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Jennifer Gonzalez- Cult of Pedagogy: Restorative Justice in School- February 19, 2018

Restorative Justice was the topic of Jennifer's blog post this week.  Jennifer defined restorative justice as, "it focuses on building relationships and repairing harm, rather than simply punishing students for misbehavior."  Victor Small, Jr. is an administrator in California, who has been using restorative practice for a long time and Jennifer suggests following him on Twitter, using the hashtag #RJLeagueChat.  In his Twitter conversations, he focuses on supporting teachers, who are implementing restorative justice.  He aided in this week's blog post.

Restorative justice does more than just punish students for the behavior that they display.  It focuses on repairing the underlying cause of the behavior.  This reduces suspension, but does place more work on schools as there are no "steps to follow" for specific behavior incidences.  Instead, school officials have to analyze each incident and work with the student so that the student can figure out how to make what they have done right.  One big component of restorative justice, that I was so happy to read about, was the building of relationships school-wide.  Jennifer and Victor Small, Jr. discussed that when there are strong relationships in place among teachers and students, it slowly becomes easier for students to make what they have done wrong, right again. A part of making things "right" included having students talk situations out, instead of facing detention for arguing, or having students gather in circles to solve problems.
A list of starting places for educators wanting to implement restorative justice follow below:
1) Read about Restorative Justice; a book suggestion is "Better than Carrots or Sticks"
2) Get comfortable with your own biases and triggers
3) Build culture and community in your classroom and school

This blog post spilled a lot of information about Restorative Justice and definitely showed that it's not an easy implementation.  However, it made me interested to see a new way of teaching our kids right from wrong that doesn't always involve them being in trouble for their behavior.  This seems to teach our kids real-life skills and how to handle their problems in the future.  This is a part of educating the whole child.  Has anyone heard of restorative justice or seen it in action? What are your thoughts?

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