How we learnt to use restorative language and practice to relate, think & learn together
Implications for leadership in any organisation from the
Rozelle Public School Restorative Journey
Lyn Doppler, National Mediation Conference 2012
11.9.12.
Reflect on your journeys for discussion
• Past - what has shaped & moulded your practice?
• Present - how you explain your existing practice.
• Future - what the ideal practice would look like.
Practice & Challenges
• What is one of the things you do well?
• What are some of your day-to-day challenges?
• What would you like to take from today?
Always begin with staff, Build people….your team
…not more “Programs’’!!!!
Some Questions for staff/team at start of year/term
• What’s school life been like for you?
• What are your hopes for this term?
• What are your expectations of each other?
• What contributions do you bring to the team?
• What questions do you have?
• What are your expectations of me?
• How can I best support you?
Restorative Training
Tri-level training
For all stakeholders, the whole community:
• All Staff
• All Students
• Parents
Staff Pre-restorative training
• Talented
• Diverse, some experienced, mostly early career
• Enthusiastic
• More inclined to want problems fixed by executive
• Less likely to lead initiatives for fear of mistakes
• Not solving problems at class level
Staff-Post Restorative Training
• Language changed to reflect our own conversations
• No longer looking for another tool for the toolbox or for every program under the sun
• Conversations were about our explicit practice and responsibilities
• Empowered to repair and rebuild with students at their own classroom level
• Keen to collaborate and lead initiatives
• High participation rate and satisfaction
Restorative Practice is NOT:
• An intervention to deal only with conflict & problems
• Less about behaviour
• Yet another program • A set of strategies, techniques
• Just for students
Restorative Practice IS about:
• Changing the conversation for people and thus creating new experiences for them
• Relationships and empowerment
• Promoting participation and shared accountability
• All stakeholders in a community
• Anyone and any organisation
• Enhancing emotion and empathy
• Enhancing collaboration
• Providing opportunity for new learning
Continuum of Restorative Practice
Affective Statements Proactive class circles around social & emotional learning
Whole class circle and restorative process
Formal Conference
Restorative Conversation: class, corridor, playground
Restorative Intervention Small, impromptu meeting
⏏ ⏏ ⏏ ⏏ ⏏
More of these
Less of these
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FIR
M
LOW
HIGH
HIGH
Adapted from Social Discipline Window - Paul McCold and Ted Wachtel - 2000
TO WITH
NOT FOR
punitive restorative
neglectful permissive
authoritarian
stigmatising
authoritative
respectful
indifferent
passive
protective
easy/undemanding
14
PRACTICE DOMAINS
TO WITH
NOT FOR
Which
domain
do you
mostly
practice
within?
FIR
M Challenge
Limits
Expectations
Support - Encouragement - Nurturing
Restorative Questions I
• What happened?
• What were you thinking at the time?
• What have you thought about since?
• Who has been affected by what you did?
• In what way?
• What do you think you need to do to make
things right?
What do you notice about these questions for
the wrongdoer?
15
past
pre
sent
futu
re
• What did you think when you realised what had happened?
• What impact has this incident had on you and others?
• What has been the hardest thing for you?
• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?
What do you notice about these questions for the person who’s been harmed?
16
Restorative Questions II
past
pre
sent
futu
re
Fair Process
The Central Idea...
17
‘….individuals are most likely to trust and co-
operate freely with systems - whether they
themselves win or lose by those systems -
when fair process is observed.’
Kim & Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review, July – August 1997
Restorative practice can transform
• The restorative process takes people from the past to the present and gives them hope for the future
Past Present Future Chance to Reflection time Reparation tell story Remorse Stronger Validation Relationships Ownership
Socratic & experiential nature of script
• Restorative Practice asks teachers to reflect on the traditional mode of teaching practice – which is a teach 'to’, ‘teacher-centred’ framework.
• Instead RP focuses on open ended Socratic questions and informs a teach 'with’ model with teachers as expert facilitators.
Knowing how to ask the right questions
• Engages and challenges people in Socratic ways.
• It builds on the premise that teachers (leaders) need to experience ‘being’ restorative, to be effective at using Restorative Practice with students and parents.
Having experienced restorative practice at a personal level influenced:
• Our daily practice in class and made it more explicit
• How we interacted with one another • How we interacted with students • How we interacted with parents
Explicit Practice & Engagement
• All too often, instructors gain knowledge of their particular field, but know very little of their learners and how learning takes place (Zellerer, 2003).
• They are often incapable of describing the explicit practice of what they do themselves.
Useful application of Socratic inquiry
learning involves several factors:
• a context for questions • a framework for questions • a focus for questions • different levels of questions • skill in formulating questions • time for reflection • developing habits of mind • self-initiating questions
Restorative Framework Quality Teaching Framework
Explicit framework for dialogue & reflection
Explicit framework for dialogue & reflection
Consistency of teacher judgment Consistency of teacher judgment
Scaffolding-visuals & a range of restorative interactions along a continuum
Scaffolding-visuals & patterns on which to hang learning
Values Values
Develop empathy Problematic understanding
Listening, explicit thought and deep understanding
Substantive conversations, oral language skills, deep understanding
Socratic questioning Higher order thinking
Maximises affect or emotion Why & how-empathy
Respectful challenge, risk-taking High expectations
Working ‘with’ Negotiated curriculum and assessment; student self-direction
Respectful relationships Social support; models respect for others
Goal oriented, personalized responses to learning
Purposeful activities, task orientation, motivation of the individual
Accountability & self governance Student self-direction
Background knowledge Significance
No blame approach, circles Risk-taking approach, cooperative
Scaffolds, participatory Quality learning environment
Empowerment Responsibility, engagement, leadership for all
Telling one’s story Narrative and the use of story
Knowledge integration & generalisation Transference, connectedness
Inclusivity Inclusivity
Be the change you want to see- ‘model, model, model’
A way of being and learning together
Respectful
relationships
Explicit practice
Socratic questions
Ongoing dialogue
Working ‘with’
The progress of culture change
Large conference
Class conference
Impromptu meetings
Circles for staff and students
Proactive and strength based processes
More of these
Fewer of these
1.Culture
Focus on building healthy relationships
in a climate of trust empowerment &
support
3.Teaching Practice
New beliefs & understandings
whilst reflecting on existing practice
5.Capacity
Building Individual & collective
commitment & responsibility for making decisions
4.Student Learning
Student centred learning with
focus on quality restorative
teaching
Enhanced student
Achievement
in a Restorative Practice
school culture
2.Visionary Leadership
Team Provides structured opportunities for staff dialogue
Adding Value
Learning on the Job
‘The problem is that there is almost no opportunity for teachers to engage in continuous and substantial learning about their practice in the setting in which they actually work, observing and being observed by their colleagues in their own classrooms and classrooms of other teachers in other schools confronting similar problems of practice’
Richard Elmore in Fullan’s ‘The Six Secrets of Change’ 2008
From here……
•What did you find helpful?
•What implications does today have for
some of your context’s practice?
Implications for Leadership:
• Be visionary and collegial • Provide time for regular, structured discussion • Gain skill in asking questions • Celebrate strengths and successes • Affirm each other • Acknowledge challenges, share challenges • Challenge each other • Listen and reflect • Be restorative by modelling respectful relationships • Be brave when things go wrong • Believe in the process, model, model, model • Build capacity
Experiencing Restorative Practice ourselves:
• Enables us to co-create the conditions necessary to enhance inclusive, inquiry based learning and engagement.
• Helps us see that it’s a process that works in any context leading to a change in culture and capacity building in an organisation that is responsible for its individual and collective decision-making.