week 3: summary of Repairing Harm- a Better Alternative to Punishment

  The article I read from the Cult of Pedagogy is entitled “Repairing Harm: A Better Alternative to Punishment” and it describes some of the features of restorative justice practices. Restorative justice is an area I unfortunately have not had much training in, but I greatly support the general philosophy behind it. The article discussed some of the main features of restorative practices being helping the student identify who was harmed by their behavior and make amends. I think restorative practices help repair the relationship between the teacher and the student better than traditional discipline as it focuses on mending harm when a relationship is broken and not just putting a bandaid on it. I was telling a mentor colleague just today that I am kind of excited for when we are back in person school as I feel like I have greatly strengthened my relationships with students and I’m hoping that will pay off in both my positive and negative interactions with them.
    I do agree with the article that traditional discipline focuses on exclusionary practices (sending a kid out of the room etc.). This is not a trauma informed practice as it sends the message “I can’t handle you right now and we need to be apart.” I think many of our kids with challenging behaviors get stuck in a revolving cycle of getting sent out of class and then becoming further behind with content so they goof of to cover for their confusion. I think traditional discipline is based on maintaining surface level order, while restorative practices are more so based on relying on a deeper level of relationship. I want to look for the need behind the behavior in my classroom and the discussions that stem out of restorative conversations can lend itself to that.
    For any peers that read this blog post, I am curious if you have experiences with restorative practices and how you trained/shifted your mind to approach discipline in a new way.