Restorative Practices: A Social Discipline for the New Millennium

Restorative Practices is an approach to dealing with social behavior that separates the deed from the doer at the same time giving victims a voice that allows the offenders to understand how their behavior has affected the victims as well as other members of the community. Hopefully the offenders then feel remorseful and are willing to take responsibility for their behavior. The victim(s) and offender(s) then discuss together how the harm can be rectified and after that the offender is welcomed back into the community.
I began my educational journey with the International Institute for Restorative Practices in the summer of 2010. I worked for the Newark Public School system for twenty-five years and it was in February of 2010 that I heard about IIRP. My principal gave all the teachers an article to read on restorative practices at a faculty meeting. I went online to learn more about restorative practices and found the International Institute for Restorative Practices and also discovered that there was a workshop coming up, to be held in Bethlehem. I got permission from my principal to attend the workshop and was completely enthused by what I learned. Those of us at the workshop were told about the graduate program and if we enrolled before April 1rst of last year we would be considered for a scholarship. So I decided to apply not knowing at that time that I would choose to retire in the midst of all the hoopla, negativity where teachers were concerned, and budget cuts threatened to affect medical and retirement benefits.
One of the first articles I read was entitled Double Jeopardy by Cristina Anderson. Anderson in her article talks about the zero tolerance policy in schools and how it is used as a blanket approach to school discipline and the breaking of rules by students. Zero tolerance is suspension or expulsion. It came into being as a result of the 1994 Gun Free Schools Act and was meant to be used for violent crimes. The title of the article points out how students can be punished by the school system and depending on the offense become involved with the criminal justice system as well, hence double jeopardy.
I taught in the Newark Public School system for twenty five years and came to know for a fact that suspension and or expulsion is not necessarily the answer to many behavior infractions. Anderson states in the article:
“With specific regard to at risk youth, however the data appear more concrete. For this population it seems unlikely that school suspension will successfully impact behavior.” (Anderson, p. 1190)
“In addition these suspended youth may have more opportunity to congregate with deviant peers.” (Anderson, p. 1190)
This was substantiated by the behavior of a former student of mine, we’ll call him Outcast. He fits the profile of an at risk youth. He’s in foster care, mother a recovering drug addict but has been diagnosed as HIV positive, and his father incarcerated. In the course of the school year he was suspended for several infractions that were of a violent nature. He led some jumping incidents (three or more offenders fighting one student) after school which led to trips to the emergency room for some of the victims and their parents. Outcast was suspended on each occasion and then returned to school. The last time he was suspended, which was in June, when he came back he let me know what a great time he had on suspension inviting girls over to his house that were also suspended.
If Outcast had been involved in a restorative conference with the first violent incident and had been given the opportunity to hear how his behavior had impacted his victims and their families maybe it would have deterred him from being involved in further incidents of the same nature. Outcast is on his way to being systematically shamed by society and stigmatized by his behavior. He already feels deserted by his biological parents and feels that his foster mother does not care about him. His peers are his family literally. They give meaning to his existence. He rules the boys because he loves to fight. They respect him because most of them are afraid of him. He loves the girls and the girls love him even though at times he displays abusive behavior towards them.
Guy Masters in his thesis entitled Re-integrative shaming in theory and practice. Thinking about feeling in criminology discusses John Braithwaite’s book, Crime Shame and Reintegration. .
Masters says in the opening of the article:
“John Braithwaite’s (1989) theory of re-integrative shaming has seen him described as one of the new stars of criminology…” (Masters, 1997, p. 9)
Reintegrative shaming separates the deed from the doer and allows for expressions of community disapproval which is then followed by gestures of reacceptance back into the larger community. Disintegrative shaming or stigmatization leads to systematic shaming, or individuals that do not feel good about themselves and eventually become repeat offenders. Braithwaite identifies thirteen facts that have consistently been associated with offending or breaking the law. I was especially interested in fact 12 which stated:
“For both men and women, being at the bottom of the class structure, whether measured by socioeconomic status, socioeconomic status of the area in which the person lives, being unemployed, being a member of an oppressed minority (e.g. blacks in the U.S.) increases rates of offending for all types of crime apart from those for which opportunities are systematically less available to the poor (i.e. white collar crime).” (Masters, 1997, p. 14)
Many teachers realize that we are losing students to the streets (subcultures) and feel powerless in the face of this tragedy. I know that suspension does not work yet there is nothing else being offered as an alternative in dealing with chronic misbehavior. The student is either suspended or stays in the classroom where a great amount of disruption of other students learning takes place. The hierarchy in education does not want to hear from teachers. The climate in our country right now has led to bashing or blaming teachers for what ails the American Public School system.
I truly could identify with the article Fair Process in terms of how teachers are now being treated in many school systems. I was in a failing school in Newark and because of this we constantly had visitors from downtown and the state coming into the classroom. Four and five people at a time possibly even more, would cross over the threshold into the classroom observing, looking through papers, whispering to students and then leaving never saying a word to you, nor did you ever get feedback in reference to their thinking. Does anyone care about what teachers think? It states in the article:
“Fair process builds trust and commitment, trust and commitment produce voluntary cooperation, and voluntary cooperation drives performance, leading people to go beyond the call of duty by sharing their knowledge and applying their creativity.” (Kim & Mauborgne, 1997, p. 71)
As we were taking this course many of us wondered why Restorative Practices has not caught on in a major way and been implemented in more school systems across the country. The hierarchy in education is ignoring the fact that there is a direct correlation between behavior in the classroom and test scores. Why not ask teachers what they think the problem is and what could possibly be done? There are many creative and innovative teachers out there who would be willing to share their knowledge in search of a better way. That’s how I was led to IIRP.
In the article Restorative Justice in Everyday Life Ted Wachtel and Paul McCold discuss the development of the Social Discipline Window:
“By contrasting control and support the social discipline window classifies individual, organizational, and other approaches to formal and informal social discipline in a broad range of settings. These settings include parenting children, teaching students, supervising employees, regulating corporations and responding to international conflicts (Brathwaite 2000).” (Wachtel & McCold, 2000, p. 5)
The staff at CSF (Community Service Foundation) an organization that works with troubled youth and has a number of alternative schools in Pennsylvania, developed a shorthand method to distinguish the four approaches to discipline:

Not: nothing is done in response to inappropriate behavior
For: makes excuses for the behavior; does everything for the youth asking little in return
To: responds by doing things to the youth; scolding, handing our punishments
With: works with young people and engages them directly in the process for holding them accountable
If my student Outcast had been exposed both to restorative conferencing and restorative practices being used in the classroom such as the use of the social discipline window and the concept of circles which we talked about and did role plays, perhaps his behavior would have been positively affected. Circles used in the classroom from the beginning of the school year could help establish expectations, both behavioral and academic, as well as help develop respect, access understanding, check on feelings only to name a few of the many benefits. Circles can add a therapeutic touch to the classroom setting which many of our students need. Today’s child, regardless of educational setting ( i.e. alternative., special , regular) needs a supportive atmosphere yet one that demands they be accountable for their misdeeds.
I retired from the Newark Public School system but I am currently on the school planning committee as a community member at my former school. I’m also active in a non profit organization called the House of Love Soup Kitchen, where the larger part of our clientele is homeless men and many of them are substance abusers. We also have other people that live in the community including women and children that attend.
I was very inspired by this course. I am looking forward to being a part of the graduate program at the International Institute for Restorative Practices and to applying what I learn to my own “disconnected” part of the world.