Why thinking can be restorative

When things go wrong we ask questions in order to get a better understanding of the situation, its history and possible resolution.

One of the things that sets Restorative Practices aside from many other  approaches is its attention to the thinking of various parties involved. We ask questions like:

• "What were you thinking at the time?
• "What did you think when that happened?
• "What have you thought about since?"

Most other approaches tend to focus on establishing the "truth" of who did what, and attend to the feelings of those involved, especially the "victim".

So why can a focus on thinking be restorative?  I can think of two main reasons:

1. To gain greater insight into what happened 

It is very common that those involved have make erroneous assumptions and not fully understood what has happened and its implications. They may know what happened ("He stole my guitar!!") but have little insight into 

• how this came to happen and 
• what the motivations were
• how what actually happened differed from what was intended
• what this has meant for each party since the "guitar was stolen"
• how the matter might be resolved
• how relationships might be repaired
• how to reduce the likelihood on continuing problems

[ "Why" questions are very different. They start by identifying the "offender" as if a person can only be an offender or a victim. Then they challenge the offender to justify his/her actions or lose face - a commonly under-estimated painful and damaging experience. This in turn can make resolving the situation, repairing harm and rebuilding relationships more difficult - hence the need to impose "consequences" on the offender]

2. To gain greater insight into oneself and others

The other great value of "thinking" questions is that they may reveal contributing factors that have previously been hidden or unknown, even to the persons themselves. Teachers who use the restorative questions are frequently amazed by the insights they gain into the thinking of students they thought they knew well. 

For those involved, the insights are often the basis of significant social and emotional learning and may provide a basis for (informal) cognitive behaviour "therapy" that will help improve the future life experiences of those involved.

The behaviour of some people who have certain conditions or have been neglected, traumatised and/or abused is frequently problematic. They tend to react "instinctively" to situations on the basis of their previous "similar experiences" without the kinds of insights that can make a difference. Asking the "thinking" questions and taking their thinking seriously can be the basis of a powerful, sometimes life-changing "teachable moments".

Emotional Literacy and Restorative Practices

Lack of emotional literacy is a major contributor to problematic behaviour and harmed relationships.

Emotional literacy underpins most success and well-being. People with good levels of social literacy have a sound understanding of their own, and others' inner experiences. They better understand the society's requirements and expectations and are more skilful in using their social skills. Over time they develop and maintain of useful habits of mind.

Emotional Literacy is about 

• identifying, relating and communicating one's emotional responses to experience, and
• understanding and appreciating the emotional impact of experience on others

High levels of emotional literacy provides us with valid and comprehensive ‘data’ that then enables us to make well informed decisions and responses to the situations we encounter

The various aspects of emotional literacy include

• Awareness that our feelings arise from our thoughts about our experience
• Recognising emotions/feelings and intensity in ourselves and in others: friends, story characters…
• Naming feelings – “happy, sad, fear, anger, shame...
• Naming the intensity of feelings – vocab & awareness
• Expressing feelings
• Verbal expression of feelings - “I feel….
• Non-verbal expression of feelings - using body language, images, music...
• Matching feelings to experience – thinking about…
• Predictions how feelings may change
• Knowing about the common mistakes we often make about feelings

Restorative practices often provide participants with new insights into the emotional impact of events on themselves and each other. These insights can be life-changing and the key to repairing harm, rebuilding relationships and building community.

Restorative practices make a powerful pedagogy for developing emotional literacy from real-life in real-time. 

Schools as communities

Education as a service?

The major operational units of the Tasmanian Department of Education are called regional "Learning Services".

But what does this say about the core responsibilities and activities and the people involved? Who is supposed to be active and who is to be passive? Who has the authority to do what? Who are the contributors and who are the consumers? What is the social contract between participants and stakeholders? And how does this shape the climate in which education occurs?

These issues are not easily unravelled by thinking of education as a service, for example, using this model the consumers (learners) are the producers of the outcomes???? Great schools need to be more than service centres.

Schools as communities

@iirpgradschool recently tweeted an interesting and different perspective:

• We must include young people in changing the climate in the (school) building. "I am no longer a consumer – I am a contributor." 

The IIRP perspective sees schools as communities in their own right. In communities, people belong, they are included by others, they have opportunities to contribute, and they are accountable to other members of the community for their actions...

Restorative Practices enable schools to develop as communities:

• Affective statements enhance communication and help build collaborative relationships
• Circles enable everyone to be included and to contribute towards their own success, the success of others and the school as a community
• And when things go wrong restorative questions, meetings and conferences can support those involved, enable harm to be repaired, relationships to be rebuilt and wrong-doers to be retained
• Belonging and contributing meet a fundamental human need, reduce anger and discontent by adding to identity

Restorative Practices and Social Emotional Learning

Restorative Practices are a powerful part of Social and Emotional Learning
Social and emotional learning is intrinsic in all aspects of the life and work of the school. To be successful in school and in life students need to develop capabilities in the areas of
 - Self-awareness
 - Self-management
 - Social-awareness
 - Responsible decision making
 - Relationship skills

As a result we need numerous pedagogies to support Social and Emotional Learning.  Each pedagogy is of greater or lesser value according to the people involved, purposes, needs and context involved.
['Context' includes the histories, experiences and capabilities of those involved including staff, families and the community.]

Common pedagogies for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

• quality teaching - supporting all learning as a social and emotional endeavour
• literature studies - all good literature includes social and emotional content
• role playing games - provide novel experience and new insights
• active supervision - engaging with students in a range of contexts
• circles, meetings conferences - engaging collaboratively around social and emotional matters
• restorative questions - for when things go wrong 
• SEL programs - using some of the many available programs to specifically address social and emotional learning - see KidsMatter (for primary schools) and MindMatters (secondary) for information on a wide range of SEL programs. Also the The Australian Guidance and Counselling Association index of programs
• philosophy - teaching thinking skills, ways of thinking and acting and addressing social and emotional issues
• themes and topics - structured learning sequences focusing on chosen social and emotional matters
• leading: directing for action, coaching for skills, mentoring for understanding, collaborating for effectiveness
• expectations - embedding explicit social and emotional expectations in the life and work of the school
• action learning
• solution focus
• values, rules, regulations -
• structures, organisation, policies -
• problem solving, responses and consequences
• engaging in dialogue - discussion, agreement, negotiation, mediation, arbitration
• counselling, therapy and other support services
• acknowledgements: greetings, feedback, tokens, awards, celebrations...
• modelling:  often needs to be made explicit
• ...

The aspects of SEL overlap and so it is not necessary to address each one separately. Each of the above pedagogies can be used to support SEL in each of the four areas

Implement SEL through improved pedagogies

1. Focus on quality teaching
2. Start by including emotional literacy within regular literacy lessons
3. Follow up with incidental SEL coaching within active supervision including 
• Affective Statements
• Restorative questions
4. Extend this to include emotional literacy within all learning areas
5. Use everyday circles, check-in and check-out...
6. Develop restorative problem solving practices including problem solving circles

Negative Social and Emotional Learning

• harassment
• unfair exclusion
• put-downs
• intimidation
• taking advantage of younger, more naive people
• ...

"Restoring" order

When harm is done it is relatively easy to identify the primary relationships that have been damaged and need to be restored.

In serious matters, restorative practices also address close secondary relationships by including supporters of both the offenders and victims.

Well-meaning authorities may attempt to "keep the door open" for those who have caused some harm by implementing minimal consequences. For example, a court may apply a suspended sentence for a serious offence. 

In terms of the social discipline window (Fig 1.), such approaches can be perceived as permissive (high support - low challenge). However, this can undermine the confidence of bystanders and their relationships with those involved and the system (justice system, school...). A bystander is anyone who knows that harm was done, before, during or after the fact. 

Restorative (high challenge - high support) approaches  involve the completion of substantial, well-managed challenges by those who have caused harm. Such challenges are important restoring relationships and repairing the harm done. 

\Communicating the successful completion of these challenges can be important for wider bystanders who need to know that justice has been done, and that there is order including social discipline.

Demonstrating a Restorative Circle

Recently I had a request for a video (~10 minutes) of students participating in a restorative circle. Brief snippets are readily available within other videos but I am not aware of any that exist, except in snippets (e.g., in the West Philadelphia video on SaferSanerSchools). If you can help, please let me know. My response to the request was as follows.

Making such a video would have some major complications. It would not be easy...

• There is the issue of confidentiality in real circles for serious incidents. 
•  And there are the challenges of acting and filming simulated circles given the age of the participants and the physical layout of circles (ideal for participants but difficult to record on video)

DEMONSTRATION CIRCLES

However, it is common practice to use role plays to demonstrate Restorative circles in workshops. This needs some setting up before hand so that the "players" have some idea of their context:

• what happened,
• what their character might think
• who else might have been affected
• and what might be done to repair the harm

Interestingly, this "setting up" is very important and needs to happen in real-life situations. To keep everyone safe and minimise further harm it is important to get the participants' agreement to participate before taking things to the next level. There are three main levels above making affective statements

1. Restorative Questions individually to victim* and offender* - may be sufficient for essential learning and to reduce the likelihood of minor incidents recurring
2. Restorative Meeting jointly with victim and offender - may be sufficient to resolve a less serious issue or incident
3. Restorative Conference (a larger circle to resolve a major issue or incident): victim, offender, other stakeholders (others effected and supporters)

Participants need to know what their experience is likely to be if they engage in the next level:

• what the rules will be;
• who will be involved;
• what questions will be asked;
• and that they will be safe, respected and supported

IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES

1. Facilitators need to have a good idea of how things will go at the next level before initiating it. A facilitator should not take a matter to a higher level unless he/she is reasonably confident about the step being successful for all concerned.  Unfortunately it is possible for more problematic content to be revealed at the next level. Facilitators need to be able to handle such situations and sometimes a meeting or conference has to be cancelled or postponed.

2*. In many situations the key players are both "victims" and "offenders" - people don't usually do the "wrong thing" for no reason!! Thus it is important not to assign victim and offender roles too strongly. Restorative practices may be well structured but they are also open.