Restorative Practices

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Introduction to Restorative Practices

Objective: Champion Teachers will be able to…

● learn and practice techniques for regulation in and out of the classroom. ● plan and execute restorative conversations.

We assume positive intent...

How can using positive intent help us support our students when a conflict arises?

Understanding your Dysregulation What are the child or adult behaviors that elicit your emotional response? Understanding Dysregulation:

Overgeneralization: Involves taking one situation and making it a general rule about other situations without testing the accuracy of that rule for different circumstances. Words such as never, always, all, everyone, and nobody may indicate an overgeneralization. An example might be “This child never pays attention.”

Global Labeling: The habit of applying stereotyped labels to whole classes of people, things, behaviors, experiences. Example: “Principals are so controlling.”

Focusing on the Negative: Selective hearing or seeing that only notices what is negative. Example: “I’m a bad teacher; these students don’t do anything right.”

Catastrophizing: A type of focusing on the negative that we think will happen in the future. Example: “My students will never be on grade level. I’m going to lose my job.”

Polarized Thinking: Puts everything in terms of extremes, also called “black-and-white thinking.” Example: “All of my students are struggling academically.”

Self-Blame: Puts you at the center of the universe and then blames you for everything that goes wrong there. Example: “I am sorry that my students didn’t do better on that assessment. I don’t seem to be teaching them well.”

Personalization: Also puts you in the center of the universe, but makes you feel like you’re always under critical observation. Example: “I’m the only teacher who can’t understand this data analysis process.”

Mind Reading: The habit of assuming that everyone thinks the way you do—projecting your feelings onto them and then proceeding as if your projections were facts. Example: “They will all know I’m a horrible teacher.”

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Control Fallacies: Either we think we are in control of everything or we think we are in control of nothing. Example: “Nothing I do can make a difference.”

Emotional Reasoning: Relies on feelings to interpret reality. You don’t use your intellect to examine the accuracy of your emotions. You don’t recognize and challenge the judgmental self-talk that may be driving emotions.

Reflect:

Of these cognitive distortions, which of these do you self-identify most with? What examples do you recall when you thought this way?

Self-Talk What words or phrases do you want to remember to help you regulate yourself when you are triggered?

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Deep Acting

1. Situation When is a time that you have become dysregulated-frustrated-angry-etc with a student or in a work environment?

2. Emotions What are the emotions you feel during this situation? Rate the intensity of the emotions from 1 (not at all) to 10 (extreme).

3. Automatic Thoughts What are the things you are thinking in this instance? Rate your degree of belief of these things from 1-10.

4. Evaluate How reasonable are these beliefs? How do you feel now that you’ve reflected on them?

5. Modify Thoughts Did you notice any distortions? How can you change your thinking so that you can remain calm in this situation?

6. Positive Self-Talk Reminder

Questions to help you identify your thoughts:

● What is going through my mind as I am feeling this emotion? ● What am I telling myself about this situation? ● What am I afraid might happen? ● Am I holding expectations for myself or others? ● Am I speculating about what another person may think? ● Am I making any predictions for future events? ● Am I evaluating myself, other people, or the situation?

Questions to help you evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of a thought:

● What is the evidence that supports or contradicts this thought?

● Is there an alternative explanation? Is there another way of looking at it?

● Am I overestimating the probability of the negative event occurring?

● What is the worst that could happen?

● What is most realistic?

● If a friend had this thought, what would I tell them?

● To the degree that this belief is true, what should I do?

● How does it work in the long run, if I let this belief be in charge of my life?

● What might be a more useful or helpful way of thinking about this?

Reflect: What resonated with you during the Deep Acting exercise and the first half of the session?

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Scenario: Mrs. Giberson’s class has 7 laptops in their classroom. During ELA, students take turns using the computers to work on their research. However, the same students are taking the computers every day and not allowing others to have the opportunity to use them. A few students grabbed the computers from each other, and one fell to the ground breaking the screen. What should these students have done? Reflect:

What was this experience like for you as a participant?

What does that tell you about what students might need in order to feel safe to participate?

Using what you know about a trauma lens and what’s needed for a learning brain, why are circles an important component to fostering that classroom environment? **Potential Situations for Restorative Circles can be found on page 9.

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Real Justice Script

Terms: Actor: The person who caused the issue. Acted Upon: The person who was impacted by the actor’s actions. Support People: Family or Friend Note: These terms have been modified from the original terms of perpetrator and victim to minimize the connection to criminality.

Restorative Practice Facilitator Guide

Step 1 Welcome & Introduction: “Hello, as you know my name is _____. I have been asked to facilitate this meeting (Introduce participants if this is necessary). I have spoken to you all about the incident (briefly describe what happened). _____ (actor) has admitted his/her part. I will now invite you all to talk about how you and other people may have been hurt or affected by what happened. This will help us to understand what is needed to make things right.

Step 2 Start with the actor(s): “I would like to start with _____. Could you tell us what happened and what was your part? What happened then? At that time, what were you thinking about? What have you thought about since? In what ways has ____ (acted upon’s name) and others been hurt or affected by what you did?

Step 3 In turn, invite the (i) acted upon/s (ii) their family or support people (iii) the actor’s family or support people to speak: ____ (acted upon’s name) what did you think when you realized what _____ (actor) had done? How has this incident affected you? What has been the hardest thing for you?

Step 4 Go back to actor(s): “You have just heard how ____ (acted upon’s name) and others have been affected by what you did. Is there anything you want to say at this moment?

Step 5 Return to acted upon(s): “_______ (acted upon’s name), what do you think needs to happen to make things right?

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Step 6 Return to actor(s): “________ (actor’s name), what do you think of what _____ (acted upon’s name) suggested/ What do you think you need to do?

Step 7 Return to the acted upon(s): “is there anything else you think will help make things right?”

Step 8 Return to actor(s): “What have you learned from our meeting?”

Step 9 Final invitation to speak: “Before I close the meeting, does anyone have anything further they need to say or to share?”

Step 10 Close the meeting: “Thank you for participating in this meeting. I hope our time together has helped make things right again.”

Reflect: What are the participants saying and doing to be able to come to a resolution and restore their relationship?

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Take it live: Real Justice Script

Terms: Actor: The person who caused the issue. Acted Upon: The person who was impacted by the actor’s actions. Support People: Family or Friend Note: These terms have been modified from the original terms of perpetrator and victim to minimize the connection to criminality.

Restorative Practice Facilitator Guide

Step 1 Welcome & Introduction: “Hello, as you know my name is _____. I have been asked to facilitate this meeting (Introduce participants if this is necessary). I have spoken to you all about the incident in which ____ tackled ____ and pushed him as he got up and then ____ pushed _____ back. _____ (actor) has admitted his/her part. I will now invite you all to talk about how you and other people may have been hurt or affected by what happened. This will help us to understand what is needed to make things right.

Step 2 Start with the actor(s): “I would like to start with _____. Could you tell us what happened and what was your part? What happened then? At that time, what were you thinking about? What have you thought about since? In what ways has ____ (acted upon’s name) and others been hurt or affected by what you did?

Step 3 In turn, invite the (i) acted upon/s (ii) their family or support people (iii) the actor’s family or support people to speak: ____ (acted upon’s name) what did you think when you realized what _____ (actor) had done? How has this incident affected you? What has been the hardest thing for you?

Step 4 Go back to actor(s): “You have just heard how ____ (acted upon’s name) and others have been affected by what you did. Is there anything you want to say at this moment?

Step 5 Return to acted upon(s): “_______ (acted upon’s name), what do you think needs to happen to make things right?

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Step 6 Return to actor(s): “________ (actor’s name), what do you think of what _____ (acted upon’s name) suggested/ What do you think you need to do?

Step 7 Return to the acted upon(s): “Is there anything else you think will help make things right?”

Step 8 Return to actor(s): “What have you learned from our meeting?”

Step 9 Final invitation to speak: “Before I close the meeting, does anyone have anything further they need to say or to share?”

Step 10 Close the meeting: “Thank you for participating in this meeting. I hope our time together has helped make things right again.”

Reflect: What was this experience like for you as a participant?

What does that tell you about what students might need in order to feel safe to participate? Using what you know about a trauma lens and what’s needed for a learning brain, why are circles an important component to fostering that classroom environment?

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Potential Situations for Restorative Circles

Discussion 2 Discussion 3

students that leave others out arguments at playground (physical) hitting each other (fighting) fight// arguments bullying sharing (lack of) skipping lines speaking respectful to peers inappropriate language and unkind words tattling // problem solve laughing (inappropriate times) dancing (during instruction) dealing with a death name calling( lost, not picked reactive) owning up to wrong (lying) drama clicks (specific group of friends) Speaking out of anger ganging up on other girls playing inappropriately making fun of others

Panicked frustrated anxious nonchalant upset upset anxious afraid of the consequence confused and upset panicked scared upset/ not fair embarrassed // scared nervous// relieved disappointed//embarrassed feel good about fighting for right nonchalant shocked// upset confused shocked relieved upset upset disappointed

Computers go on a rotation hold on to computer tighter schedule for computers sign in sign out help desk ticket assigned times rotation/ schedule apology!! rotation//apology!! apology!!// help desk ticket rotation// group work for computers with posting schedule sign in and sing out schedule// rotation schedule// sign in sign out get more computers// find a way to get more computers (class project) apology!!// ideas to help IT person chart of times and names record of who uses computer// after school activity scheduling//buddy share discussion on how to share// transitions of computers discussion about taking care of expensive equipment// buddy work jobs 1 person pass out computer checking out computers//timers group leaders group//student leaders (jobs) rotation

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