Behavior Management and the Restorative Approach

“You can’t teach children to behave by making them feel worse. When children feel better, they behave better.” -Pam Leo

What do we mean when we say we use restorative practices in our schools? And why is it a practice that many schools now use?

Many schools nationally have modeled their behavior management systems from our criminal justice system, therefore many of these approaches do not have learning or emotional development in mind. Restorative practices are the practices that many educators use, and the theory behind these practices is restorative justice.

Restorative practices are a proactive approach to behavior management. The opposite of this approach within schools is a zero tolerance approach. Zero tolerance approaches involve a punishment that “fits the crime.” This is a largely reactive approach to an action, and can lead to suspension and expulsion and and leaves little room for learning the “why,” behind the action, and oftentimes pushes more children into the juvenile justice system. But we now know that this doesn’t repair any of the harm that has been done, and additionally doesn’t allow for any of the potential underlying issues to be addressed (the aforementioned “why”).

Restorative practices at their core are a social sciences concept that revolves around connection between humans. The idea is that we form strong connections with each other, and as a community. The more invested students are in each other and the better your classroom will be and the more learning can take place.

There are three shifts that take place in the classroom for restorative practices to be implemented.

Shift 1: The behavior that you are seeing is normal, and the behavior you are seeing is an opportunity for learning. The most important part here is that they are learning along the way. For students, being able to make something right after their actions, is the ideal learning opportunity.

Shift 2: The second shift involved moving away from the traditional approach where the person of authority decided the punishment. Here, the teacher (authority), is the facilitator and creates and encourages open dialogue with the parties involved (keeping in mind that the offender is learning along the way). He/she will ask questions like, what happened, why did it happen, and how do we make it right? The facilitator(s) message should be a positive one, where the student feels that he/she is on their team, and wants them to success. The questions should be inquiry based (not accusatory), and open ended so as to allow for the student to answer fully, and honestly. Conversely, in a punitive approach, the punishment will typically create shame and embarrassment to the offending party, where here, the hope is that empathy, trust and understanding is built.

Shift 3: The community is involved in the process and helps move it along. The idea is that the group/community comes to an agreement together. The teacher (authority) is using this as a teachable moment that your actions and behavior affect other people.

Part of the third shift oftentimes involves circle time and the use of it for learning opportunities. One thing a teacher can do to help establish this (besides consistent circle time), is to establish kindness/respect rules made by the students, at the beginning of the year. Students should have “buy in” in their own classrooms and be involved in discussion(s) when these rules are violated. One benefit of this system will (hopefully) be that students are less afraid to come forward when a wrongdoing occurs. In a punitive system students are often afraid to admit this. Here though, they are more willing to admit fault, and therefore time is saved trying to figure out who was the offender and allows for more time for teaching.

Students can, and should, be a part of the learning experience and allows students to become accustomed to this model as a way of communication when problems so arise, and allows for the classroom community to be stronger as well, a win win!

Results of research of restorative practices in the classroom: