misinterpret the irritation you feel as having been personally attacked

�  Know your own preferences and how they affect your perception and response

�  Be aware of other style preferences and strive to refrain from judgment

�  Recognize that others also struggle

�  Make style differences explicit

�  Have tolerance for ambiguity, allow for multiple explanations of behavior

�  What difference does the difference make?

Language of Equity and Cracking the Codes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F05HaArLV44

Cultural Differences in Value Orientation

Orientation to Time

Past……………………………Present………………………… Future

Orientation to Activities

Task ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Relationships

Formal ………………………………………………………………………………………………....... Informal

Tradition ……………………………………….. Modified Tradition ……………………………………….. Change

Fixed Rules …………………………………. Flexible/Situational Rules …………………………………… No Rules

Control Actions + Outcomes ……………...... Control Actions not Outcomes ………………………………… Control Neither

Orientation to Relationships

Issues not openly discussed ..... Only key issues must be resolved ..... All issues must be discussed and resolved

Individual …………….................. One-to-One ……………………...... Group

Equality………………................. Statues is earned ………….….. Statues is given

Circling Types of Circles

Proactive

�  Community Building

�  Curriculum Circle

Responsive

�  Healing Circle/Circles of Understanding

�  Accountability Circle

Proactive Classroom Circle Who packs your ‘chute?

Responsive Circles Occur in response to an event

�  Breaking classroom norms and expectations

�  Classroom misbehaviors

�  Upsetting events (community, local, national, etc.)

Restorative Inquiry Mindset �  Informal restorative process involving active, non-

judgmental listening

�  Use of relational questions to bring out who was affected and how

�  Elicit what needs to happen to make things right

�  Often used with one person to help them reflect on a situation, who was affected and how, and figure out a path forward

�  Can also be used before face-to-face meetings to prepare student for meeting participation

Guiding Restorative Questions

�  What happened?

�  Who was harmed and how?

�  What can be done to make things right?

�  How can we keep things right?

�  What support do you need to make and keep things right?

A Song to end on… The amazing Gregory Porter

Painted on Canvas….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W77Sf4krGac

Remember we need to have a Restorative Lens!!