Individual and Collective Accountability in a Restorative Framework

Restorative Practice Myth Buster Series Part 2

Restorative Practice Myth Buster Series Part 1

A year older...and far wiser

Building Strong, Resilient and Positive School Cultures with Restorative Practices - John Madigan

Relationships First is the RP model used by one of my mentors and dear friend from Newfound Land, dr. dorothy vaandering. I love the simplicity of this overarching intention. It is a wonderful compass to guide all that we do in schools - from our relationship with learning, the relationship between our school improvement plans and the people they seek to serve, the connection between colleagues, amongst students, and amidst our school communities- Relationships First! What might this look like in practice? Connection Before Curriculum in Our Classrooms! It could be as simple as connection before curriculum, especially important at the start of the school year when we may be trying to hotwire connection and create some safety and belonging with new students. I’m so very proud of our RP Student Mentor - Be Here, Be You, Belong programme that many of our schools began this academic school year with - seeing images on social media of the connection and relational space the senior students built for incoming first years brings me so much joy.. Dorothy also stretched my thinking around Relationships First further when she suggested that we not only connect before but connect through curriculum - I loved this reframe. Facilitating students to identify their personal scripts through stories they encounter in English class, or perhaps allowing students to see themselves in mathematical equations using relatable data, or using academic prompts such as ‘What was your favourite part / the part you struggled with the most in today’s lesson?’ are as important as using relational one-word-whizz check-ins at the beginning of class. (you’ll see our one-word-whizz series if you follow Connect RP on social media). Bringing restorative language and relational thinking into the classroom by inviting students to use the restorative questions to unpack the subtext of a character or to guide an introspective diary entry of a character in English class to explore the past-present-future grammatical tenses in a language classroom, are just a few ways to foster connection through our curriculum. I love learning from teachers about the many other ways they may seek to do this in their classrooms. Looking at the relationship between what we learn and how we learn - focussing on our relational pedagogy is key! One of my favourite parts of the face to face workshops we deliver is modelling relational pedagogy while learning about RP - but of course we can apply such methodologies while learning about volcanoes or photosynthesis too. It is paramount when nurturing a restorative classroom or indeed school, we look at developing methodologies and whole school preferred relational practices that acknowledge the importance and impact of process - the relationship between how we learn on what we learn. If you would like to know more and engage in an actual experience of this you can check out a list of the workshops, dates and venues on offer this year on our website workshops page here

Shame is ‘I am bad’, guilt is ‘I did something bad’. Shame is ‘I am a mistake’ whereas guilt is ‘I made a mistake’! Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging (Breńe Brown). Guilt, on the other hand, is when we feel bad about something we may or may not have done. We know that guilt, as opposed to shame, occurs when we are connected to our values. It is when we hold what we have done or failed to do, up against who we want to or indeed believe we can be and it doesn’t feel good (Brown 2013). It can be uncomfortable but it is highly adaptive. This is what inspires connection to our true selves, to our values, and to others; this is what motivates authentic apologies and a desire to make amends.Whereas shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can change! Is it ever helpful for people to feel shame? In short, No! Shame is very deep, damaging and can have life-long consequences. It is corrosive to a positive sense of self, which is exactly what we need to know, to live, in order to positively contribute to ourselves and our communities. Shame is highly correlated with violence, addiction, bullying and aggression. Shame is far more likely to cause misbehaviour than to cure it yet the culture and punitive systems that we operate within often dictate and encourage shaming responses to such behaviour by criticising, or imposing punishments TO them that usually just sponsor blind resentment instead of recognition of values; armoured defense instead of open reflection, and shame cycles instead of healing connections. Sometimes, as loving parents or caring educators, we unconsciously contribute to poor behaviour by shaming people who may have caused harm or done wrong. Our intention, of course, is to support the people in our care to do better, to teach the young people the difference between right and wrong, but to do this we must learn to separate the behaviour from the person, only then can we allow someone who has caused harm the opportunity to connect to their own values and goodness in order to do better.

In this piece, one of Michelle’s mentors, Dr. Belinda Hopkins, offers a guest blog in response to one of her Myth Busters that ‘RP is a Soft Approach’.

In this blog, we explore the idea that discipline is about teaching, and not about punishing. That when a teacher or someone else imposes a consequence with the supposed intention of changing behaviour it very rarely solves the actual problem that was driving the student to behave this way in the first place.