Restorative Practices
PTO Public Meeting, January 8, 2020
Social Emotional Learning: "Emotional regulation is not instinctive; it's learned."
Social emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and apply skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. Social and emotional skills are often referred to as one’s emotional intelligence or EQ. These skills give youth and adults the framework to do these things:
- Cope with anger and stress
- Recognize their own and others' emotions
- Express emotions appropriately
- Solve their own problems
- Think critically and make good decisions
- Develop effective listening and communication skills
- Handle them without violence
- Reduce power struggles and resolve conflicts constructively and collaboratively
- Give positive feedback to others
- Dialogue rather than debate with others
- Act according to their values, not their emotions
Integrated Social Emotional Learning in HSE:
Peace Learning Center Restorative Practices Level 1 Training
What if there were tools that helped democratize communication? Helped us process the elephant in the room that keeps relationships strained? And helps those who have done harm be held accountable and allow whole communities to be heard, learn from harm, and be supported in meaningful ways in our institutions? Those tools exist, they work, and they are called restorative practices.
Participants will focus on why restorative practices are a useful and effective framework for communication, behavior, and discipline; dispel myths about restorative practices, will learn about the continuum of restorative practices and will learn how to use affective statements and restorative chats.
We cover the core concepts and practice so that you will emerge with a clear understanding of what restorative practices are (and are not), skills associated with the various steps of the restorative continuum, how they can be implemented in a number of settings, and participants will be given an opportunity to practice some of the techniques. Most of the discussion tends to be based around restorative work in school environments but practitioners from all environments (and ages) are welcome.
Why Restorative Practices?
- Blame, shame, punishment and exclusion are not working for our youth, our teachers or our community.
- Pushing youth out of spaces and communities is the opposite of what they need.
- Misbehavior is an opportunity to learn needed skills that we aren't seizing enough.
- Restorative practices are effective at addressing the disproportionality of discipline of students of color.
- Restorative practices give us new tools to replace outdated and ineffective methods of punishment and suspension.
"We need to teacher learners how to behave, not through yelling and screaming, but through respectful coaching and accountability."
What do you notice?
"Educators needs to build relationships, create investment in the class climate and give the students a voice."
Restorative Strategies
Restorative Language: Relationships, Responsibility, Accountability & Community
- "We are a community."
- "What is the relationship like between students, yourself and your students and his/her classroom peers, staff members, etc."
Affective Statements: Explaining How Someone's Choices Affect You
- "It made me sad to hear you teasing him. When I was teased, it would ruin my whole day and really upset me. Can you tell me what is going on with you two?"
- "I am so proud of this class for working together so well. Working together is such a dun and important skill! You are all showing me that you care about collaboration as much as I do!"
Proactive Circles: Opportunities for Storytelling
- Check-in
- Check-out
- Integrating Circles with Course Content
- Proactive Behavior Discussions
- Games
- General Proactive Circles
Affective Questions: Allows Problems to Become Times to Learn Social Emotional Lessons
- "What happened?"
- "What were you think at the time?"
- "What have you though about since the incident?"
- "Who do you think has been affected by your actions?"
- "How have they been affected?"
- "What do you think you need to do to make things right?"
Questions to help those harmed by others' actions:
- "What do you think when you realized what happened?"
- "How do you feel about what happened?"
- "What impact has the incident had on you and others?"
- "What has been the hardest thing for you?"
- "What do you think needs to happen to make things right?"
Restorative Chat: "You, as the leader, need to umpire the conversation to make sure if comes to a harmonious resolution."
- Engagement
- Reflection
- Understanding the harm/impact
- Acknowledgement
- Agreement
- Arranging a Follow-Up
- Respect
- Relationships
- Responsibility
- Repairing the Harm
- Reintegrating
"Holding students directly and personally responsible for their behavior is what sparks intrinsic change."
Responsive Circles: "Fix the negative behavior within the classroom."
- "What is one good thing that happened today?"
- "What are the main issues that are causing us to be there today and what is one thing you have done to maintain this as a problem?"
- "What are you willing to do to make this better, not just for tomorrow but for the long term?"
"Mediations take patience and have to be looked at as investments."
What are the benefits of restorative strategies- at school & home?
Formal Restorative Conferences
- For more serious offenses
- Main focus of Level 2 workshops
- Not as many staff trained in Level 2 (administrators, guidance counselor, few staff)
References
https://peacelearningcenter.org/restorative-justice/
International Institute for Restorative Practices