Sowing Empathy and Justice in Schools Through Restorative Practices
By Mary Ellen Flannery
The kid wants to serve the volleyball, but his high school classmates ignore him. “Shut up!” he pleads, but they carry on—laughing as if he said nothing. He loses it, hurls the ball, storms out of the gym, and shouts, “I said, Shut your #&$% mouths!”
Game over.
Suspending or expelling a student, especially one who is angry or disruptive, is like ordering a triple Big Mac. It’s a devilishly quick and easy answer—and popular, too—but it’s an unhealthy choice for the long-term well-being of students who, after just one suspension, are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out, and enter the criminal justice system.
“Far too many of our most vulnerable students are excluded from class for minor, non-violent behavior. Too often this sends them along an unnecessary journey down the school-to-prison pipeline,” says NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. With that in mind, an increasing number of NEA members are turning to an alternative on the menu of school discipline: Restorative practices, including restorative justice.
Consider restorative practices to be the slow-cooked, more healthful alternative to suspensions or expulsions. The key ingredients are time, training, and a willingness to commit to respectful listening, but research shows that restorative practices reduce behavioral problems, including bullying. That’s why NEA is partnering with the Advancement Project and others to provide NEA members with training and resources on restorative practices, including a new online toolkit.
“I have a picture on my wall of a huge tree with its roots. The point of restorative practices is to get to the roots,” says Rita Danna, restorative justice facilitator for Littleton, Colo., schools. “These kiddos you see in your office all the time— you lecture them, you suspend them, and then they come back and you do it all over again. But the restorative process yanks at the root. It helps students realize they have the power to do things differently.”
Rita Dana, a restorative justice facilitator, mediates a dispute.
Zero tolerance policies and other blame-and-punish approaches haven’t made our schools safer—they’ve actually done more harm than good, pushing kids out of learning environments and furthering inequities in our schools and in society. A better answer, one supported by Sowing Empathy and Justice in Schools Through Restorative Practices | NEA Today:
“The ruling by a Los Angeles judge in Vergara v. California is a bizarre development in the ongoing anti-teacher campaign funded by wealthy individuals trying to twist education policies with their wallets,” write California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel and California Federation of Teachers President Joshua Pechthalt. “It strikes down statutes protecting teachers from arbitrary firing