Restorative Practices for Schools

Key Takeaways

Welcome to Restorative Practices for Schools. In this series of courses, you will learn about the foundational tenants of restorative practices along with its core philosophies and why it is so helpful for students and faculty. You will be given the opportunity to watch scenarios of many, many types of restorative practices in the classroom. All right, well, we know kind heart. Um so, when you hold kind heart, again, you can share how you're feeling and we are here to listen to your feelings because um they're important to us. You will have the opportunity to learn how to incorporate circles into your classroom's everyday culture. Watch several examples of proactive circles including using circles as needed, a first circle of the year, academic circles, and teaching social skills in circles. You will also gain proficiency in affective language and how to teach students how to use affective language as well as other interpersonal skills. And gain expertise in planning and preparing for your circles. We will then move to the solution circles where harm can be fixed and repaired, where student community can be made whole again through conflict resolution. You will also learn how to teach these skills to your students to use on their own. In addition to solution circles, you will also learn how to conduct one-to-one agreements with students and see mediation examples. What do you need in class and maybe out of class for assistance? Well, what do you need from Ms. Batchelder so that that situation doesn't happen again and your level of stress in that class is minimized. So, I would like to say that when I when I so stressful when I say bad words to you you you can just say to me, "Hey, can you go to relax outside and something like that and come back and see and we can talk each other to fix that problem and something like that, you know?" You will also have the opportunity to see a large formal conferencing scenario with students, parents, teachers, and school administrators as they tackle a sticky complex situation. I think we could um instead of breaking up um into groups and having our individual friends, we could come together in a group and just all be friends with each other. Um so, again, I'm sorry and I think that this was a really good opportunity to um get to talk with you guys cuz I guess I just didn't realize what I was putting you guys through, so I'm sorry. Restorative practices can even be used for faculty disputes. Finally, we will see a case study of student-led restorative practices where the students are taught how to mediate their own conflicts. We will watch a student-led conflict resolution scenario. Teachers explain how they got this started in their high school, and we will hear from the students themselves about how they feel about restorative practices and what they're learning about themselves through this process. I think restorative practice is a way to protect as many students as possible. Um in the current education system, harm that is done either between students and teachers or other students is often punished and not healed, and I think that that allows uh like trauma and pain to happen without any sort of resolution. And so by having any sort of RJ practice either in a classroom or in individual relationships, you're repairing harm that is done and you're you're keeping those relationships and those kids engaged in school.