Restorative Justice in the Classroom: Liberating Students’ Voices Through Relational Pedagogy 3031165896, 9783031165894

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Restorative Justice in the Classroom Liberating Students’ Voices Through Relational Pedagogy Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal

Restorative Justice in the Classroom

Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal

Restorative Justice in the Classroom Liberating Students’ Voices Through Relational Pedagogy

Crystena A. H. Parker-Shandal Renison University College University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-031-16589-4    ISBN 978-3-031-16590-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For all the young people who persist in their journeys for justice, each day.

Foreword

Setting up the Talking Circle, by PhDcartoon vii

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FOREWORD

As I write this foreword, I’ve just spent a week with Dr. Crystena Parker-­ Shandal, facilitating a circle process workshop for the summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University. The week was amazing; the participants were brilliant and courageous; collaborating with Dr. Parker-­ Shandal was transformative. In authentic and thoughtful ways, Dr. Parker-­ Shandal consistently lives out a set of principles and values regarding the ways in which human beings relate to one another. It is those principles and values that are illustrated in her writing, in her teaching, and in her scholarship. This groundbreaking book is an example of the work that emerges from that level of commitment to a restorative justice ethos. While the book’s primary focus is on the implementation of circle processes in schools, Parker-Shandal ensures that the practice of circles is grounded in the beliefs and principles of restorative justice, one of which is a commitment to just and equitable learning environments. Centering justice as the heart of restorative justice in education means decentering systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, patriarchy, and heterosexism. Acknowledging that schools are often spaces of injustice, conflict, and discomfort, circles are presented not simply as a pedagogical tool for community building, but as a potential space for “conflict dialogue” that facilitates the work of justice and equity. Grounded in democratic citizenship, Parker-Shandal’s research and findings elucidate the importance of being intentional about the role that circle processes may play in promoting a more socially just classroom or school. Parker-Shandal also acknowledges that another principle of restorative justice in education is a commitment to relational pedagogies—in particular, a critical relationality that consistently examines where power is at play within those relationships. Educators generally believe that healthy relationships are essential for effective learning; Parker-Shandal extends that principle, noting the importance of authentic connections in working with conflict. Noting that conflict is a normal part of human relationships, this book provides guidance in how to engage with conflict in ways that transform relationships within schools and classrooms. If ever there was a time for a book like this, it is now. Schools are increasingly sites of discord, division, and conflict. Whether it be debates about critical race theory or transgender bathrooms, it often seems that adults have forgotten how to engage with civility and respect. But rather than being discouraged, Parker-Shandal—and indeed many who work to bring about more restorative schools and classrooms—finds wisdom in the Indigenous, feminist, Afrocentric, and religious roots of restorative

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justice. She brings a critical lens to her understanding of restorative justice, urging restorative justice educators to address power dynamics and create spaces (like circles) that promote open, honest, and critical dialogue. This critical lens runs like a thread throughout Parker-Shandal’s book, reminding educators and academics alike that pursuing a more restorative world necessitates pursuing a more just world. Parker-Shandal does not assume that conversations about justice and equity will naturally emerge from circle-based conflict dialogue. Each chapter of this book supports readers in developing intentional and grounded approaches to facilitating circles that will promote this type of dialogue. She assumes that we all need guidance in how to engage with conflict in more transformative ways and provides such guidance both through instructional practices and through story. Chapters 1 and 2 lay out a clear vision for this type of educational setting. After discussing the principles of restorative justice and various approaches to peacebuilding, explaining the foundations of circles, and situating those concepts within a framework of liberatory education, Parker-Shandal provides readers with specific insights about how to build and sustain pedagogical practices grounded in critical restorative justice. Leaning into the writings of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Bettina Love, and others, Parker-Shandal deeply engages the readers in what justice and liberation look like and what they require of educators. Chapters 3 and 4 provide a discussion of the research upon which Parker-Shandal builds her ideas, research grounded in participation, interviews, and observations. But this is not solely an academic text. In the remainder of the book, she unpacks the findings of her research, drawing on the wisdom and insights of classroom educators working to implement circles and other restorative justice practices in their daily routines. Because Parker-Shandal’s research allowed her to be on-site, interacting with the educators in her study, the findings are relevant and insightful; the wisdom that emerges is powerful and transformative. Because of Parker-Shandal’s experience as an educator, she digs deep into the actual needs of educators and addresses so many of the questions and concerns about restorative justice circle practice. Parker-Shandal does not assume that educators automatically show up prepared to engage in restorative justice circles or in conflict dialogue. A significant part of the text outlines the types of training, mentoring, and coaching that the educators in the study received. Parker-Shandal highlights the importance of adequately equipping members of the learning

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community to facilitate restorative circles, and discourages bringing in experts from outside who may not understand the specific contexts within which educators work. Parker-Shandal illustrates that these “fly-in, fly-out methods” simply do not work to adequately transform the culture and climate of the school. Parker-Shandal further argues that restorative justice practices are not a quick fix—they require time and intention. Throughout the latter half of the book, numerous vignettes provide glimpses into classrooms, describing authentic scenarios followed by a thorough analysis where ParkerShandal articulates not only what is happening in the scenario, but also how the actions align with the principles of restorative justice circles and illustrate ways in which the needs of students are attended to through conflict dialogue. This is a text that requires the reader to engage. The stories are compelling, the content is clear, and the insights are challenging, requiring us as educators to continuously reflect and interrogate our work. Most chapters conclude with key takeaways and questions for reflection, which are intended to support the reader as they wrestle with ideas and the application of those ideas. Very rarely does a book so cleanly hold together a strong theoretical core and so much pragmatic expression of that theory. Bettina Love (2019) has reminded us that “theory does not solve issues—only action and solidarity can do that—but theory gives you language to fight, knowledge to stand on, and a humbling reality of what intersectional social justice is up against.” From a critical perspective, restorative justice educators must engage in conversations about justice and injustice. Silence in the face of injustice serves to perpetuate the injustice and prop up unjust systems. However, without the knowledge and skills to fight those systems effectively, conversations either are anemic or they can serve to deepen the conflict, entrenching people into their own camps. What Parker-Shandal has so beautifully gifted readers with is a theoretically grounded and practically depicted approach to engaging with conflict in ways that support dialogue, promote justice and equity, and nurture more restorative learning environments. Although its ideals rest in ancient wisdom, restorative justice in education is a relatively new field. Most researchers acknowledge that restorative justice practices have led the field and that the theory and research as they apply in education are now needing to catch up. As a younger field of study, restorative justice in education is precariously positioned to follow

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the path of so many other well-intentioned educational initiatives, becoming popular for a season with promises of transformation and then wilting when those promises are unfulfilled. One of the ways we can safeguard against this—and ensure that restorative justice continues to foster transformative learning environments—is to hold fast to the core theoretical principles that have historically been its foundation. Those foundational principles, guided by Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, and feminist teachings, require that justice, equity, and belonging remain at the heart of our practice. Parker-Shandal’s commitment to those principles and to practices that lean into them makes this book a much-needed resource for the field of restorative justice in education. It is a resource for which I am incredibly grateful.

Hands sharing the Talking Piece, by Lorrie Gallant

Harrisonburg, VA, USA August 11, 2022

Dr. Katherine Evans

Acknowledgments

This book is possible because of the work of the dedicated teachers and students who come together each day to grapple with how to create community and justice in their classrooms. This is challenging work. These teachers and students show determination, resilience, and engagement in a process that is both new and old. The vision for this book evolved from the many conversations I had with educators and young people who sought ways to navigate systems of oppression in schools. Their commitments to peacemaking and restorative justice motivated me to write this book. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to each of you. I am incredibly grateful to Palgrave Education Press and Springer Nature, who have supported the production of this book. Mary Anne Carswell, my editor, supported me in working through multiple drafts. This project is blessed to have had her fine editing skills and exceptional attention to detail. I am thankful to two incredible visual artists for  rendering  drawings that reflected their interpretations of this work based on our conversations and their lived experiences: Dr. Ashleigh Neil of PhDcomics and Lorrie Gallant of Cayuga Nation Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. I extend my gratitude to the restorative-justice-in-education community and to my colleagues, friends, and students. I am grateful for the supportive intellectual partners I have had the opportunity to engage with and continue to learn from the beautiful and growing RJE community. I sincerely thank Dr. Kathy Evans for your words that preface this book; I am thankful for all you have contributed to the RJE world. Equally, Dr. Kathy Bickmore's commitment to the study of peacebuilding and xiii

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Acknowledgments

democratic education has shaped much of this work. I am grateful to you, Kathy, for your support and contributions to this research. I appreciate the inspiring, critical comments and intellectual contributions my anonymous reviewers and readers have made to this work. I look forward to continuing these conversations with you. I am grateful to my spouse, Vinay Shandal, our children, Jayse and Lexa, and our dog Gaia, who all support my work and provide me with the courage and inspiration to center restorative ways of being in our family and lives each day. I extend my gratitude to my parents, Seeta and Frankie, and the many special people who have shaped my experiences and trajectories. Research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Renison University College at the University of Waterloo gave me the time and support necessary to write this book.

Permissions and Credits

For this book, the author has drawn from and adapted sections of the following previously published pieces: Parker, C. A. (2020). Who’s in and who’s out? Problematizing the peacemaking circle in diverse classrooms. In E. C. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities (chap. 3). Living Justice Press. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2020). Classroom peace circles: Teachers’ professional learning and implementation of restorative dialogue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 95. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2021). Complexity in restorative justice education circles: Power and privilege in voicing perspectives about sexual health, identities, and relationships. Journal of Moral Education, 50(4), 471–493. Parker, C. A., & Gill, R. (2021). Religious literacy and restorative justice with youth: The role of community service professionals in mediating social inclusion. Religion & Education, 48(2), 141–154. Llewellyn, K. R., & Parker, C. (2018). Asking the “who”: A restorative purpose for education based on relational pedagogy and conflict dialogue. International Journal of Restorative Justice, 1(3), 399–412.

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Contents

1 Circles:  A Pedagogical Praxis for Inclusion and Resistance  1 Dialogue for Pull-In Instead of Push-Out   4 What Are Circles?   6 Conducting Restorative Justice Research on Circles in Education  15 The Idea of Justice: Peace or Placebo?  19 A Note on Terms  25 A Note on Gender Pronouns and Ethnocultural Racial Identities  25 Where Are Spaces for Justice Located in Schools?  26 Building Confidence for Connection  28 Situating Conflict and Connection in Restorative Circles  29 Who Is This Book For?  30 References  31 2 Transforming  Justice in Diverse Classrooms 39 Children Learn What They Live: Navigating Conflict and Whiteness  40 Risk Taking Through Democratic Education: Navigating Restorative Responses to Contentious Issues  42 Foundational Skill Building for Dialogic Engagement: Approaches to Conflict Through Peacebuilding and Relationality  45 Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding: Moving From Negative to Positive Peace  49 Preparing and Supporting Teachers to Build Intentional Communities of Care  52

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CONTENTS

Taking a Risk on Emergent Curriculum  53 The Pedagogical Purpose of Circles: Teaching Communication Skills  56 Indigenous Spirituality and Restorative Justice  58 Situating Power and Resistance: How Power-Over Positions Form and (Re)Norm Relationships  61 Liberatory Education  63 Key Takeaways  68 Questions for Reflection  68 References  68 3 Building  a Sustainable Practice: Restorative Training and Mentorship 81 Training for Restorative Justice in Education  85 Implementing Restorative Justice in Schools  87 A Restorative Training Initiative  91 Context for Professional Learning Sessions  92 Postincident Response  92 Building Connection  93 Community Building, Restorative Integration  94 Restorative Questions and Process: Exploring the “What” Question  98 Enthusiastic and Reticent Post-training Reflections 102 Key Takeaways 107 Questions for Reflection 107 References 108 4 Implementing  Restorative Pedagogy in Eight Elementary School Classrooms113 The Schools, Teachers, and Students 114 First Year of Implementation 115 Teachers Trained in Restorative Justice in Education in Their Fifth Year and Beyond 119 Varying Approaches to Restorative Justice Pedagogies 122 Key Takeaways 128 Questions for Reflection 128 References 128

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5 The  Pedagogical Value of Conflict: Dialogue and Dissonance in Restorative Classrooms131 Nurturing Peaceful Peer Relationships Through Talking Circle Pedagogies 131 Foundations for Restorative Dialogue: Engaging Current Events and Challenging Fake News in School 4: Ms. Harding 133 Facilitating Nonviolence, Mutual Respect, and Inclusion for Students with Special Needs in School 1: Ms. Spence 143 Restorative Circles to Support Literacy in School 2: Ms. Weaver 148 The Role of Peers in Securing Inclusion in School 5: Ms. Rossi 153 Opportunities for Critical Reflection Through Quality of Student Talk 157 Teachers’ Implementation of Circles: Identifying Norms for a Consistent Practice 158 Key Takeaways 160 Questions for Reflection 160 References 161 6 Relational  Connections in Classroom Curriculum: Power and Privilege in Diverging Perspectives167 Ms. Weaver: Building Healthy Relationships with Circles 168 The School and Community 169 An Instructive Survey 170 Laying Down Restorative Guidelines for Difficult Conversations 173 Creating Space for Conflict Dialogue 176 Generating Trust and Fostering Connection: The Fine Line Between Voice and Silence 179 Holding the Dialogue Together: Contested and Unequal Spaces for Divergent Perspectives 180 Negotiating Morality in Circles: Spoken and Unspoken Perspectives 183 Gaining Expertise in Expressing Different Perspectives 185 Ms. Rossi: Moving from Peacemaking Circles to Community Discussions 188 Managing Intense Feelings and Experiences in Circles: A Trauma-Informed Approach 189

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Both Teachers: Delivering Curriculum With Relationships in Mind: Acknowledging Experiences to Build Capacities for Empathy 192 References 194 7 Classrooms  of Control and Connection: Restorative Approaches to Building Community and Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts197 Restorative Justice in Mathematics: Identifying Productive Conflict Experiences for Dialogic Engagement 199 The Benefits of Focusing on Experience Rather Than Achievement in Math 208 Restorative Justice With Primary Students: Struggling for Compliance During Moments of Disconnection: Ms. Fitzgerald 209 Addressing Discrimination: Challenging Conversations Among Cliques and Constrained Classroom Culture 216 “When We Go to the Office, It’s Like We Don’t Even Get Into Trouble”: Interrogating Restorative Justice in Education From Students’ Perspectives 223 References 226 8 Educating  for Justice: Building Restorative Futures for Students to Thrive In229 Talking About Circles Without Talking in Circles: Learning From Voices and Silences 231 Building a Culture or a Career: The Need for Commitment 233 Restoration Postcrisis: Deepening Connections Through Conflict 235 Embracing Vulnerability, Bringing About Systemic Change 236 Approaches to Creating Connection and Building Community 238 Moving Beyond Policy Changes: Transforming Consciousness to Address Structural Racism 246 References 248 References253 Index283

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2

Restorative justice in education: Three pillars. Copyright/ Credit: Evans and Vaandering (2016/2022) Seven core assumptions. Copyright/Credit: Boyes-Watson and Pranis (2010) Identifying ideal approaches to conflict dialogue and relationality in RJE. Credit/Copyright: Parker-Shandal (2022) Peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding: Moving from negative to positive peace. Credit/Copyright: Bickmore (2011b) Tiers of school-based RJE processes. Credit/Copyright: Oakland Unified School District (2020) The social discipline window. Credit/Copyright: McCold & Wachtel (2003) The relationship window: Moving from power-over to powerwith. Credit/Copyright: Vaandering (2013)

18 20 46 50 51 95 97

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List of Illustrations

Illustration 1.1 Illustration 2.1 Illustration 3.1 Illustration 4.1 Illustration 5.1 Illustration 6.1 Illustration 7.1 Illustration 8.1

Sweetgrass circle tied together. Lorrie Gallant Hands and chairs Outward chairs under tree by PhDcartoon Hands in Circle by Lorrie Gallant Teacher speaking, students listening by PhDcartoon The puzzle pieces of the circle by PhDcartoon Abacus thinking in the circle by PhDcartoon Feather Talking Piece by PhDcartoon

1 39 81 113 131 167 197 229

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Racial identities represented across classrooms Varying approaches to circle implementation

115 123

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CHAPTER 1

Circles: A Pedagogical Praxis for Inclusion and Resistance

Illustration 1.1  Sweetgrass circle tied together. Lorrie Gallant

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_1

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In May 2021, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were discovered in unmarked mass graves on the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site in British Columbia, Canada. When the media shone light on this discovery, the outcry among people in Canada was immediate and impassioned. Haida artist Tamara Bell arranged 215 pairs of shoes on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, which was a former courthouse. Bell said that the shoes were: … a reminder of the number of children who have been discovered at sites across the country at residential schools…. We have to get to the truth before we can get to reconciliation and, without truth, reconciliation is impossible. (Gandham & Dickson, 2022)

People across Canada—Indigenous people, white settlers, and people of color—made their way to symbolic monuments across Canada, placing shoes. Vigils were held. For many it was an educative moment—a time to acknowledge Canada’s history and its complicity in forcibly removing children from their homes, separating them from their family, culture, language, and ancestral lands to place them in institutions known as residential schools. How could this have happened? Who was responsible? People began to come to terms with the fact that Indigenous children were not brought to residential schools to be loved and educated. These places were vicious institutions that abused and tortured Indigenous children in a brutal mandate of assimilation that existed to “kill the Indian in the children.”1 Some people may have hoped that this was an isolated incident. But not even a year after the British Columbia discovery, another mass grave containing the remains of 169 children was discovered in Kapawe’no First Nation, north of Edmonton, Alberta (Musa, 2022). At 1  Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947) is often quoted as the author of this statement. However, historians believe that it was actually said by an American military officer. Scott ran the residential school system (1913–1932) and was the deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs. In this role, he sought to expand and further enforce residential schools (whose students were children who had been forcibly taken from their families). He sought to live up to his articulated goal, to “get rid of the Indian problem. .. until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.” The residential school system was an extreme assimilation project and was a failure; many children were neglected and abused, and an estimated 6000 children died in those schools. See Facing History and Ourselves (2022) and McDougall (2018).

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the time of writing, across the country, unmarked graves still hold the remains of Indigenous children. In July of 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Canada to apologize for what he described as the “evil” behavior of church personnel who ran these schools and to acknowledge the “catastrophic” impact of the residential school system. Many Indigenous groups felt slighted by the apology—the Pope did not acknowledge any institutional responsibility. There was no sense of accountability. While an apology—an expression of responsibility and reconciliation— is a critical foundation for any restorative justice process, it is hardly surprising that a highly choreographed apology tour fell flat in the face of religiously sanctioned violation of children. What is surprising is that some of the same oppressive underpinnings of that era continue to infect schools in Canada to this day. Yes, residential schools are categorically different from schools in Canada today. To draw any comparison risks grossly ­trivializing the brutality endured by those Indigenous children and their families. But it is important to note that the mandate of schooling— institutionalizing—children to assimilate them persists in many different ways across Canada. Authoritarian classrooms in previous centuries found white male children seated in rows, facing a master who filled them with knowledge. These educative spaces were designed to preserve cultural and ideological divisions—them versus us. While the make-­up of contemporary integrated classrooms has evolved, exclusion is built into their structure and remains paramount. Educators continue to implicitly restrict themselves to the ethos of early educational institutions that were geared toward a very different way of life in a very different society. Certain groups and people in society were meant to be streamed into certain paths. Authoritarian, Eurocentric teaching methods continue to discount the globalized identities of the young people who now make up today’s classrooms. All this is against the backdrop of a world where, since I began this book, educators have evolved their thinking about how race and racism intersect with the exploration of controversial issues in schools, and how student relationships matter. Then, as I was writing, the world was shaken by COVID-19, impacting disproportionately the health and economic status of people of color and marginalized people. Many factors gave rise to racial consciousness movements. These include the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and many other Black bodies, and the ongoing discovery of unmarked mass graves containing missing Indigenous children, murdered

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at the hands of Catholic priests and nuns. Yet, still, among all the cries for justice and demands for change, white-supremacist movements have continued to grow. Divisions continue to advance, and ideologies deepen. My goal in writing this book—in calling out racial and gender disparities that plague classrooms—is clear. We as a society need to pause and consider how these disparities are structurally embedded in ways that prepare for this very outcome: the systematic exclusion of Black people, Indigenous peoples, and people of color. Like punitive discipline, which disproportionately harms racially marginalized students, exclusionary pedagogies legitimize marginalization and push some young people out into the “school-to-prison pipeline” (Schiff, 2018). Feasible alternatives exist. Restorative justice peace circles, inspired and informed by the problem-­ solving dialogue practices of Indigenous peoples, are a pedagogical tool to empower, include, and attend to all students’ voices—to pull them in rather than push them out, building just, peaceful relations through dialogue. It is time for a fundamental shift in how educators approach and respond to conflict.

Dialogue for Pull-In Instead of Push-Out Some people are excluded—and often not noticed—because of societal norms, expectations, and structures. Restorative justice in education teaches through a pedagogy of both inclusion and resistance. Both offer refuge to disenfranchised students. For children who feel safe and included, learning becomes possible. Marginalized children—children who carry experiences of trauma and exclusion—come to school to matter. This mattering, as Winn (2021) has argued, is a way to show up in a world that centers justice and equity—committing to a pedagogical foundation that transforms the lives of marginalized young people. Humanizing pedagogy normalizes critical conversations about power and privilege, and consciously creates egalitarian spaces (Bartlett, 2008; Franquiz & del Carmen Salazar, 2004; Gill & Niens, 2014). Through it, students can become their true selves (Annamma & Winn, 2019; Johnson & Sullivan, 2020). Edwin Markham (1913) captured the implications of offering inclusion to those who are pushed out in his poem, Outwitted: He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

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Talking circle processes are a critical component of restorative justice in education (RJE). Yet too often educators assume that circles automatically lead to inclusion. Bringing people in and offering spaces for inclusion are essential for any restorative process, but circles can still be used to exert control and maintain hierarchies—perpetuating compliance and obedience (Lustick, 2021; Reimer, 2018). Some white liberal approaches to RJE have even become colonial projects, sustaining and reproducing white supremacy (Littlewolf et al., 2020; Parker, 2020). While restorative justice is celebrated as progressive and sometimes even anti-racist, it still reproduces racism in schools (Utheim, 2014), because Eurocentric priorities and perspectives have structured Western education systems. Thus, educational priorities have been misconstrued by the very systems designed to promote equity and inclusion. Engaging inclusion and anti-racism in restorative justice necessitates taking a step back to acknowledge and respond to a legacy of colonization and racial injustice (F. E. Davis, 2019). An authentically anti-racist approach to RJE involves taking the time to build a culture of care and inclusion. Marginalized children require an authentic approach that centers their lived experiences, where they are truly included and valued as equal community members. It is the responsibility of people with privilege and power to welcome marginalized folks into the circle—and to work consistently and consciously to facilitate inclusion. bell hooks (2018) has reminded us that “Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action.” She also contended that there can be no love without justice. Pedagogical love builds critical consciousness when relationality is centered; it requires teachers to model deep self-awareness of their positionality and privilege (Hatt, 2005; Määttä & Uusiautti, 2013). It also requires mindful attention to power. Evoking a pedagogical love language could create or impose a sense of what Ettarh (2018) calls a “vocational awe,” where professionals work tirelessly to espouse the values and assumptions that are expected of them often at the cost of their own mental and physical well-being. Educators—especially women—are often expected to do the intense emotional work that any act of love necessitates. Any restorative process needs to acknowledge how power imbalances preclude real opportunities for equitable relationships—for both students and adults. Allowing space for resistance with open dialogue and active listening pushes back against power structures. These are critical ingredients for any restorative justice process.

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Peace circles are integral to restorative justice in education (Cremin et al., 2012; Vaandering, 2014). Restorative justice in the criminal justice system focuses on repairing postincident harm done to people and relationships—moving the focus away from punishing the offender (McCold & Wachtel, 2003). This restorative approach to mediating juvenile justice is transformative for young people in ways that interrupt recidivism and promote healing (Bazemore & Schiff, 2013; Darling-Hammond et al., 2020). For educative purposes—in schools—circles solidify the pedagogical value of conflict. When taken up constructively, safely—and inclusively— conflict brings people together. Circles offer a safe space. As a philosophical and pedagogical praxis, when educators choose to use circles, they create space for dialogue about conflicts—providing opportunities for inclusion while also teaching about how to thrive through resistance (Pranis, 2015). In a circle, people may share their perspectives, and deepen their connections with themselves and each other. Bettina L.  Love’s (2019) book, We Want to Do More Than Survive, argued that it is not enough to simply include children from marginalized backgrounds; we need to ensure they thrive. In restorative classrooms, students can safely and critically reflect on many issues—social justice, interpersonal concerns, internal strife, and many others. Furthermore, when schools provide spaces for young people to engage, they are bound to participate more (Bickmore, 2011b; Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Schulz et al., 2010). Training teachers to embody an anti-racist approach to RJE as part of their educational philosophy and practice will ultimately create the kind of inclusion that will bring all students into the circle.

What Are Circles? Circle processes are based on decades of collaboration (and conflict) between Indigenous peace activists and Western scholars and judges (Tuso & Flaherty, 2016). Peace circles are a restorative justice practice. Used to elicit dialogue and perspectives and to build connection, they are typically seen as the most critical element of restorative justice (Pranis, 2015). Most training in restorative justice processes focuses on circles. Circles are about bringing people together—those who have been harmed, those who have done the harming, and representatives of the community they share. Thus, in judicial settings, a circle might involve law enforcement officers, victims, offenders, and community members. In

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school settings, circle participants might include social workers, teachers, administrators, custodial staff, parents, students, and community members. For most restorative justice practitioners the intention is not to override or reject the Western legal system but rather to work with it, in a process that allows for more equity and understanding of people’s lives and histories (Pranis et al., 2013). Restorative teaching tools such as peacemaking circles focus on improving justice and opening space for dialogue (Pointer et  al., 2020). As postincident interventions, they can increase responsiveness and heighten the potential for equitably achieving justice (Bryzzheva, 2018; Winn, 2018). As proactive, dialogic pedagogies, they work to build sustainably peaceful communities by concentrating on changing the language and culture of classrooms and schools (Hopkins, 2003). In either case, when teachers facilitate restorative circles and dialogue processes, they teach how to discern and exchange viewpoints constructively. Peacemaking circles also teach how to make peace. They are designed to resolve interpersonal conflicts through listening and speaking with intention (Pranis, 2015). As educators and school personnel work to build a culture of inclusion through restorative justice, they need to place equity and anti-racism at the center of their concern (Lustick et al., 2020). Circles have a basic structured process: participants are seated in a circle, facing each other. Each participant is given the opportunity to speak and listen to a concern (Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2015). In peace circles, the dialogue focuses on a conflictual issue. The goal is to unsettle and challenge oppressive structures and broken relationships through dialogue. Community circles, in partial contrast, focus on building relationships so as to provide a solid foundation for participating in peace circles when conflict arises (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). In both kinds of circles, the keeper or facilitator poses topics and questions for discussion, and participants respond, typically circulating a talking piece to give all participants opportunities to speak for themselves, when they so choose. Talking pieces can be anything the group chooses. In one classroom where violent interruptions had occurred, the teacher chose a soft teddy bear. In another, the teacher used a metal giraffe that I had given her. A teacher who consistently focused on community building used an inspiring motivational book. A primary teacher who worked with young children used any marker she could find. I have often encouraged teachers to not use their talking piece, once selected, for any other purpose. Ideally, the talking piece is a meaningful object. When working with one group of

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youth, I used a basketball. When training community-based facilitators, such as social workers and educators, I have often used a wooden mask that I brought back from Africa. I tell the participants that the mask is an opportunity to drop any pretenses or façades and to bring their whole self into the circle. Once chosen, the talking piece is passed around the circle to every person present; the person holding it may speak while the others listen. Some may choose to pass the talking piece without speaking, or just hold it to invite a moment of silence before passing it along again. All participants are meant to be equal and accountable in ensuring that shared circle values and guidelines are upheld. In classroom circles, the teacher is both facilitator and learner. In this democratic practice, they are participants while also facilitating dialogue in ways that influence classroom conversation. Through talking-piece circle pedagogy, students model and practice how to share while making space for others to share; they practice setting boundaries for honest dialogue and constructive engagement with each other’s perspectives. Once they become comfortable using talking-piece circle processes, groups are more apt to speak and listen constructively about conflictual matters. Circles are not an add-on. They are a pedagogical tool that can help all children to succeed. When marginalized children are equipped with the skills and confidence to succeed, they move further away from their ostracized status (Morrison, 2006). When young people are being bullied or are bullying others, they have a place to reflect and share their experiences (Morrison, 2002). When people are connected and at ease, they do not need to bully—they can also stand up for themselves (Thorsborne & Vinegrad, 2017; Wroldsen & Follestad, 2018). Some voices may still be silenced, because circles rely on a structured, turn-taking process. In any pedagogical approach, people will be left out. But circles offer an increased opportunity to engage. Good facilitators, empowered by their role, consider what it means when some respond and others do not; their paraphrasing and critical reflection shape inclusion and dialogue. Some students in the classrooms discussed in this book felt that circles offered little space and time for reflection. Thus constrained, perhaps they experienced a lack of agency and sense of authority in voicing their perspectives. For others, regardless of who spoke (and at what length), the process of coming together in a circle offered a critical opportunity for them to experience connection. It is crucial for young people to feel and

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experience fellowship and create spaces to connect. We all carry with us varying levels of trauma, whether passed down from generations or experienced in our own lives. This does not mean that the success of the circle process is dependent on people sharing traumatic experiences. Instead, it only needs to be a place where people are heard, where they are seen, and where they experience feeling that they belong. This inclusion can allow for healing. Schooling is more than regurgitating facts, more than moving through various units of study that teachers plan for the school year. When teachers make those plans at the beginning of the school year, it is hard to imagine what students might feel and experience. The political and social climate also shapes how knowledge is constructed and perceived at any given time. Teaching young people how to have constructive conversations about complex topics equips them for political engagement and, at the same time, is a promising way to engage them in the curriculum (Bickmore, 2014b; Parker & Bickmore, 2020). The circle process is a pedagogical tool for facilitating a restorative classroom culture (Parker & Bickmore, 2021). A well-facilitated circle dialogue about conflictual questions can promote connection and collaboration, while also teaching young people to challenge and move away from being controlled and confined by hegemonic systems. Encouraging young people to recognize and understand how power and privilege operate is, for me, a central piece of RJE. Circles frame dialogue that is meant to build a culture of care, compromise, reliance, and connection. They also teach literacy-relevant skills, as young people learn to analyze information and communicate their experiences. This kind of literacy education is a resource for yet another skill— for advocacy and justice. For instance, youth experienced in talking circles who are met with conflict may be better equipped to participate in a restorative peacemaking circle where they can both advocate for themselves and come to a place of accountability and healing. Through circle training and practice with conflict-peace dialogue in inclusive circles, young people may also learn how to make informed decisions, such as who to vote for and how to support social development. When resolving conflicts, young people are better equipped to promote shared accountability within their learning communities. One year, during a federal election in Canada, candidates came to schools to present their platforms and answer questions. I observed Grade 7 and 8 students eagerly preparing questions and thinking about how they could agitate for change. Their teacher had brought them together in a

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circle before taking them down to the auditorium, where they would meet the candidates. Three female students in the circle illustrated their support for the left-leaning New Democratic Party and confidently wore orange shirts in anticipation of the candidates who would be there that day. The teacher asked her students to think about what kinds of issues were important. One student volunteered: the issue of housing. The teacher affirmed this response, sharing her personal experience: “I mean rent costs are outrageous. I surely can’t believe how much I have to pay, that’s an issue. What else?” The students excitedly shared their mostly left-leaning social issues. One male student asked why no Conservative Party (right-leaning) members were represented; the teacher answered that they had not responded to the invitation. Another male student replied: “Well, I guess I know where they stand!” Most of the students responded with laughter. The teacher continued to affirm each of the responses and expanded on the importance of each of the topics, usually with a personal narrative. This learning about politics through narratives appeared to boost the confidence of many students, who stood up and asked questions about climate change, the merits of a pipeline, and carbon tax. The divergent political perspectives expressed in this circle process encouraged critical thinking, illustrating how engaging youth in partisan political talk may provoke reflection about how society functions. As young people become immersed in understanding how the decisions political parties make impact their lives, they may start to connect to the realities of their experiences. For example, during the Arab Spring of 2010 to 2012, young people worldwide acted on their growing critical consciousness to rise up and challenge institutional practices that marginalized them. In a previous study, I witnessed how groups of students wrote letters of support, participated in rallies, and engaged in critical conversations that were shaping their social and political views (Parker, 2016). Actualizing experiences and supporting young people in making connections guides them to make informed choices. I believe that making young people aware that politics and policies contribute to their moving through (or resisting) the school-to-prison pipeline would encourage their becoming more engaged in advocating for change.

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Researching Circles In this book, I intend to bring awareness to the realities of circle implementation. Examining teacher training and teachers’ various approaches to implementation, I explore conflicts and dialogues in classroom circles that are proactive (constructive dialogue and community building) and postincident (after harm occurred). I draw on extensive classroom-based observational data that I collected between 2015 and 2020.2 For those five  years, I studied what restorative justice in education looked like in the classrooms of five elementary schools, in a large city in Southern Ontario. Students, teachers, social workers, educational assistants, and administrators have been my guides. I examined how restorative justice pedagogies allowed diverse and marginalized young people to document their experiences in RJE, including supports and impediments they experienced. For this purpose, I interviewed and conducted classroom observations with 221 students, in Grades 2 to 8 (ages 8 to 13). In these ethnographic observations, I found many varying approaches to embedding restorative classroom dialogue. I had the opportunity to be a participant researcher in over 50 circles with young people as I collected data for this study. In addition, I cofacilitated, with teachers and, at times, my student research assistants, smaller circle processes with students as focus group interviews. I developed a critical perspective on the nature of circle implementation in diverse classrooms, sometimes struggling to engage diverse students’ voices or to engage and coach teachers who had differing views and approaches to restorative justice circles. My firsthand experiences were enhanced by the critical reflection I practiced through ethnographic note-taking, while in the classrooms and immediately after each interaction with students and 2  This deep study of implemented classroom circles ended the day before COVID-19 closed schools for the remainder of the year in early 2020. I continued to work with some teachers remotely, providing support and encouragement electronically and inviting teachers to participate in interviews, which proved to be an opportunity to share their experiences with teaching during COVID times. Throughout the COVID-19 school closure, I kept connected to the participating teachers. Their students openly shared their struggle with the online environment and their fears about returning to school. Some students sustained their relationships and sense of community in virtual contexts. This glimpse about permeable connections provided critical information about how young people relate to each other and to their teachers. Postpandemic classroom relationships will evolve from this global experience; some may find further strength and grounding, while others may deepen their disconnections.

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teachers. This process allowed for deep critical inquiry into how I interpreted events and relationships in the various classrooms I studied. I began my research by speaking only to adults, and reading books and articles written by adults that interpreted young people’s experiences. I cofacilitated with the teachers, took the lead at times to introduce circle topics or questions, and collaborated with teachers to encourage more student participation. In some classes, the teachers shared with me their sense of vulnerability using circles, and some deferred to me as the process expert. These were all critical factors in building researcher-classroom partnerships. Researchers of color like myself may experience different dynamics and tensions. For example, students in predominantly white classrooms may have engaged with me differently than students of color. Curious about my experiences, they often asked questions about my life. Later, I sat in circles with young people and their teachers and learned about their experiences firsthand. I kept my hands free and my notebook on the floor. At times, when the energy felt right, I picked up the notebook to jot down notes. If this seemed disruptive, I would gently place the notebook back down. At times, some students would look over at what I was writing. At other times, they simply carried on and participated in the circle. Over time, students appeared to be more comfortable with me and my notebook. Some asked, “What are you writing?” to which I would reply, “I’m writing about my feelings and experiences.” This prompted a group of Grade 6 students in one class (mostly female) to show me their own journals, which included personal photos, drawings, and written reflections. My pilot exploration of classroom circles was at a downtown alternative secondary school, a school for students who had been pushed out of the traditional schooling system. Lived experiences with punitive systems of control shaped their struggles. This school staff was working toward being restorative. In my observation of a first-period English class, I saw how one classroom teacher checked in with each student as they entered the classroom. I especially noticed five of the 25 students who were registered for the course. They prepared themselves for that morning circle in unfamiliar although resonating ways. They came in, put their heads down on their desks, and pushed away their worlds, seeming to enter a safe space in which they could express their emotions. Heads on desks meant safety and security, not disengagement. The teacher then began the day, inviting

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everyone to join him in the circle, and asking everyone to listen to the exquisite sounds made with his Tibetan singing bowls. This experience informed how I conducted classroom observations from then on. During these five years, I developed a keen skill for quickly surveying a classroom community and feeling what respect looked like in that space. At two of the schools I worked in, the principals met with colleagues from four other schools and took turns doing walk-throughs of each other’s schools. This relational collaboration supported their accountability to each other and the restorative justice commitments they had made to their schools. As an external researcher walking through schools and classrooms, it was clear to me where students felt respected. The warm, ethical, and caring relationships between students and teachers that I noticed cannot be mandated in a lesson plan or in curricula documents. One teacher in this study astutely said in her initial interview with me that her number one job was not to teach: it was to make her students feel safe. She prioritized what she felt was managing students’ emotions. Teaching them came second. In my interviews with her students they echoed this sentiment. Students’ many interpretations of what it means to engage in a restorative justice approach differed. In another class, one student (a Black female, who was frequently subjected to visits to the principal’s office) said in an interview, “When we go to the office, it’s like we don’t even get into trouble.” What remains constant is that all want to be involved in a respectful process in which their voice matters. All want to be part of a community. Yes, a community of learners, but more so a community of people who care about each other. Ethnographic approaches to studying enacted circle processes in schools are necessary to develop the relationships needed to connect with students and understand classroom dynamics. For instance, without having spent a considerable amount of time in these classrooms, I would not have known that the reason why two male students sat far apart from each other in circle, each on opposite sides, was because they saw each other as enemies. The weekly circle process in their classroom did not remedy this. One of the boys actively participated; the other opted out and barely said anything. In an interview, one of these students expressed how unnecessary it was to repair harm, because they were about to graduate from Grade 8 and were going to different high schools. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. At least four different cliques formed in another class that held weekly circles and presumably had a strong community. However, despite their teacher’s calling out and naming the divisive dynamics, the various clique

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members sat together during most of the circles; some felt compelled to speak more, both to each other and across groups. When the teacher divided the varying groups, they tended to talk less. The seating arrangement dynamics spoke to the importance to these young people of having a support person seated in the circle. Nevertheless, it also raised issues about how dialogue could turn into a divergent discourse not representing one arc or area of the circle. Navigating clique dynamics was not top of mind for all the teachers I interviewed. Managing 30 to 35 young people while attending to the varying systemic demands that constrained their resources and time created challenges for assisting with the many interpersonal issues that the students were constantly negotiating. As an outsider whose specific purpose was to study students’ interactions and engagement through circle processes, I was privileged to pick up on dynamics to which some teachers remained oblivious. This dynamic also made me reflect on the importance of having collegial spaces where teachers could ask peers to participate in their classroom circles, or to be part of a restorative conversation or exercise in ways that would allow the teachers to get feedback and deepen their practice. Young people can feel threatened by unfamiliar adults (such as researchers) who enter their classrooms, particularly because of the surveillance society that many young people endure. Most marginalized young people are acutely aware of what it feels like to live in a surveillance society. Their need to protect themselves triggers a tendency in them to shut down and not engage. Yet many researchers and practitioners have documented many students’ overall positive feelings about circle processes (Boyes-­ Watson, 2005; Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2010; Riestenberg, 2008; Wroldsen & Follestad, 2018), a constant refrain being: “they all transformed, and they all loved the experience.” These are key indicators and incentives to keep going with the process. Restorative approaches to research need to be humanizing (Paris & Winn, 2014). Humanizing research is a step toward decolonizing the researcher’s tools and presence (Beckman & Parker-Shandal, 2023). Thus, I always felt the need to challenge this panopticon-type surveillance (Foucault, 2008), and always sought to keep aware of my impact on the classroom space and how my research tools might impact some students.

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Conducting Restorative Justice Research on Circles in Education Integrating Diverse Perspectives and Enhancing Social Justice In this work, I acknowledge the complexity of studying marginalized children. As a researcher of color, I have become acutely aware of how research can be conducted in ways that further marginalize and colonize bodies of color in the classroom. In refusing to reproduce “damage-centered” research (Tuck, 2009), it is my responsibility as a scholar of color to protect the young people who have so willingly shared their stories and experiences with me. In addition, as a second-generation immigrant in Canada, I identify as an immigrant-settler and acknowledge that I was born and raised on land stolen from Indigenous peoples. This awareness provides me with a certain degree of access to marginalized perspectives but does not allow me to understand the experiences of Indigenous peoples. In this project, I am aware that I am presenting experiences and stories about others through my own lens. While I intend to be attentive in my learning-­ understanding of these students’ and teachers’ lives, my subjective analysis can still produce further harm. Implicit in this process is my struggle to find ways to advocate for justice by documenting the experiences of those on the margins. As much as I would hope that participants’ experiences in this research contributed to their consciousness-raising and awareness of themselves in their lives, research is not necessarily the answer to social issues (Tuck & Yang, 2014). Decolonizing the research process—using a restorative, relationally centered approach—is necessary to actually put anti-racism and anti-­ oppression into practice. Grounding Research in Theory Educating for peacebuilding and democratic citizenship enhances social justice. My goal in this book is to build a foundation for RJE, emphasizing classroom circle processes and pedagogies, based on peacebuilding and democratic citizenship theory. I hope this practical and theoretical foundation for the field of RJE will provide a refuge for facilitators—both old and new. An inclusive approach to teaching, it would offer long-term, sustainable ways of developing and transforming human relationships and promoting the well-being of communities.

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To support teachers’ practical implementation of classroom circles, RJE needs to be grounded in solid theory. For too long, research concerning and connecting to varying elements of restorative work has peripherally drawn on various theoretical frameworks without making the obvious overlapping connections clear. Circle pedagogy—a common approach to restorative justice—is about bringing people and varying mindsets together. Drawing on citizenship education, Indigenous and decolonizing curriculum processes, moral and spiritual approaches, relationality, and empathy, I show how circle processes engage many ways of looking at the world. I also provide a critical ethnographic glimpse into the lives of teachers and students as they navigate and participate in restorative classrooms, showing the transformative power of circle use in classrooms. At the same time, I acknowledge that circles, as they are implemented in schools, can be enacted in supposedly restorative classrooms in traumatizing ways that are not automatically or always democratic and inclusive. My Researcher’s Positionality A researcher’s positionality guides any qualitative inquiry. I have been studying peacebuilding in elementary and secondary schools for 15 years, as an educator and then as a researcher. I have entered K–12 classrooms with the goal of deepening my understanding of how teachers use—and students experience—restorative circle and other dialogue processes in K–12 school settings. Still, I recognize that my description and analysis of the classroom spaces I encountered are my subjective interpretations. For instance, in my process of gathering data for this book, I have participated in circles and circle trainings and consistently see that, to reduce status inequalities, teachers and students need to listen to each other. My experience has led me to believe that circles are a potent tool for this purpose. However, as I continue participating in circles, I notice how difficult they are to put into practice. In the course of my research, I have come to know the staff rooms quite well, and many teachers there have seen me as a colleague and friend. Many of them have been operating with very little left in their cups. During the course of my research, there were teacher strikes, COVID-19 mandates, and the ongoing stress of getting through a curriculum—all while navigating students’ emotions and conflicts. Not surprisingly, these teachers did not want to talk about doing circles because they believed they did not have the time, or their cohort of students that year just would not let the process work. I hope my analysis of the

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narratives I documented through this research may alleviate their fatigue, and challenge or interrupt the status quo (narrow) version of RJE. These narratives may cause discomfort to some. Building classroom community is difficult work. On the one hand, I have witnessed restorative interventions in schools that created changes in building and sustaining classroom community. But on the other, I have seen how children/youth from varying ethnocultural backgrounds, gender identities, migration statuses, socioeconomic positions, and language capabilities were often hidden— structurally excluded—in ways that their teachers seemed unable to recognize. However, in my view conflict is a learning opportunity. It can shape how students and teachers learn from each other and how researchers can gather and interpret data about restorative justice and dialogue in classrooms. Thus, instead of seeing RJE solely as a means of dealing with conflict postincident, I prefer to focus on how to take up justice in ways that allow for equity. My intention is to share what I have learned, so as  to equip teachers and schools to serve all students through an inherently inclusive and anti-oppressive approach. By now, my own positionality on circles and RJE is apparent! In all stages of my research, I have resisted the urge to look for reasons to use suspensions and expulsions as a precursor for my investigation of what RJE might look like in schools. RJE is simply not meant to be used, post-harm, as a knee-jerk response to conflictual incidents. Evans and Vaandering’s (2016/2022) three interconnected RJE components— respect, dignity, and mutual concern—build a foundation on which all humans are relational and worthy, and all are connected through shared values of responsibility, healing, and hope. Their definition provides a basis for understanding RJE and particularly how it differs from postincident and criminal justice systems. For them, RJE’s three pillars • create justice just and equitable learning environments; • nurture healthy relationships; and • repair harm and transform conflict. Conflicts are integral to learning and deepening relationships; they are not intended to enhance or perpetuate harm. As a researcher, I did not want to go looking for conflicts that I did not want to endure, nor to see students surviving these. In my own schooling experience, I have encountered a variety of school-based conflicts. Thus, from personal experience as

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well as my privileged perspective as a researcher, I knew that such a trajectory would be futile. My professional experience, informed by my lived, personal experience, has given me a different perspective as a researcher, teacher, and teacher-educator, shaping how I see and interpret inclusion and exclusion in classrooms. My focus has now sharpened over the years. Now, I pay close attention to what teachers do in their classrooms, day to day, to facilitate peace. I have come to see that they do this very simply by having respectful relationships with students while also encouraging deep engagement in the curriculum content. This, to me, is restorative justice in education. A way forward is through a respectful and equitable classroom ethos where inclusion is at the forefront, and academic learning is at its finest. Evans and Vaandering’s pillars represent just this (Fig. 1.1). In my years of teaching conflict resolution and restorative justice in education to interdisciplinary undergraduate and preservice education students, I have always facilitated circle training as part of my courses. In 2009, when I started teaching restorative justice within community services to undergraduate students in interdisciplinary fields, many students would say that this was their first experience in circles. Now, almost half of the students coming into my classes have had prior knowledge and experience with circles. Community service professions around the world are Fig. 1.1  Restorative justice in education: Three pillars. Copyright/Credit: Evans and Vaandering (2016/2022)

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coming to restorative justice, including circles, to ground their philosophical principles of repairing harm. As we nurture this strong trend, I believe we must consider how we could better our practice, overcome misimplementation (Gregory & Evans, 2020), and seek to include all of those around us while pushing boundaries and dismantling hegemonic and individualized approaches to education. The seven core assumptions compiled by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis (2010), based on Indigenous and spiritual teachings, serve as the relational priorities of the practice. Doing restorative justice and circle practice with these assumptions allows people from diverse ethnocultural and social backgrounds to come together in ways that promote deep connection. The assumptions are: 1. The true self in everyone is good, wise, and powerful. 2. The world is profoundly interconnected. 3. All human beings have a deep desire to be in a good relationship. 4. All human beings have gifts, and everyone is needed for what they bring. 5. Everything we need to make positive change is already here. 6. Human beings are holistic. 7. We need practices to build habits of living from the core self (Fig. 1.2). Applied in schools, the seven core assumptions encourage students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members to reflect on how power influences their actions and inactions for building community and a culture for restorative justice. They also provide a platform for people to identify their own assumptions and gifts they bring to this work. 

The Idea of Justice: Peace or Placebo? Sen’s (2009) theory of justice posits that everyone carries their own vision of justice. Considering such multiplicities, every person has the freedom to guide their own moral compass and use their capabilities without inhibition. Justice may mean different things to different people. Social justice and restorative justice are inherently connected through their purpose of seeking redress for harm while also striving for fairness and equity. Justice is needed to seek resolution for those who have been harmed. It represents fundamental collective values that have been lost in our world. To practice justice, one would need to be willing to think radically and critically.

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Fig. 1.2  Seven core assumptions. Copyright/Credit: Boyes-Watson and Pranis (2010)

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One goal of restorative justice is to integrate people back into the community. However, the community needs to be a safe space. Therefore, critical attention to building relationships must be included. How to do that? The three Rs of restorative justice—responsibility, restoration, and reintegration—focus on participants accepting responsibility for harm, thinking about how to repair relationships, and then moving into the community circle in peace (Zehr, 2005). Fania E.  Davis (2019) sees restorative justice as: [A] justice that seeks not to punish, but to heal. A justice that is not about getting even, but about getting well. A justice that seeks to transform broken lives, relationships, and communities rather than damage them further. A justice that seeks reconciliation rather than a deepening of conflict. A justice that seeks to make right the wrong rather than adding to the original wrong. A healing justice rather than punishing justice. A restorative justice rather than retributive justice.

This philosophical approach—seeing and acknowledging each other through our deep connections—is grounded in core relational values. Evans and Vaandering’s (2016/2022) framing of RJE builds upon Zehr’s and others’ definition of restorative justice. In educative contexts, restorative justice is grounded in the belief that all are worthy and commit to shared values of respect, dignity, and mutual concern. Evans and Vaandering (2016/2022) define restorative justice in education as: “Facilitating learning communities that nurture the capacity of people to engage with one another and their environment in a manner that supports and respects the inherent dignity and worth of all” (p. 8). Many practitioners and academics have chosen to take justice and equity out of the ways they apply RJE. They refrain from encountering justice by using language such as restorative approaches, restorative discipline, or restorative practices instead. Often, such language feels more comfortable for those seeking to promote a white liberal agenda (Parker-­ Shandal, 2023). But as Anita Wadhwa (2020) put it: “you cannot have restorative practices without referencing justice—you cannot refer to ethnic disproportionality without addressing how to dismantle inequality” (p. 166). Maisha Winn (2018) concurred, arguing: The word “justice” must remain a part of the restorative work. The omission of “justice” for the safer term “practices” undermines the potential to get educators to consider how racist ideas permeate the education system in both implicit and explicit ways. (p. 37)

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The justice in restorative work honors the inherent worth of every human being; preserving this worth in relationships means protecting the rights of all (Evans & Vaandering, 2016/2022; Vaandering, 2010). Many, including Winn, prefer the term transformative justice to conceptualize the movement toward reconfiguring how people connect with each other, human to human (Morris, 2000). Restorative educators deepen an understanding of humanity in which humans act based on their conception of what it means to be human and how to relate to others (Morrison & Vaandering, 2012). The goal of developing a critical understanding of justice is not to motivate people or to spark achievements or to acquire mastery of skills. Restorative justice is simply an ethos—an understanding of how humans can relate and respond to each other. This ethos is reflected in teachers’ interactions and relationships with students, which reflect the teachers’ unconscious biases (Ispa-Landa, 2018; Wadhwa, 2015). These biases in turn shape how teachers understand and perceive their students’ capabilities (Hancock et  al., 2021; Okonofua & Quereshi, 2017). Being taught to conform with a prescriptive, punitive, and exclusionary notion of justice stifles young people’s motivation or desire to master skills for triumphing in a competitive world. Why engage when they are still unfairly targeted? The concept of justice many marginalized students hold may involve their refusing to participate in the classroom. For them, choosing to protest is a means of acquiring power to succeed (Velez et al., 2020). When spaces for having critical conversations about justice are opened up, people better understand “what justice wants, what it produces, whom it fails, where it operates when it is in effect, and what it lacks…. [The] hegemony of justice is problematic” (Tuck & Yang, 2016, p.  3). Too often, justice is a temporary space, where it is perceivably served yet never fully realized. Coulthard and Alfred (2014) have reminded us that harm persists and continues to be reproduced: “Canadian settler-colonialism remains structurally oriented around achieving the same power effect it sought in the pre-1969 period: the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands and self-determining authority” (p. 25). In 1969, the Canadian government published a policy paper known as the White Paper or the Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (Chrétien, 1969). It proposed abolishing previous legal documents relating to Indigenous peoples in Canada, including the Indian Act and other treaties (Lagace & Sinclair, 2020). The collective pushback against

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this paper led to its withdrawal in 1970 and was a catalyst for activism and political organizing to support Indigenous peoples in Canada and to protect their land and identities. The justice-seeking process behind the eventual withdrawal of the White Paper is an example of how critical incidents may catalyze resistance movements to protect marginalized people. While more and more educators have adopted restorative processes, and conflicts continue to erupt in schools, restorative justice is still a movement in progress (Evans et  al., 2021). Its process for transformation is slowed by hegemonic systems that perpetuate structural violence. I do not believe that restorative justice, in its currently constrained form of implementation in schools, has the power to address inequities. Much has been learned and continues to develop in schools and communities, and I join with other critical scholars to reimagine what schools may look like when justice is interrogated and equitably positioned (Gregory & Evans, 2020; Knight & Wadhwa, 2014; Lustick, 2022). This means disrupting oppressive systems and stimulating connection (González, 2015a, b; McCants-­ Turner, 2022). There are still too many teachers and schools working in silos—and too many efforts that have reproduced the exact configuration of power that circles seek to remedy. Systems-wide change is needed—to involve a recalibration of teacher training, preservice teacher curriculum, and in-service teacher and administrator support, and most importantly, to involve marginalized students in this process, empowering them to be part of this resistance. In the interim, our acts to uphold justice remain a space for negotiation and collaboration. Restorative justice has affirmed Indigenous approaches to peacemaking. For Indigenous peoples, “who have been encapsulated in colonial settler states (e.g., New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Latin America), the application of the Western legal system imposed upon them has been a source of significant distress” (Tuso & Flaherty, 2016, p.  13). This dysregulation—derived from a systemic overthrow of Indigenous values and beliefs—has created a system in which power is exerted to deliver unnecessarily harsh punishments, most of which are delivered to Black, Brown, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQAI+, and special-needs students (DePaoli et al., 2021; Skiba et al., 2014). Restorative justice has paved a path for validating and connecting with the peacemaking practices of many Indigenous communities. Positioned as a culturally sustaining process (Alim & Paris, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2017), restorative pedagogy can interrupt the systematic inequities that have impacted Indigenous students, both historically and in the present

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day (Castagno et al., 2021). Restoring practices of forgiveness and relationality may empower the voices of the disenfranchised. Restorative justice in education is an anticarceral approach. (Carceral refers to prisons, imprisonment, or incarceration.) Restorative justice has its roots in the criminal justice system, as a means of offering an alternative to punitive correction. But the educative approach to restoration discussed in this book pushes back on carceral approaches. Some examples of carceral practices include shaming, reporting, excluding, surveillance, control, punishment, removal, lack of trust, compliance, expelling, and isolating (Gilmore, 2007; Kaba, 2020; Pollack, 2010; Richie, 2012). Anticarceral approaches confront policies and practices that criminalize and punish in ways that perpetuate further harm and stigmatization (Jacobs et al., 2021). Restorative justice in education cannot work in conjunction with carceral approaches (Kaba, 2000, 2021). In fact, carceral practices rely on social control and white supremacy (Davis, 2011; Maynard, 2017). Schools have fundamentally been shaped by white supremacy. The dominant ideology of whiteness prevails in curriculum and pedagogy (Castagno, 2009). It also guides circle practice. Segregating children based on race, gender, ethnicity, or class has allowed schools to indulge in a caste system that promises privilege for the few. Instead, centering racial justice would enable people not only to hear other perspectives and voices but also to distinguish how these differing viewpoints have evolved—that is, through the lens of power and privilege. In working toward transformation, we can attempt to balance this disharmony—focusing on developing relationships that allow intergroup dialogue to become normalized, for instance. That way, it could become possible for young people to relatively easily engage in critical conversations that address the impact of racism and marginalization in their lives. If such conversations were allowed to flourish in schools, young people could be guided to see how the harm of marginalization is part of a larger structure, a structure they are part of—for schools have been and continue to be institutions that perpetuate harm and exclusion. Educators fail in many ways, and sometimes succeed in unexpected ways. They may do sterling democratic work within very imperfect and unjust spaces. Or they may reinforce injustice and racism in their own restorative justice practices. This is not to say that teachers, administrators, and parents do not have room for making mistakes when having critical conversations about marginalization. As educators, we will make errors and we need to pay close attention to learning from them. Critical

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incidents—or conflicts—shape the work that we do. At times, our mistakes may lead to further harm; educators may find ourselves raising our voices, or letting our ego take hold of the situation. It is in these critical, high-­ conflict moments that learning and transformation are most likely to occur. Restorative justice in education is enacted when educators redirect, reflect upon, and repair harm. Acknowledging failed attempts at peacebuilding allows us to model to our students what mistakes look like. Glossing over the polarizing experiences without naming and discussing them serves to reinstitute further harm. In the end, the potential for damage dissipates when educators take responsibility for their own learning.

A Note on Terms In this book, I use the term restorative justice in education (RJE) to illustrate varying ways teachers have used restorative pedagogy to build relationships, through relational pedagogy. I show how these restorative teachers worked across domains in their classrooms and schools, focusing both on proactive inclusion, equity, and participation—and postincident settlement or repair processes. My use of “restorative justice” almost always refers to the context of schools; however, I also briefly use the term to situate its history and contextualization in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, whenever I use the word restorative in this text, I am consistently referring to restorative justice in education. There are places where I have left the word justice out for purposes of constructing a particular thought or sentence. However, the justice in restorative justice in education is continuously present in my intentions for each argument and analysis I present in this text. My use of restorative schools and classrooms, restorative pedagogy, and restorative teachers (who use circle pedagogy) all come back to situating this work within restorative justice in education, as conceptualized above.

A Note on Gender Pronouns and Ethnocultural Racial Identities Some students in this study shared their preferred gender pronouns and have been described using those pronouns. Students whose preferences were not known are most often referred to as they; however, in cases where students’ gendered behavior or responses have provoked specific outcomes, they are referred to by their descriptors, such as a girl who was silenced or a boy who displayed aggression. To further explore these

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gender narratives, I have used he or she or they in contexts that I feel further the narrative and the issues I sought to explore. Similarly, some students shared their ethnic, racial, and cultural ancestries during interviews or conversations in the classroom. In cases where I did not know the student’s identity, I have tried to describe how their presumably racialized identity may have impacted various dialogic engagements. Critical attention to cultural and gender nuances pushes back against the genericized student identity, where a one-size-fits-all model prevails— most typically for heteronormative, able-bodied, white cis-gendered males. Naming how difference shaped outcomes in these classrooms is critical to understanding how race, gender, and identity intersect with various restorative approaches to justice and equity in schools.

Where Are Spaces for Justice Located in Schools? Suppose we assume that justice requires space for conducting dialogue. As I illustrate in this book, the core classroom curriculum is such a space— ideal, and highly impactful. Other cocurricular dialogue opportunities are offered through meetings with social workers, after-school clubs and organizations, and mediation programs. But, troublingly, locating good dialogue space is often mired in policies, interpretations, and day-to-day interactions (Bickmore, 2011a, 2014a). Dialogue processes are too often siloed and disconnected from students’ daily realities because of dialogue’s peripheral status. Silos are a tool of whiteness—in isolating people, they prevent collaboration and bar relationship building (Arms Almengor, 2020; Wysor Nguema, 2020). Remaining in their silos, a principal, child and youth worker, social worker, or teacher independently practice circles in their office or classroom, without buy-in from the community. This does not allow for dialogue. When students are sent to the office, their dialogic encounters are often hidden—limited to the controlled interactions with school administration and frontline school staff. How these students are received and “processed” in these spaces depends on the institutional culture and ethos and carries critical implications for how dialogue is taken up and how conflicts and justice are enacted. In a silo, the burden to execute postincident dialogue processes is often placed on only one or two individuals. Not only is this inequitable, but it most certainly prevents transformation.

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Both inside and outside of schools, restorative justice has been known and seen as a postincident response to harm (Zehr, 2002/2015). This peacekeeping response to conflict keeps us within the realm of negative peace (the absence of overt physical violence), without addressing its causes (Galtung, 1976). Purposeful and sustainable mechanisms do exist to create positive peacebuilding (see Chap. 2). But while curriculum integration and inclusion goals in day-to-day school culture persist, there remains a lack of clarity on how restorative justice is enacted in classroom practice, both in the explicit and implicit curriculum. The responsibilities of the various stakeholders are expected to be shared. However, this approach to sharing—and hoping all staff will be involved—often nullifies the process simply because no one is leading the initiative. It becomes too easy to default back to a punitive system of control that, while punishing for both teachers and students, constrains any opportunities for peacebuilding. To bring about the cultural change necessary to transform schools, schools need to focus on proactive community building (Garnett et al., 2020). This would involve a shift in preventive conflict methods— creating a restorative school culture—in conjunction with constructive opportunities to safely explore conflicts. I acknowledge that schooling is a site of injustice. To allow for transformation of the structural violence embedded in education’s policies and practices, critical attention must be focused on dismantling whiteness and colonization. Education—teaching and facilitating constructive conflict resolution and communication—is needed for this transformation. An integrated presence of positive peace—through purposive intentions to build peace—supports a restorative school culture. Locating opportunities for constructive conflict engagement in the classroom moves restorative justice away from what is primarily seen as disciplinary practices after harm has occurred (Bickmore, 2013). In constructive conflict dialogue, multiple legitimate perspectives are aired, dissuading exclusionary approaches to blame and shame. Engaging in this kind of conflictual conversation involves sharing authority and power—with procedures that rely on perspectives from multiple points of view. Such a collective approach to engagement, problem solving, and community building is all part of the daily work that occurs in classrooms and schools. Once, when I visited a school, I saw a young Black male student walking away from his classroom and toward the office. The principal was walking out of the office and noticed him. “Hey,” she said to the student, “how are you doing today?” As he began to tell her that he had been sent

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to the office, she intercepted him and said, “Hang on a second, let me just help you with this shoe.” She bent down in front of him and began to tie the undone laces. Crouching down in front of him, she then began to ask, “So, what’s been going on today?” The principal’s actions here were complex. At times, young people purposely choose to wear their shoes with their laces undone—for them it is a way to be in control. Her act of tying his laces without seeking permission was an act of submission—yet it helped her maintain her dominant role. At the same time, while in an authority role, she also chose to physically lower herself, approaching this child in a non-blaming and relational way. The entry point for discipline does not need to start with control. In any environment, it remains possible to engage in a comprehensive and constructive dialogue experience that is respectful—and sustainable.

Building Confidence for Connection As a society, we need to prioritize giving people the confidence, skills, and tools to survive and thrive in a world intermeshed with the struggle for capitalist gains and peaceful coexistence. When we help young people develop their sense of self and confidence, we contribute to how they may create the emotional building blocks and connections that will allow them to think critically about their self-care, including the potential for involving themselves in advocacy groups. To help support others (such as their peers), they need to build their internal strengths. The tendency to disconnect from one’s own and others’ human needs is particularly evident when conflict and crisis arise. Restorative practitioners and participants need to focus on generating the self-motivation to take care of our bodies consistently because, contrary to the usual assumptions, we do not all necessarily know what to do to feel better. At a basic level, we may assume that everyone knows not to overeat sugar because of the psychological and physical repercussions on body and brain. Yet, people still do it. Knowing how to take care of our emotional health is not accessible to all and is further exacerbated by power and structural violence. Self-care is particularly pertinent for those who have been impacted by trauma and abuse, both genetically and in their current life. The inclination to choose self-harm over self-care persists in people in marginalized positions and who lack access to the self-coping skills that have never been taught or experienced. It requires a conscious and structural shift to move away from this societal self-harm.

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Teaching young people how to take responsibility for their physical and emotional needs can help them develop the independent skills necessary for them to recognize what they need and thereby help themselves. This book offers an opportunity to reframe how educators think about our relationships with young people: positioning them at the center. The psychological ways in which people consciously and unconsciously hold themselves back are critical to addressing intergenerational trauma and healing wounds. As unresolved harms proceed through generations, the attachment and codependence that maintain unhealthy behaviors persist. Pursuing social justice and restoration in such toxic regimes requires consistent commitment—it is hard work. It involves working with ourselves to redirect our behaviors and responses to conflict and thus shape how we teach and engage with others. We know how to engage in conflict violently. Dominant societal norms that prescribe violent and competitive outcomes have entrenched those beliefs in our minds and hearts. How educators approach their students and their classroom—through conscious care and connection or through confining control and chaos— can ultimately shape how young people evolve (Shirley & MacDonald, 2016). Creating space to nourish and embody citizenship and peace is a process. Potentially transformative experiences can be moments that last seconds or last a whole year; but each moment of connection and care contributes to building safety. Put simply: when young people feel safe, they learn. Yet still, peace does not necessarily equate with justice.

Situating Conflict and Connection in Restorative Circles There is a feeling beneath every behavior and a need beneath every emotion or core concern (Fisher & Shapiro, 2005). “Big feelings” are not negative responses. Instead, they illustrate unmet needs (Greene, 2009). Many conscious parenting and conflict resolution experts have been advocating this for some time (Markham, 2012; Tsabary, 2014). By focusing on meeting the need, rather than focusing on the behavior, educators can deal with the cause, not the symptom. Doing this deep emotional work is challenging for students and also for teachers. It is also impacted by sociocultural and political upheavals. During the course of my research, school closures that persisted heavily over the course of two school years made it harder for schools and educators to persist in practicing restorative justice in education.

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COVID-19 made visible the realities of the daily pace of schooling and the messiness that comes with creating community during instability and disconnection. As this book was written, the pressure to return to “normal” and to restore order persisted. Educators can genuinely engage in restoring balance by tapping into the chaos and creating space for young people to explore the conflicts they are experiencing. Without authentic engagement, conflicts escalate and go deeper. Connection is the restorative action that allows us to heal and thrive.

Who Is This Book For? This book is for teachers, students, parents, administrators, and academics who are concerned with how students experience restorative circles—and conflicts—and how educators facilitate them. In order to thrive, young people need to be able to regulate themselves emotionally with confidence, no matter what situation they find themselves in. While navigating conflict with a partner, child, family member, or political party, the ability to not get bogged down and to truly engage wholeheartedly is what contributes to human flourishing. Of course, thriving means different things to different people depending on the environmental, sociopolitical, and cultural contexts. Thus, this book is also for educators and those interested in education to better prepare teachers to facilitate student inclusion—in ways that change the current dynamic, in which some students are brought in while others are left behind. My intention in sharing the narratives that follow in this book is to highlight a critical concern: how neoliberal and white liberal approaches to restorative and peacemaking practices directly impact marginalized students. For educators, RJE is about starting with ourselves, safely naming our perspectives and experiences, and then critically reflecting on cultural and societal influences. Through a process of questioning and dialogue, we can work with young people so they become independent and distinct in their ideas while yet remaining open to other perspectives. Most restorative teachers would agree that schooling needs to be a place where, starting in Kindergarten, students can be equipped with such tools and skills; after graduating from high school, they would all be better prepared to thrive in our world. In what follows, I identify how to proactively create a culture of care and inclusion in the classroom, focusing on the implications for a

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multitiered approach to restorative justice. A restorative culture shift is predicated on how school staff are aligned in their approach to restorative justice and circle pedagogy in their classrooms and broader school community. The philosophical alignment and commitment across all teachers in restorative schools is necessary for the success of this project, and directly impacts what transpires inside classrooms.

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Littlewolf, E., Armster, M., & Paras, C. (2020). Burn the bridge. In E. C. Valandra & W.  W. Hoksila (Eds.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities. Living Justice Press. Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press. Lustick, H. (2021). “Restorative justice” or restoring order? Restorative school discipline practices in urban public schools. Urban Education, 56(8), 1269–1296. Lustick, H. (2022). Schoolwide critical restorative justice. Journal of Peace Education, 1–24. Lustick, H., Norton, C., Lopez, S. R., & Greene-Rooks, J. H. (2020). Restorative practices for empowerment: A social work lens. Children & Schools, 42(2), 89–97. Määttä, K., & Uusiautti, S. (2013). Pedagogical love and good teacherhood. In Many faces of love (pp. 93–101). Brill Sense. Markham, E. (1913). Outwitted. In The shoes of happiness, and other poems. Kessinger. Markham, L. (2012). Peaceful parent, happy kids: How to stop yelling and start connecting. TarcherPerigee. Maynard, R. (2017). Policing Black lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present. Fernwood. McCants-Turner, J. R. (2022). Can restorative justice make Black lives matter in schools? In S. Y. Bowland, H. Batts, B. Roy, & M. A. Trujillo (Eds.), Beyond equity and inclusion in conflict resolution: Recentering the profession (pp. 247–259). Rowman & Littlefield. McCold, P., & Wachtel, T. (2003, August 10–15). In pursuit of paradigm: A theory of restorative justice [Paper presentation]. XIII World Congress of Criminology, Rio de Janeiro. McDougall, R. L. (2018). Duncan Campbell Scott. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 18, 2022, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ en/article/duncan-­campbell-­scott Morris, R. (2000). Stories of transformative justice. Canadian Scholars Press. Morrison, B. E. (2002). Bullying and victimisation in schools: A restorative justice approach [No. 219]. Australian Institute of Criminology: Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 1–6. Morrison, B. E. (2006). School bullying and restorative justice: Toward a theoretical understanding of the role of respect, pride, and shame. Journal of Social Issues, 62(2), 371–392. Morrison, B. E., & Vaandering, D. (2012). Restorative justice: Pedagogy, praxis, and discipline. Journal of School Violence, 11(2), 138–155. Musa, A. (2022). Search reveals 169 potential unmarked graves at former Canadian residential school, officials say. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/02/americas/canada-­i ndigenous-­r esidential-­s chool-­p otential-­g raves-­s t-­b ernard-­ mission/index.html

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Okonofua, J., & Quereshi, A. (2017). Locked out of the classroom: How implicit bias contributes to disparities in school discipline. https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-­ content/uploads/LDF_Bias_Report_WEB-­2.pd Paris, D., & Winn, M. T. (2014). Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. SAGE. Parker, C. A. (2016). Peacebuilding, citizenship, and identity: Empowering conflict and dialogue in multicultural classrooms. Brill. Parker, C. A. (2020). Who’s in and who’s out? Problematizing the peacemaking circle in diverse classrooms. In E. C. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities. Living Justice Press. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2020). Classroom peace circles: Teachers’ professional learning and implementation of restorative dialogue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 95, 1–10. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2021). Complexity in restorative justice education circles: Power and privilege in voicing perspectives about sexual health, identities, and relationships. Journal of Moral Education, 50(4), 471–493. Parker-Shandal, C. (2023). White liberalism, racism, and restorative justice in schools. In C. E. Matias & P. Gorski (Eds.), The other elephant in the (class) room: White liberalism and the persistence of racism in education. Teachers College Press. Pointer, L., McGoey, K., & Farrar, H. (2020). The little book of restorative teaching tools: Games, activities, and simulations for understanding restorative justice practices. Simon & Schuster. Pollack, S. (2010). Labelling clients “risky”: Social work and the neo-liberal welfare state. British Journal of Social Work, 40(4), 1263–1278. Pranis, K. (2015). Little book of circle processes: A new/old approach to peacemaking. Simon & Schuster. Pranis, K., Stuart, B., & Wedge, M. (2013). Peacemaking circles: From crime to community. Living Justice Press. Reimer, K. E. (2018). Adult intentions, student perceptions: How restorative justice is used in schools to control and to engage. IAP. Richie, B. E. (2012). Arrested justice: Black women, violence, and America’s prison nation. New York University Press. Riestenberg, N. (2008). Applying the framework: Positive youth development and restorative practices. Journal of Youth Development, 3(1), 113–122. Schiff, M. (2018). Can restorative justice disrupt the “school-to-prison pipeline”? Contemporary Justice Review, 21(2), 121–139. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2010). ICCS 2009 international report: Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower-­ secondary school students in 38 countries. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

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Sen, A. K. (2009). The idea of justice. Harvard University Press. Shirley, D., & MacDonald, E. (2016). The mindful teacher (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press. Skiba, R.  J., Arredondo, M.  I., & Rausch, M.  K. (2014). New and developing research on disparities in discipline. The Equity Project at Indiana University. Thorsborne, M., & Vinegrad, D. (2017). Restorative practices and bullying. Routledge. Tsabary, S. (2014). The conscious parent: Transforming ourselves, empowering our children. Hachette. Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428. Tuck, E., & Yang, K.  W. (2014). R-words: Refusing research. In D.  Paris & M. T. Winn (Eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities (pp. 223–248). SAGE. Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2016). What justice wants. Critical Ethnic Studies, 2(2), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.5749/jcritethnstud.2.2.0001 Tuso, H., & Flaherty, M. P. (Eds.). (2016). Creating the third force: Indigenous processes of peacemaking. Lexington Books. Utheim, R. (2014). Restorative justice, reintegration, and race: Reclaiming collective identity in the postracial era. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(4), 355–372. Vaandering, D. (2010). The significance of critical theory for restorative justice in education. Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 32(2), 145–176. Vaandering, D. (2014). Relational restorative justice pedagogy in educator professional development. Curriculum Inquiry, 44(4), 508–530. Velez, G., Hahn, M., Recchia, H., & Wainryb, C. (2020). Rethinking responses to youth rebellion: Recent growth and development of restorative practices in schools. Current Opinion in Psychology, 35, 36–40. Wadhwa, A. (2015). Restorative justice in urban schools: Disrupting the school-to-­ prison pipeline. Routledge. Wadhwa, A. (2020). “What do you want, reparations?” Racial microaggressions and restorative justice. In Colorizing restorative justice (pp. 159–172). Living Justice Press. Winn, M. T. (2018). Justice on both sides: Transforming education through restorative justice. Harvard Education Press. Winn, M. T. (2021). Why futures matter: Toward a fifth pedagogical stance. In M. T. Winn & L. T. Winn (Eds.), Restorative justice in education: Transforming teaching and learning through the disciplines (pp.  193–200). Harvard Education Press. Wroldsen, N., & Follestad, B. (2018). Using restorative circles in schools: How to build strong learning communities and foster student well-being. Jessica Kingsley.

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Wysor Nguema, S. R. (2020). Not if, but when whiteness shows up what do we do about it? Social Work with Groups, 43(1-2), 114–118. Zehr, H. (2005). Changing lenses: A new focus for crime and justice (3rd ed.). Herald Press. Zehr, H. (2015). The little book of restorative justice: Revised and updated. Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 2002)

CHAPTER 2

Transforming Justice in Diverse Classrooms

Illustration 2.1  Hands and chairs © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_2

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People come to restorative justice from both practical and theoretical perspectives. I frame restorative justice in education through grounded theory. I arrived at this through classroom observations and through critical scholarship that draws on critical race theory, critical literacy, and decolonizing and democratic education. Taking my cue from these observations, and drawing on and benefiting from the Indigenous, feminist, Afrocentric, and religious roots of restorative justice, I have assumed a critical approach to interpreting the praxis of restorative justice in schools. Restorative justice provides critical lenses and tools needed to dismantle oppression, to create a culture of care, equity, and racial justice (Davis, 2019; Gomez et al., 2021). Yet it can also be used superficially, in ways that preserve and reinforce existing punitive structures. For instance, some teachers may know the right restorative questions to ask, yet their interpretation and enactment of restorative justice continues to silence and oppress vulnerable and historically marginalized students. The literature that has emerged over the last decade speaks to rapid growth and development in the field of restorative justice in education (Brown, 2018; Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2015; Macready, 2009; Morrison, 2007). Restorative justice in schools draws on concepts derived from conflict resolution and peacebuilding theory (Bickmore, 2011a, 2013; Bishop et  al., 2015; Kester, 2018; Williams, 2013), specifically on theory connected to critical whiteness studies, democratic and anti-racist education, equity, and Indigenous philosophy (Vaandering, 2010; Winn, 2018). Restorative justice in education is about building relationships over time. It provides a platform emphasizing justice and equity, from which school cultures may be sustainably transformed (Evans & Vaandering, 2016/2022).

Children Learn What They Live: Navigating Conflict and Whiteness Children—and adults—are taught to avoid conflict (Derman-Sparks & Ramsey, 2011; Parker & Bickmore, 2012). Marginalized children’s avoidance or engagement in conflict reflects their feelings of safety and inclusion (Souto-Manning, 2014). For their part, many teachers find discussing high-conflict, controversial issues concerning politics, religion, or race intensely challenging, and do not feel supported in navigating them (Pace, 2019). In the Canadian landscape, where politeness and tolerance are often expected to represent the dominant ideology, the idea of meeting

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conflict head-on typically scares people. This has contributed to the serious lack of understanding about difference and, most importantly, how to respond to it (Kreamelmeyer et al., 2016). In a previous study, I found that children’s conceptualizations of their cultural identity were mitigated by their access to information at school and at home. When students as young as eight learn about themselves in a deep way—through critical exploration of their identities—they are more likely to have increased awareness and understanding of themselves and others (Parker, 2010). Teachers’ responses to conflict shape students’  future experiences at school—both academically and relationally (Hollweck et  al., 2019). Restorative responses model resilience and empathy and, most important, racial equity (Cumings  Mansfield et  al., 2018). Punitive responses normalize the spiral of violence and require young people to persevere silently through conflict (Utheim, 2014). Including targeted, marginalized bodies is a constant struggle in white spaces (Matias & Mackey, 2016). Whiteness impacts which bodies take up space and what they can do in that space (Ahmed, 2007; Wysor Nguema, 2020). People with white bodies have the power to “extend their reach into space and its objects and the space, in turn, can take on the very ‘qualities’ that are given to such bodies” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 156). Schools are spaces where whiteness is the norm, where bodies of color are forced to conform, and where students are expected to perpetuate “normal” (i.e., white) expectations for behavior (Castagno, 2009). Too often, this means that students of color have to play the submissive, quiet part (Bryzzheva, 2018). This infiltration and internalization of whiteness might manifest in behaviors such as not getting out of their seats as often as white students, for fear of a harsh reprisal, or not raising their hand as frequently as their white peers, for fear of being admonished either by their peers or by the teacher. Black girls are often categorized as “loud and ghetto” and are “especially penalized for deviating from gender norms and expectations of ‘feminine’ behavior, based on models of white womanhood” (Davis, 2019, p. 47; see also Morris, 2012). bell hooks (2018) and Bettina Love (2019) have shown how pedagogical choices grounded in resistance and inclusion for social justice shape learning outcomes. Love (2019) argued: Pedagogy should work in tandem with students’ own knowledge of their community and grassroots organizations to push forward new ideas for

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social change, not just be a tool to enhance test scores or grades. Pedagogy, regardless of its name, is useless without teachers dedicated to challenging systemic oppression with intersectional social justice. (p. 19)

Authentic learning is not possible without justice. Justice is a prerequisite for inclusion. Interrogating the principles of restorative justice in education involves understanding how conflicts are taken up as learning opportunities that students participate in, mitigating conflicts when harm has occurred.

Risk Taking Through Democratic Education: Navigating Restorative Responses to Contentious Issues Restorative pedagogy is risky pedagogy. The anti-CRT movement has heightened this risk as teachers and administrators fear losing their jobs or seats on school boards, particularly when they raise issues concerning racial and social justice—even though such teaching can help students critically understand past and ongoing racial politics (Teitelbaum, 2022). Using restorative justice  pedagogies while avoiding opportunities for reflection on white complicity (Applebaum, 2017) perpetuates white liberalism (Parker-Shandal, 2023). When teachers—and students—take risks to discuss contentious issues, this gives them the opportunity to develop the confidence and skills to engage in alternative or dissenting perspectives. Risk taking, when modeled by teachers, encourages students to also take risks (Howard et al., 2018). Teachers play a critical role: they create the necessary spaces to work through problems and allow the time and energy to work through those issues collaboratively and collectively. For instance, they can create spaces for students of color to work through difficult histories and the intergenerational impact of oppression and racism, naming and affirming how whiteness has perpetuated these harms (Epstein & Peck, 2018; Winn, 2018). This is challenging, and it is hard work. However, the impact on students and teachers can be transformational (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). Given the whiteness of educational institutions, using restorative justice in education to call out whiteness in ways that sustain discussions about previously silenced issues is risky pedagogy. Some educators and restorative justice practitioners choose to speak out about issues of racial justice.

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However, such people are often silenced—both interpersonally and institutionally. People steeped in their whiteness are often silent about their own silence, which contributes to structural violence. Circles—while not a remedy for eradicating whiteness—allow for a space to open conversations about whiteness in critical ways. Curriculum topics such as immigration are bound to be controversial in our current sociopolitical climate. Marginalizing certain groups has allowed for people with certain identities to be targeted. Black, Indigenous, and people of color, for instance, are forced to contend with racism at structural and interpersonal levels. How educators represent content is part of the restorative process of engaging conflict to repair harm and deepen equity (Nieto & Bickmore, 2017). Possibilities for exploring underlying conflictual issues, particularly those related to difference, open when educators undertake these kinds of deliberative discussions without forcing a resolution or conclusive answer (Jerome et  al., 2021, p.  22). Crucially, in these kinds of conversations, teachers need to use restorative justice principles that allow for them and their students to remain open and vulnerable, so they may deconstruct how whiteness in their learning environments upholds the oppression of others (Cumings et  al., 2018; Matias & Mackey, 2016). Many teachers actively avoid controversial issues fearing they will be incompetent to facilitate them, especially in a constrained time frame. They may also fear reprisals from critical stakeholders such as colleagues, administrators, or parents (Alarcón & Bellow, 2018; Bickmore, 2008b; Pace, 2019). Too often, “the ‘ideal’ classroom is … defined by the lack of conflict, by a negative peace, often leading to status quo maintenance and enduring social oppressions” (Souto-Manning, 2014, p. 611). Engebreston (2018) described one novice teacher who did not engage with controversial issues because she feared harming the relationships she had built with her students, especially those with diverse backgrounds. But Hung (2020) illustrated how teachers’ and students’ backgrounds can be resources for discussing contentious topics, such as immigration. Hung documented the pedagogy of three first-generation teachers from Mexico, many of whose students in the United States had Mexican backgrounds themselves. She showed how sustained opportunities for discussion and reflection about contentious issues, such as then-President Trump’s speeches about immigration, allowed students to deliberate and practice critical democratic learning.

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Constructive, facilitated dialogue about conflict can be transformational because it engages hearts as well as minds. However, actual adequate implementation of such pedagogies is not common in Canadian or American public classrooms (Evans & Vaandering, 2016/2022; McAvoy & Hess, 2013; Sears et  al., 1999). Without doubt, classroom teachers need more professional support to successfully facilitate restorative and proactive discussions about conflict in their classrooms (Evanovich et al., 2020; González et al., 2019). Professional learning about facilitating such practices can provide teachers with the confidence and skills necessary for approaching conflict and building strong, just communities and sustainable, equitable peace. Hess and McAvoy (2015) and others (e.g., Schulz et al., 2010) have found that students who participated in deliberative democratic discussion exercises in the classroom and school tended to have better skills as well as more interest in engagement in democracy. White teachers, especially, do not always consciously know that they can use discussions to promote equity. Engaging in controversy is typically kept at a distance by teachers who feel protected by whiteness. To confront their cognitive dissonance, white teachers could listen to the internal, conflicted beliefs and attitudes that hold them back from avoiding conflict and engaging discomfort (Matias, 2016). Using a pedagogy of discomfort, educators can reposition critical issues to interrogate the whiteness embedded in curricular content (Applebaum, 2017; Zembylas, 2018). For young people, dialogue about conflictual perspectives increases their interest in academically and personally relevant topics (Bickmore, 2014; Hess & Posselt, 2002; Pace, 2021; Parker, 2016a). For example, it can give them valuable experience in safely practicing constructive communication skills to deal with interpersonal and social conflicts in life and in the classroom. Effective implementation of inclusive, thoughtful discussion of conflictual issues in classrooms is also associated with students’ development of respect for alternative points of view, sensitivity to matters of discrimination and equity, and skills and inclinations to participate in democratic processes (Hahn, 1998; Otoya-Knapp, 2004; Schulz et  al., 2010; Torney-Purta et al., 2001). Circles and Power Relations In theory and intention, restorative justice practices such as circles are pedagogical tools and principles for facilitating and sustaining dialogue

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and peaceful, just relationships. And yet, what qualitatively transpires within a restorative dialogue space does not always transform power relations (Parker, 2020). Dialogue can reflect and reinforce hegemonic relations of power which, if not attended to, can be damaging for those whose voices or perspectives are not sufficiently heard—or are  silenced (Wing, 2009). Circle practices may evade or silence the feelings, identities, and stories of some while welcoming others: these choices (intentional or not) circulate and normalize unequal power relations. Without critical reflection on how power relations are produced, spatially and culturally, restorative pedagogy can unintentionally perpetuate the harm it seeks to remedy (Lustick, 2017; Parker, 2020; Utheim, 2014). Critical reflection is crucial for democratic development and participation (DiAngelo & Sensoy, 2019). If the process lacks a sense of compassionate and authentic connection, students are less likely to be motivated to engage in deliberation and civic action (Barton & Ho, 2020; Parker, 2016b). Restorative justice processes provide foundational skills for perspective taking, empathy, and moral development. As participants in the process deepen their understanding of themselves and others, they begin to understand and recognize systems of oppression. Then they can engage more deeply in the process through critical consciousness and relationship building and can move toward a place of taking action.

Foundational Skill Building for Dialogic Engagement: Approaches to Conflict Through Peacebuilding and Relationality Focused skill building is a continual process—dialogue begins only when tools for engagement and an ethos of philosophical understanding of how conflicts occur are in place. Critical foundational primary skills for restorative process involve speaking  and listening, and understanding that another perspective exists. These skills help develop an awareness of self-­ identity, which includes recognition of power and oppression in any restorative justice  process. Foundational skills help build the secondary skills necessary for pursuing deeper engagement and action, such as taking collective or individual action when harm has occurred, accepting responsibility, and opening space for empathy. All such skills contribute to building the cultural ethos that restorative justice necessitates. Conflict dialogue emerging through the use of these developmental skills confronts oppression while also facilitating perspective taking. In this

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Fig. 2.1  Identifying ideal approaches to conflict dialogue and relationality in RJE. Credit/Copyright: Parker-Shandal (2022)

way, deliberate classroom discussions enact conflict dialogue while simultaneously encouraging critical interpretation and reflection about the conflictual issues. This relational pedagogy of conflict dialogue is central to restorative circles. When teachers maximize conflict dialogue through close relationships, they strengthen their connections to their students while also ripening space for deep discussions. To build on the existing theory, I have outlined below four approaches that I believe contribute to building relationships and sustaining dialogue with students: (a) minimizing conflict dialogue in controlled relationships, (b) maximizing conflict dialogue in controlled relationships, (c) minimizing conflict dialogue in close relationships, and (d) maximizing conflict dialogue in close relationships (Fig. 2.1). Approaches to Building Relationships and Sustaining Dialogue  inimizing Conflict Dialogue in Controlled Relationships M In controlled relationships that minimize dialogic inquiry, pedagogical creativity is amputated by the overriding need to silence students’ voices.

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In this lecture-based, top-down delivery model, teachers rely on defensive teaching for classroom control (McNeil, 2013). Most students feel normalized in this classroom, even if they are disengaged from the content and people. This is because controlled relationships align with dominant prescriptions of schools, and people generally feel powerless to challenge this hierarchal system of control. Much of this control is driven by market-­ driven objectives for education that seek to standardize education in ways to purposely exclude marginalized voices.  aximizing Conflict Dialogue in Controlled Relationships M In contrast, controlled relationships that maximize conflict dialogue allow students to grapple with different perspectives, yet the teacher remains the ultimate judge for deciphering the outcome of any debate. The teacher might actively situate students’ perspectives by identifying which sides were wrong and which were right—multiple perspectives and ideas might be grappled with, but the teacher controls how and to what extent various issues are taken up. In such contexts, students would likely not feel empowered to intervene when their teacher presents conflictual issues as settled (Hess, 2009).  inimizing Conflict Dialogue in Close Relationships M On the other hand, when building close relationships is the central focus in a classroom, it is still possible to minimize conflict dialogue. Where nurturing and caring for each other is a priority in the classroom, a careful and safe approach to mitigating conflict is generated—and differing perspectives are not engaged. The model easily becomes a hegemonic platform for disseminating knowledge, albeit in a presumably friendly manner. Despite their presumably deep relational connection, students are disempowered when raising conflictual issues. And in this way, building relationships is separated from academic content—and subsequently from conflict (see Llewellyn & Parker, 2018).  aximizing Conflict Dialogue in Close Relationships M For close relationships to thrive, conflict dialogue needs to be maximized. In a culture where constructive conflict dialogue is promoted and strong relationships are sustained, people feel safe to deliberate and exchange ideas. It is no question that in these contexts, learning flourishes. Still, in any restorative approach, with strong relationships that make space for conflict dialogue, some students may be excluded. Because much of

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schooling is set up to perpetuate inequality, too often the default is to constrain dialogue. For instance, engaging with polarizing narratives about political parties could easily become a competitive debate. Dialogue does not mean that equity will automatically flourish. English language learners (ELLs) and neurodivergent students, for instance, may struggle in any circle process that relies on verbal participation and offers little support for those who are quieter. Controversial issues that are personally relevant to students may also shift how they perceive and participate. Building Empathy, Achieving Justice School and classroom communities continue to struggle to learn how to better communicate. Peer relationships in schools are often fraught with conflict such as disputes, misunderstandings, and tensions: these conflicts are learning opportunities, for good or for ill. But too often, young people have never been invited to consider another’s interpretation or perspective: they have never been taught the foundation for developing empathy (Upright, 2002). In conflict dialogue including restorative justice circles, participants are encouraged to envision life from others’ perspectives, whether they agree with those perspectives or not. Such dialogue shows students how to maintain their own point of view while acknowledging and respecting another’s; participants may thereby learn key components of developing empathy (Bickmore & Parker, 2014; Kwok & Selman, 2017; Zembylas, 2018). Like interpersonal tensions, conflicts embedded in classroom subject matter may be usefully encountered by engaging them as moral dilemmas (Clare et al., 1996; Lind, 2008). Yet teachers often need further institutional support and coaching, to enact pedagogies that support constructive, broad, and equitable student engagement in such conflictual conversations (Bickmore, 2008a; Parker & Bickmore, 2020). Winn (2018, 2021) argued for restorative justice in education as a crucial answer, at least in part, to schools’ unequal practices and opportunities. She maps out pedagogical stances that serve as essential components for shifting how justice is enacted in schools. These stances include knowing how History Matters (knowing students’ histories and tending to how historical narratives are constructed), Race Matters (acknowledging how racism intersects with our lives, and centering racial justice), Justice Matters (to purposely seek and promote equity and anti-oppression), Language Matters (paying attention to how language is used to perpetuate or

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mitigate harm), and Futures Matter (preparing young people, their families, and educators to invest in the long term). This final stance is particularly relevant for everything that matters to young people. It will equip them with the skills and tools to resist hegemonic institutions and behaviors and prepare them, across all disciplines and subject matters, for actively engaging in conflict, building relationships, and deepening their resilience. Winn (2021) showed how communities could engage in a Futures Matter pedagogical stance, which “grows from an ongoing commitment to developed portals or opportunities through which multiply-­marginalized youth can begin to plan for and enact agentive futures and lives characterized by thriving” (p. 194). These pedagogical stances shape and offer crucial guidance on how to interrupt systemic oppression and move toward transforming educational experiences for historically marginalized students.

Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding: Moving From Negative to Positive Peace Three goals exist for managing conflict and achieving peace: moving from peacekeeping, through peacemaking, to peacebuilding (Bickmore, 2011b; Bickmore & Fathallah, 2022; Galtung, 1976). These frameworks help to refine how I conceptualize peace and the role of restorative justice in achieving it. Peacekeeping—control for safety and security to achieve negative peace (absence of direct violence) Peacemaking—dispute resolution and dialogue (processes) Peacebuilding—long-range prevention of direct and systemic (cultural and social-structural) violence through presence of processes to (re)build healthy relationships, human rights, social development, and democratization (positive peace) (Fig. 2.2) Peacekeeping means shutting down overt aggressive conflict behavior, as in a school suspension. The United Nations uses peacekeeping forces on a larger scale, such as the peacekeeping mission in Rwanda led by Roméo Dallaire. Peacekeeping is a critical process for responding to immediate needs to contain conflict escalation and ensure safety. It has the power to stifle conflict expression, but not to address its causes. The ensuing absence of direct violence and fear (while under surveillance) is negative peace (Galtung, 1969). A kind of peace is obtained, through exertion

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Fig. 2.2  Peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding: Moving from negative to positive peace. Credit/Copyright: Bickmore (2011b)

of force, not peaceful means, and commitments for how to sustain that peace are null. Peacemaking goes beyond peacekeeping. It is nonpunitive and may involve mediation (meaning negotiation with impartial third-­ party assistance) and problem solving, such as students discussing a situation and then apologizing after they have fought, or again, in the case of Rwanda, the mediated Arusha Peace Agreement that ended the three-­year civil war in Rwanda. Peacemaking efforts represent positive peace efforts to ensure that the interventions to resolve the conflict are relatively peaceful and include the voices of affected parties. Like peacekeeping, peacemaking begins after incidents of escalation to contain or settle situations, and does not attend to deeper, structurally integrated ways of sustaining peace. Then there is peacebuilding, which includes peacemaking, but also involves recognizing and interrupting injustice through peaceful and restorative approaches. This might mean that students participate in a restorative peace circle postsuspension or in lieu of suspension. In the case of Rwanda, peacebuilding efforts were still ongoing at the time this book was written, such as efforts to rewrite inclusive history textbooks that include Hutu and Tutsi perspectives (Freedman et al., 2008; King, 2014). Restorative justice in peacebuilding efforts is the key to unlock equitable social outcomes. Recognizing and affirming cultural and ethnic identities can decrease identity-based conflicts and promote peacebuilding (King & Samii, 2020). In postwar Rwanda, we see the collaborative approach to rewriting history textbooks. Through a transitional justice approach toward reconciliation, the Amataba Workshops drew on Ubuntu philosophy. They focused on healing, listening to both victims and perpetrators in an effort to overcome deep-seated fear and hatred of the Other, to move to a place of forgiveness, which was necessary for reconciliation (Ordóñez-­ Carabaño et  al., 2020; Wu, 2021). Wu (2021) complexifies how

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forgiveness could be negotiated in schools, proposing a model for forgiveness, based on Hegel’s philosophy, for how education could enable young people to participate more actively in peacemaking processes (Clark, 2009; Clarke-Habibi, 2018). The Oakland Unified School District (2020) proposed a three-tiered school-wide model for restorative justice. In Tier 1, focusing on community building, positive peace involves classroom circles to build and sustain relationships and create shared values that promote commitment to their community (Kervick et al., 2019). Tier 2 continues this model, relying on a restorative culture of care and shared values to identify the root causes of conflicts and to ensure accountability. Tier 3 is a more individualized approach that focuses on inclusive reintegration into the community after harm has occurred, such as postsuspension or postincarceration. Research in Oakland schools demonstrates how their process sustained resilience and promoted equity (Brown, 2018; Jain et al., 2014) (Fig. 2.3). The roots of peacebuilding—justice and inclusion—are core to school culture transformations across this multitiered approach at school and broader levels. Avoiding underlying causes while repairing interpersonal

Fig. 2.3  Tiers of school-based RJE processes. Credit/Copyright: Oakland Unified School District (2020)

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community relationships makes it seem that the problems were located within generic-equivalent individuals. Centering justice and inclusion means working with the systemic implications of how conflicts manifest— and are subsequently handled.

Preparing and Supporting Teachers to Build Intentional Communities of Care Children are intuitively aware of how classroom management strategies impact their lives, although their perceptions of “good” and “bad” are at times blurred, as Brownell and Parks (2021) have illustrated in their study of students’ perceptions of the clip chart (extrinsic recognition and sanction) method to control students’ behavior. These authors noted how this method of controlling students’ behavior “remained a silent partner that reproduced systemic inequities and systems of power” even when children felt loved and included in their classroom environment (p. 8). This supposed balance of punitive (exclusionary) and restorative (inclusionary) approaches to managing students’ behavior and relationships shows how often exclusionary methods triumph by virtue of functioning in a space that has normalized—and thus justifies—punitive methods of control (Kohn, 1993; Okonofua & Quereshi, 2017). Many teachers sidestep opportunities for conflict management through peacemaking dialogue, instead of referring students to administrators, or avoiding potentially sensitive issues in their curriculum (Jenkins et  al., 2008; Parker & Bickmore, 2012). They may engage in community building and seek to foster constructive dialogue, but when conflict does escalate, they often retreat into control-based peacekeeping responses (Bickmore & Fathallah, 2022; Dull & Murrow, 2008). Such traditional, punitive forms of discipline (Jull, 2000; Skiba et al., 2002) can marginalize diverse students and limit opportunities to support students’ positive behavior and social and emotional learning (Osher et al., 2010). Alternative responses to managing conflict—relational, dialogic, democratic, and restorative—are not embedded in the typical structural equation that make up school institutions (Bickmore, 2011b). Turning to these practices is especially challenging when they are not acknowledged in a comprehensive, multitiered, and proactive approach (Zakszeski & Rutherford, 2021). Too often, they are used in isolated pockets such as single classrooms, instead of as part of school-wide proactive and postincident restorative practices (McCluskey et al., 2008; Vaandering, 2014a).

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Preparing and supporting teachers to implement dialogic and restorative practices relies on many factors: affective/personal/relational development, cognitive/professional teacher development (Russell & Crocker, 2016; Vaandering, 2014a), and whole-school structures such as staffing and conflict management and discipline policies (Evans & Vaandering, 2016/2022; Gregory & Skiba, 2020; Morrison & Vaandering, 2012). Above all, any strategy for supporting teacher development for restorative peacebuilding education requires clear and concerted recognition of and responsiveness to diverse students (Bickmore, 2011/2015; Parker, 2020; Winn, 2018). Teacher education and leadership education programs are culpable for relying on traditional and oppressive classroom management methods (Annamma & Winn, 2019; Den Heyer & Abbott, 2011). These power-over-conflict management courses need to be replaced with programs and philosophical principles that embody restorative justice in education for transformative systems changes (Kohli et al., 2019; Hollweck et al., 2019; Souto-Manning & Winn, 2019). There are many possibilities for building competence in facilitating restorative dialogue in the classroom. Daily restorative pedagogies offer excellent opportunities for constructive conflict-dialogue learning for peace. Related classroom pedagogies such as class meetings seem to have similar promise (Angell, 2004). Similarly, early research on restorative peacemaking dialogue programming has shown positive results in improving skills and relationships and reducing violence in schools in England, the United States, and Canada. Morrison (2007) explained: “The power of the process comes from the engine of emotional engagement of the participants, in contrast to the suppression of participants’ emotions in determinations of guilt” (p. 85). This consideration of teachers’ professional development builds on the limited existing research on the implementation of restorative dialogue pedagogies with diverse students, focusing on professional learning support: facilitating collaborative collegial mentoring processes with each teacher to supplement the professional training offered by their schools (Bickmore, 1998; Parker & Bickmore, 2020).

Taking a Risk on Emergent Curriculum Emergent curriculum engages students’ ideas and perspectives as they co-­ construct their education with their educators. Engaging emergent curriculum means that educators remain open to eliciting students’

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wonderings and musings; there exists a place for the co-construction of knowledge. When students’ interests are responded to, their learning opportunities are heightened (Osberg & Biesta, 2008; Wien, 2015). Such teaching challenges normative, prescribed, and neoliberal education models (Nxumalo et al., 2018). Teaching safely is different from keeping students safe in the classroom. Teaching safely means not allowing or recognizing any risk—reiterating genericized, factual, top-down content to be buried into students’ minds (Pace, 2019; Houser, 1996; Kitson & McCully, 2005). Safe teachers are conflict mitigators—little or no discussion prevails in these classrooms, as do minimal learning and student retention. When students retain and engage in information that is meaningful, their prospects for continuing to remain present in school increases. While risk taking is necessary for any democratic experience, marginalized students carry a greater burden in taking any risks with sharing (Bartlett, 2005; Hemmings, 2000). When students of color take such liberties, they may be penalized. For instance, if a Muslim male student defends Islam, or a Black female student calls out racism, they are taking risks that could sabotage their social standing with their peers and their relationship with their teacher. Opening spaces for risky or conflictual teaching requires teachers to  have taken the time to build a strong classroom community that allows for meaningful conversation to flow for all students—particularly those with marginalized backgrounds (Schultz, 2010). Thus, this risky pedagogy does not threaten young people’s safety—it can enhance it. Engaging circle dialogue means creating open-ended learning experiences. Such pedagogical moves would mean pushing back against time sections and curriculum blocks that stifle opportunities for sustained dialogue (Lingard & Thompson, 2017). Diversifying pedagogical exercises can be particularly effective for marginalized students, such as ELLs, and might prepare young people to achieve more in a climate of high-stake, standardized testing (Doherty & Hilberg, 2007; Kempf, 2016). In resisting prescribed and standardized curriculum, restorative dialogue brings awareness to the teacher and students; issues students are grappling with are uncovered, and unfolding topics are explored in more depth and seriousness. Learning can accelerate. When teachers collectively build an enacted curriculum with diverse students, nurtured ideas emerge and knowledge construction is co-­ derived. Pushing back against authoritarian education models where the teacher or textbook implants ideas into students’ minds, democratic circle

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processes invite the exchange and deliberation of ideas and ideals (Bartlett, 2008). These emergent and progressive education approaches allow for an exchange of dialogue and learning. This does not mean, however, that the classroom or circle dialogue is a free-for-all and that the teacher or knowledge/circle keeper steps aside. Curriculum and dialogue are still guided by the facilitator, who maintains control and responsibility for the process. Teachers’ manipulation of their choices for content and pedagogy implementation shape how closely they understand and define their teaching outcomes. What makes curriculum legitimate is the presumably objective delivery of standardized prescriptions intended to indicate a level of competency in outcomes. Teachers, then, are equipped to stifle the emergence of nonlegitimate content, content which would presumably deviate from planned “educational enculturation” (Osberg & Biesta, 2008). To constrain or contain this emergence is to resist the lived experiences of learners. To nurture emergence and lives that will govern future generations means to acknowledge curriculum as lived (Aoki, 1993). In this process, learners will ultimately find ways to free themselves. Teachers may resist enacting emergence. Their resistance is often met with a student’s resistance, often mistaken for misdemeanor. But these students may be struggling to maintain their truths; they may be choosing to channel their energy into setting themselves free. A restorative lens allows people to see how pushing boundaries is the only way to challenge their confinement. Teachers’ approaches to questioning are deeply connected to their comfort, their own depth of knowledge, and their identity. How they pose questions deeply influences how students engage. How questions are framed and for whom they are poised impact students’ learning and inclusion. While some curriculum guides and resources provide suggestions on how to frame questions, most teacher questioning is emergent, not preplanned. For instance, teachers’ questioning has been known to differ based on students’ socioeconomic status (Anyon, 1981; Dull & Murrow, 2008; Hemmings, 2000). As a result, teachers may pose fewer critical thinking questions to students in lower-income schools with higher percentages of students of color than teachers in affluent and homogenous classrooms (Dull & Murrow, 2008; Kahne et  al., 2013; Kahne & Middaugh, 2008; Kahne & Sporte, 2008). Differential opportunities for students to access democratic education lead some students to be better mobilized than others for success (Kennelly & Llewellyn, 2011; Marri, 2005; Tupper et al., 2010).

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In this way, dialogue becomes associated “not with how to facilitate the emergence of meaning in the classroom, but with the issue of what kinds of meaning are allowed to emerge in the classroom” (Osberg & Biesta, 2008, p.  3). Drawing on experienced practitioner knowledge—where teachers rely on their practical (instead of theoretical) intuitions—contributes to deepening students’ opportunities for deliberation and collaboration (Hunt, 1987). Classroom dialogue cannot in this sense be planned if it is to emerge holistically and inclusively, yet critical planning on how to pose questions and opportunities for all students to engage is still necessary for creating an equitable dialogic experience.

The Pedagogical Purpose of Circles: Teaching Communication Skills Circles are a critical resource for teaching skills that will last a lifetime. Circle communication teaches young people how to talk, how to listen, and how to effectively and respectfully engage as well as how to challenge the status quo. While circles rely on people talking while holding a talking piece, much of the communication in circles is nonverbal. Communication is mediated through eye contact—made or not made—as well as through how people sit, lean in, or back away. Body language influences how people build trust and at times the outcome of their negotiations (Goman, 2011). Understanding nonverbal communication is critical in relationships. It is also necessary to successfully navigate the growth of agile and relationally focused workplaces, since approximately 65%–93% of communication occurs nonverbally (Bonaccio et al., 2016). Still, this is in stark contrast to the ways in which young people communicate today (Postman, 1994; Willis, 2003; Zhang et al., 2013). With their focused attention on screens and various forms of electronic messaging, even more so during the recent COVID-19 pandemic quarantine period, their nonverbal communication skills have been deeply challenged. Students need circles to learn how to communicate constructively. Rooted in relational theory, restorative justice practices systemically address the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of how individuals interact (Bishop et  al., 2015; Llewellyn, 2012; Vaandering, 2014b). Restorative classroom practices reveal and challenge how individualism informs and structures many social institutions and governance practices (Kaveney & Drewery, 2011; Llewellyn & Llewellyn, 2015).

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Individualism is an aspect of a neoliberal approach that cannot coexist with a fully restorative justice process. Restorative justice in education is a form of peacebuilding education: by emphasizing how people communicate and relate to one another, it aims to challenge exclusionary language and culture (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). Thus, integrating restorative principles into classroom curriculum and interaction has the potential to increase diverse students’ engagement and inclusion while also promoting peace and democratic social change (Bloom & Reichert, 2014). Restorative practices such as peacemaking circles, mediation, dialogue, and conflictual-issue discussions can build students’ moral and cognitive development by encouraging students to identify positively and to address conflicts with their classmates, their cultures, and their society. Restorative justice relies on dialogue and communication. But while the facilitator or circle keeper in a restorative process is meant to assume an equitable, power-sharing role, they still carry a great deal of power. Their choices in facilitating a restorative dialogue have the power to enhance communication or shut it down. As circle keepers paraphrase and acknowledge people’s experiences and emotions, they could either experience a moment of deep healing or ignite a trauma. Therefore, having circle keepers do the necessary work to become aware of how power and privilege operate is fundamental to building equity in any restorative interaction. As Maglione (2019) cautions: “dialogue and restoration cannot take place within the encounter without the support of an independent/ third party who distinguishes appropriate issues from unacceptable ones, channeling communication toward restorative objectives” (p. 654). Three important parts of the brain impact our communication: the reptilian brain, the limbic complex, and the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a critical part of brain for emotional processing—it tells us if we are safe or in danger and it is also what makes us a cognitive superstar. If the amygdala, as it’s also known, senses danger, then it becomes much easier to flip our lids, so to speak. Our cognitive functioning is compromised when we are not safe (Craig, 2016). One can learn how to function within this state of danger. Those in the field of human and protection services, security, and police officers, for instance, need to train their brains to operate in a state of panic. Without this ability to shut off and disconnect from the amygdala, they are unable to perform. Most people—including educators—have not had that kind of training (Brummer, 2020).

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The key is that we can learn to notice our brain’s signals, and then decide how to proceed. A response pattern needs to be in place: if we feel a certain signal in our brain, we can decide whether to enter a particular space or connect with a particular individual. Some of us may choose silence and withdraw for protection; others may choose to fight, engaging in conflict in pursuit of our goal to secure safety—even if it means inflicting further harm. Circle processes teach people to better understand how they respond to conflict—and thus contribute to helping them notice their brain’s signals. This is also why restorative justice in education must be both equity focused and trauma-informed (see Brummer, 2020; Cumings et al., 2018).

Indigenous Spirituality and Restorative Justice Restorative justice has roots in many Indigenous and other spiritual-­ religious cultures (Zehr, 2015). The Indigenous roots of circles prioritize relationships and staying connected as a community. For some, the restorative circle process is seen as a religious or spiritual experience because of the ways in which the process is set up and, at times, prescribed. For instance, religious readings or meditations can be used to open and close the circle. Circles also of course can be used for secular purposes. Facilitators name and acknowledge the Indigenous roots of restorative justice, and ask participants to do the same. It is not about calling people out because of their cultural appropriation, but to simply show respect for this cultural practice and the communities that have shared this knowledge with settlers. Restorative justice is rooted in Indigenous spirituality and cultures that teach the importance of people relying on each other for harmony and survival. To ensure a strong community that heals and overcomes destructive conflict, Indigenous communities around the world have maintained strong beliefs in building and repairing relationships. Indigenous principles affirm that all beings are interconnected. Disconnection enables disruption to an entire ecosystem. Letting conflict stew could mean eruption could occur at any time; therefore, it is risky and irresponsible to carry hate and internal strife. People need to work together in harmony, and build resilient communities (Boyes-Watson, 2013, cited in Knight & Wadhwa, 2014). Conflicts erupt when people have needs that are not met. Restorative justice in education focuses on how to understand and discern these unmet

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needs, in order to address conflict and work together to rebuild relationships. When needs and values are compromised, conflict escalates and often leads to debilitating and harmful outcomes. Proactively responding to conflict means paying attention to the whole person and the whole classroom, school, and society—all are interconnected and interdependent. For instance, according to the Te Whare Tapa Whā framework, when a person’s mental health is compromised, their physical, spiritual, and social well-being are also impacted (Pointer et al., 2020, p. 107). For Howard Zehr (2015), restorative justice is connected to shalom— peace that promotes justice through relationships among individuals, between groups, and between people and the divine. Fania E.  Davis (2019) has illustrated how the concept of Ubuntu in Indigenous South African communities defines a person through their relationships and connections with others. Restorative justice is deeply connected to Indigenous justice—together the community focuses on the needs and responsibilities of those who have harmed and have been harmed (Davis, 2019). This process of empathizing and understanding each other’s perspectives has been known to reduce hostility and promote healing: “These ancient insights engender what Zehr identifies as the ‘three Rs of restorative justice’: respect, relationship, and responsibility, the lodestar values that guide and nurture the restorative justice movement” (Davis, 2021, p. xii). Ubuntu draws upon African Indigenous roots to solidify how people are in relationship with each other. We are responsible for each other because we are inherently connected. Many teachers, social workers, and child and youth workers are trained to use restorative processes to address postincident conflict as well as to work proactively with young people to teach skills for peacebuilding and dialogue (Parker, 2015; Parker & Bickmore, 2020). But restorative justice in education is not only about responding to postincident conflicts and addressing harm. It is also a process that prioritizes relationships and builds community, to create resilience and justice to heal and prevent future harm. Educational and community programming that engages in a critical study of power relations and emphasizes solidarity in relationships to challenge oppression is a decolonizing process (Zembylas, 2018). For instance, language and cultural programs that sustain or revitalize students’ cultural heritage have been known to address inequity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students (Bang et al., 2014; Fickel, 2005; McCarty & Lee, 2014; Richardson, 2011; Sumida Huaman & Valdiviezo, 2014).

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When young people,  whether in Indigenous-led schools or settler schools for instance, engage in circles, they are communicating in a family way. It is no wonder that in Maskwacis, an Indigenous community in Alberta located in the Ermineskin Cree Nation, after teachers and staff participated in a restorative justice workshop, they shared that they were already practicing restorative justice, but they just “didn’t have a name for it” (Wildcat, 2010, p. 931). A staff member at the school shared that she often draws on students’ familial values to remind them of how to appropriately behave. Many Indigenous and settler schools in Alberta have a practice of asking students and their parents to participate in a reintegration circle before returning to school after a suspension. In precontact Indigenous communities, resource shortages in food or ready access to animals were believed to be the result of abuse to relationships—with the land, animals, and each other. When the interconnections were imbalanced, Indigenous peoples worked to change their behaviors to make things right (Stonechild, 2020). Laws in traditional societies known as the Seven Virtues uphold harmony and balance in relationships and communities: If virtues are undermined, relationship ties, the invisible bonds that hold a community together, are weakened. As ties unravel, the community becomes susceptible to unhealthy and destructive actions. Theft, insult, or murder may lead to others’ resorting to similar counteractions. These energy exchanges feed upon one another indefinitely, resulting in dysfunctional communities. (Stonechild, 2020, p. 15)

For Indigenous peoples, restorative justice has involved uncovering and reconnecting with spirituality and justice processes that were challenged in the onslaught of colonialism, as a matter of cultural survival. In this process, decolonizing pedagogies are designed to critically engage with power relations and the impact of colonization while also consciously revitalizing cultural practices and language (Lee & McCarty, 2017; Wildcat, 2010). A restorative justice approach to Indigenizing education involves “a cultural restitution of ways of knowing, being, and doing” (Blair et  al., 2020, p. 3). Education that privileges Indigenous perspectives disrupts colonial narratives and creates spaces for curriculum that is relevant to students’ lives, responsive to relationships, and meaningful to the community.

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Situating Power and Resistance: How Power-Over Positions Form and (Re)Norm Relationships Anyon and her colleagues (2018) argued that the key to reducing exclusionary discipline strategies is all about relationships. They interviewed 198 teachers from 33 low-suspending schools. School staff having strong relationships with students meant that when students faced an issue, they could respond with a more meaningful, and thus effective, intervention: Through relationship building with students, staff could identify and target the root cause of the problem (for example, low reading skills, lack of classroom rituals or routines, or trauma), rather than the symptom of acting out. (p. 5)

Research continues to show that when students have strong relationships with adults at school (and it does not have to be all adults), they are less likely to abuse substances, skip school, and fight at school (Anyon et al., 2018; Gladden, 2002). Furthermore, strong relationships and culturally responsive pedagogies are a predictor for students’ academic success, particularly for students of color (Yang & Anyon, 2016). Teachers have built relationships with students by making concerted efforts to know about their lives, such as visiting their homes, having frequent check-ins with parents, and being visibly present in the school during extracurricular events and during breaks (Anyon et al., 2018). Teachers and administrators make choices each day that contribute to students’ success (Bensimon, 2007, cited in Schreiner, 2017)—choices about the classroom environment, the school culture and community, and the ways in which relationships are managed. For many, a key to academic and economic success is grit: the hard work of grit fuels stamina and resilience to persevere through struggles (Duckworth, 2016; Duckworth et al., 2007; Schreiner, 2017). Curricula and pedagogy promote higher-­ order learning and engagement, which contribute to students’ development of grit. Developing grit is dependent on other people and available support systems, as Duckworth (2016) notes: “the environment we grow up in really does matter, and it matters a lot” (p. 83). However, when considering power and privilege, grit ideology can also be very harmful. Grit ideology means being aware of structural barriers, particularly for marginalized students, but doing little to remove the barriers. Instead, the focus remains on strengthening marginalized students’

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individual capacities for grit. For instance, instead of working to eradicate barriers for students experiencing poverty, policies and practices focus on cultivating the “grit of students experiencing poverty” (Gorski, 2016, p. 379). Paul Gorski (2016), a sociologist at George Mason University, is one of the most vocal critics of what he calls “the grit ideology” (p. 381). For him, grit ideology is even more dangerous than the deficit ideology on which it was founded. Grit ideology identifies the personal shortcomings of people who are struggling, focusing on the individual attitudes, behaviors, mindsets, and characteristics that impede their success. As an example, a deficit ideology views poverty as a natural consequence of the problematic attitudes and behaviors of those who are poor, such as not valuing education and hard work. In contrast, in structural ideology, people understand that poverty is a result of inequity and injustice, and work to address those gaps, for instance, by … recognizing people experiencing poverty as targets, rather than causes, of these unjust conditions, they might understand lower rates of in-school involvement as a symptom of in-school and out-of-school conditions that limit their abilities to participate at the same rates as their wealthier peers. (Gorski, 2016, p. 380)

If teachers hold a deficit view of their students and their families, it is not likely that any of their pedagogies or classroom practices will work to enable an “equitable learning space” for those students (Gorski, 2016, p.  381). For instance, teachers may mete out unfair punishments when students do not complete an assignment that required online research outside of school, or that required research on their cultural heritage when they do not have access to that knowledge, or when students fail to bring in a signed parental form, because their guardian is drunk on the sofa when they come home from school. Gorski (2016) posed an important question: “As a teacher, can I believe a student’s mindset is deficient, that she is lazy, unmotivated, and disinterested in school and also build a positive, high-expectations relationship with her?” (p.  381). Obviously not. Deficit ideology differs from grit ideology, which recognizes structural barriers, but works to strengthen the grit of marginalized students—too often ultimately drawing them deeper into their marginalization to seemingly bolster their success, instead of tackling the disparities themselves and their systemic causes.

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When the success of restorative justice in education initiatives in schools are measured by dropout rates, suspensions, and expulsions, it is measuring from a deficit or grit view. These data are symptoms of economic injustice; they represent “opportunity gaps,” instead of examining how students have been “pushed out” of school, and how generational injustice persists for many historically marginalized groups (Gorski, 2016, p. 383). Restorative justice in education is more than a simple tool or strategy that will develop students’ skills for communication and resilience. Such a white liberal view only reinstates and centers the racist institution that marginalized students are already forced to navigate on a day-to-day basis. Marginalized young people have already developed deep resilience, much of which is acquired as they move through punitive schooling systems. Teaching them how to resist, to push back again colonial systems of oppression might not only allow more marginalized students to survive but pave the way for them to thrive in a culture that nurtures resistance. For this societal shift to occur, restorative justice needs to focus on how to transform systemic inequalities. Many have argued for teaching transformative leadership in teachers’ education programs to be part of this systemic change (Cochran-Smith, 2000; Craig, 2004; Howard, 2003; Kelly & Brandes, 2001; Lin et al., 2008). Lopez and Olan (2021) contend that this shift in training would interrupt systemic violence: “Educators play an important role in challenging the rhetoric of division and hate, while offering action and possibilities for change” (p. xv). Part of this work involves decentering the culture of individual resilience (Knight & Wadhwa, 2014) in ways that interrupt fragility to stabilize resilient ecosystems (Davies, 2011). Through consistent, safe, and inclusive dialogue, young people and educators can all participate in dismantling these oppressive defaults, and instead focus on building the kind of agentive future that would allow for all young people to succeed (Reimer, 2020; Winn & Winn, 2021).

Liberatory Education Any inclusive dialogue experience involves perspective taking and building capacity for empathy. In perspective taking, an intentional effort is made to understand another person’s perspective; it is a cognitive process and can help enable empathy. As someone begins to feel what another person might feel and imagine the realities of their lived experience, they may

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experience the emotional reaction of empathy (Ispa-Landa, 2018; Zembylas, 2018). Still, marginalized students are less likely to receive the kind of education and instruction that promotes perspective taking and empathy building. Teachers’ implicit biases about what marginalized, particularly racialized, students are capable of reinforce normative, top-down teaching in ways that reinforce hierarchy and move away from dismantling prescriptive education (Tyson, 2011, idea cited in Ispa-Landa, 2018). A learner-centered, liberatory approach to education evokes a burgeoning sense of freedom and autonomy in students, moving away from preparing students for domestication and instead preparing them to be active and engaged citizens. In such contexts, ripe for advocacy, students are empowered to be part of the change toward creating a peaceful humanity for all. In arguing that education is not  and cannot be neutral, Freire (1972) said: If we claim to go beyond the naïve, formal interpretations of the human task of education, this must be the starting point of a critical or dialectical reflection. Lacking this critical spirit, either because we are alienated to thinking statically and not dynamically, or because we already have ideological interests, we are incapable of perceiving the true role of education, or if we do perceive it, we disguise it. We tend to ignore or to obscure the role of education, which, in that it is a social “praxis” will always be in the service either of the “domestication” of men or of their liberation. (pp. 173–174)

When educators affirm neutrality in their teaching, they are disguising an education for domestication, since “neutral education” cannot, in fact, exist (Freire, 1972, p.  174). Intending or perceiving oneself as neutral does not penetrate the issue (Wing, 2009). Restorative education alone cannot transform our current schooling system. While it can bring students closer to a liberating sense of education and shift them away from domesticating education, the very nature of formal systemic education with pre-specified objectives (Greene, 1975; Kanu, 2003; Pinar, 1978) is that its primary function is to maintain a structured system of power and control (Freire, 1972). The values and expectation of privileged and dominant values guide the systemic structures that determine and organize education; education therefore is a process of “cultural preservation” (Freire, 1972, p. 175). Still, it is possible to engage in reforming and generating new practices and ideas. But restorative justice in education as it is currently being implemented and taken up

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in schools (from both top-down and bottom-up initiatives) will not radically transform schools. Could we breathe now? Of course, carrying the restorative torch as the sole educator or group of teachers at your school carries with it burdens of responsibility: it is only possible to engage in small, continuous, committed changes. And yes, that will make a difference. However, as educators we still need to come back to the reality that we work within an institutionalized structure that is controlled by neoliberal agendas and priorities. By anesthetizing the implemented curriculum, we skew students’ perception of reality (Freire, 1972). “This practice of ‘anesthetizing’ or de-­ dialecticizing thought can also been seen in the emphasis laid on the ‘focalist’ rather than the totalizing perception of reality” (p.  177). In schools: … we are witness to the transfer of knowledge, and not the search for knowledge, to knowledge as a given fact possessed by the educator, and not knowledge as a process, to knowledge as something without conditions, taken as chaste and universal, to the split between teaching and learning, to the understanding of reality as something immobile, where reality is seen as a given fact and not as a process or a state of “becoming” in order to be able to “be.” (Freire, 1972, p. 178)

Schooling is an instrument of social control (Freire, 1972). The obedient student is one who repeats, regurgitates, and adapts and follows instructions for the given social norms: While in education for domestication one cannot speak of a knowable object but only of knowledge which is complete, which the educator possesses and transfers to the educate, in education for liberation there is no complete knowledge possessed by the educator, but a knowable object which mediates educator and educate as subjects in the knowing process. Dialogue is established as the seal of the epistemological relationship between subjects in the knowing process. There is not an “I think” which transfers its thought, but rather a “we think” which makes possible the existence of an “I think.” The educator is not he who knows, but he who knows how little he knows, and because of this seeks to know more, together with the educate, who in turn knows that starting from his little knowledge he can come to know more. Here there is no split between knowing and doing; there is no room for the separate existence of a world of those who know, and a world for those who work. (Freire, 1972, p. 180)

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Restorative educators need to be mindful lest our own pedagogy becomes laced with neoliberal goals and desires to domesticate the masses that push a way of being that is not reflective or connected to students. If restorative justice in education is presented in such a structured and authoritative way, it risks further harming young people and their families. Those in such authoritative, top-down positions tend to buy into restorative justice for the very purpose of engineering a neoliberal platform. We need to be cautions of how those who fundamentally organize education from an elitist position often have the intention of “saving” marginalized students by having them adapt to the system. As Freire (1972) noted: Their ideas and values, their way of being, are announced as if they were—or should be—the ideas, values and way of being of all society, even though the popular classes cannot share them, perhaps because of their ontological inferiority. (p. 175)

All societies and institutions have hierarchies. Power dynamics prevail even in communal settings. In neoliberal capitalist contexts, this hierarchy is more apparent, penetrating schools, which are a representative microcosm of society. In classrooms that perpetuate hierarchical constructs, lower-­ status students who hold less cultural and social capital are likely to be rendered invisible by their peers and teacher; their speech is given a low priority. In such contexts, high-status—ultimately more-confident—students are much more likely to have their talk recognized, responded to, and taken up by their peers and teachers. Many restorative justice initiatives have been put in place to respond to racism and injustice based on race. Yet restorative justice in education, both as a process and philosophy, has been constrained by this dominant system of control. It exists in a structural space that perpetuates hegemonic exclusion. When the structural power remains unquestioned, restorative justice can work toward incremental change only (González, 2015). In this way, the process becomes another white liberal approach that maintains injustice and perpetuates the school-to-prison pipeline (Schiff, 2018). Purposeful and intentional reflection on restorative values and processes encourages people to engage in the resistance that is necessary to speak back to institutional constraints. As Schiff (2018) contended: The success of restorative justice may lie not in its ability to integrate within existing institutional justice and education structures as it is mostly com-

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monly being operationalized, but rather in its ability to question and disrupt those in favor of more humane and inclusive approaches. It is possible that restorative justice can never reach its full potential inside an oppositional culture that idealizes adversarial dominion over others, and responses to harm that perpetuate systemic bias. (p. 132)

Still, the field of restorative justice in education is dominated by a punitive system of conflict; repressive societal and institutional perspectives continue to reign supreme in Western consciousness. In the struggle for recognition, restorative justice advocates continue to prevail in much bottom-up groundwork, working alongside teachers, social workers, community workers, administrators, and parents (Littlewolf et  al., 2020). Carrying tools that have the potential to transform punitive systems of control, restorative justice persists in this ethos. Restorative justice in education is not a prescribed set of tools or curricula; it is a versatile philosophical shift in how we think and respond to conflict and issues that matter, as it comes up in the curricula, in students’ lives, and when harm occurs. The Potential and Practice for Building a Restorative Culture Circles that are inclusive and engage critical perspectives need to be the norm within classroom practices. Still, educators or students can easily shy away from challenges arising in circle processes. There are many ways to use circles—in staff meetings, administrative contexts, and classrooms. My focus in this book is to show people that circles are not a technique that people move on from when they are out of the circle—they are a foundational practice that should permeate the culture of a school. My focus on Tier 1 processes (community-driven, proactive), alongside some restorative Tier 2 interventions for repair after particular conflict episodes, is to bring more awareness to the approaches for long-term, sustainable peacebuilding. Further, I hope readers will deeply integrate what those processes look like, so that restorative justice practices in education do not inadvertently perpetuate further harm. With all that matters in pursuing a restorative education, the skills and tools to advocate for change remain critical for evolving this practice. As Love (2019) put it: “Theory does not solve issues—only action and solidarity can do that—but theory gives you language to fight, knowledge to stand on, and a humbling reality of what intersectional social justice is up against.”

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While striving toward resistance within an educational system (and surrounding society) built upon principles of white supremacy and exclusion, to truly participate in making a difference means working collectively in harmony to realize the power of our interconnectedness.

Key Takeaways • Restorative justice in schools brings students closer to a liberating sense of education. • Investing in students’ futures necessitates a sustainable commitment to restorative justice in education to counter schools’ unequal practices. • Maximizing conflict dialogue in close relationships allows students to feel safe deliberating ideas, increasing learning while building connections.

Questions for Reflection • How can teachers gain the skills and confidence to constructively engage conflict? • What are ways to build sustainable futures for marginalized young people? What could be put into practice immediately to spearhead these initiatives? • How can educators be more mindful of mitigating neoliberal goals in their restorative justice pedagogy?

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Morrison, B. E. (2007). Restoring safe school communities: A whole school response to bullying, violence and alienation. Federation Press. Morrison, B. E., & Vaandering, D. (2012). Restorative justice: Pedagogy, praxis, and discipline. Journal of School Violence, 11(2), 138–155. Nieto, D., & Bickmore, K. (2017). Immigration and emigration: Canadian and Mexican youth making sense of a globalized conflict. Curriculum Inquiry, 47(1), 36–49. Nxumalo, F., Vintimilla, C. D., & Nelson, N. (2018). Pedagogical gatherings in early childhood education: Mapping interferences in emergent curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 48(4), 433–453. Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). (2020). Restorative justice implementation guide: A whole school approach. https://www.ousd.org/Page/1054 Okonofua, J., & Quereshi, A. (2017). Locked out of the classroom: How implicit bias contributes to disparities in school discipline. https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-­ content/uploads/LDF_Bias_Report_WEB-­2.pd Ordóñez-Carabaño, Á., Prieto-Ursúa, M., & Dushimimana, F. (2020). Reconciling the irreconcilable: The role of forgiveness after the Rwandan genocide. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 26(2), 213. https://doi.org/10.1037/ pac0000432 Osberg, D., & Biesta, G. (2008). The emergent curriculum: Navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(3), 313–328. Osher, D., Bear, G. G., Sprague, J. R., & Doyle, W. (2010). How can we improve school discipline? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 48–58. Otoya-Knapp, K. (2004). When Central City High School students speak: Doing critical inquiry for democracy. Urban Education, 39(2), 149–171. Pace, J. L. (2019). Contained risk-taking: Preparing preservice teachers to teach controversial issues in three countries. Theory & Research in Social Education, 47(2), 228–260. Pace, J. L. (2021). Hard questions: Learning to teach controversial issues. Rowman & Littlefield. Parker, C.  A. (2010). Finding our way home (at school): A study of students’ experiences of bringing their home culture into the classroom. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 7(1), 17–29. Parker, C.  A. (2015). Practicing conflict resolution and cultural responsiveness within interdisciplinary contexts: A study of community service practitioners. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 32(3), 325–357. Parker, C. A. (2016a). Peacebuilding, citizenship, and identity: Empowering conflict and dialogue in multicultural classrooms. Brill. Parker, C. A. (2016b). Pedagogical tools for peacebuilding education: Engaging and empathizing with diverse perspectives in multicultural elementary classrooms. Theory & Research in Social Education, 44(1), 104–140. https://doi. org/10.1080/00933104.2015.1100150

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Parker, C. A. (2020). Who’s in and who’s out? Problematizing the peacemaking circle in diverse classrooms. In E. C. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities. Living Justice Press. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2012). Conflict management and dialogue with diverse immigrant students: Novice teachers’ approaches and concerns. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), 47–64. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2020). Classroom peace circles: Teachers’ professional learning and implementation of restorative dialogue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 95, 1–10. Parker-Shandal, C. (2023). White liberalism, racism, and restorative justice in schools. In C. E. Matias & P. Gorski (Eds.), The other elephant in the (class) room: White liberalism and the persistence of racism in education. Teachers College Press. Pinar, W. (1978). The reconceptualization of curriculum studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10(3), 205–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 0022027780100303 Pointer, L., McGoey, K., & Farrar, H. (2020). The little book of restorative teaching tools: Games, activities, and simulations for understanding restorative justice practices. Simon & Schuster. Postman, N. (1994). The disappearance of childhood. Vintage. Reimer, K. E. (2020). “Here, it’s like you don’t have to leave the classroom to solve a problem”: How restorative justice in schools contributes to students’ individual and collective sense of coherence. Social Justice Research, 33(4), 406–427. Richardson, T. (2011). Navigating the problem of inclusion as enclosure in native culture-based education: Theorizing shadow curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 41(3), 332–349. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-­873X.2011.00552.x Russell, S., & Crocker, D. (2016). The institutionalisation of restorative justice in schools: A critical sensemaking account. Restorative Justice, 4(2), 195–213. Schiff, M. (2018). Can restorative justice disrupt the “school-to-prison pipeline”? Contemporary Justice Review, 21(2), 121–139. Schreiner, L. A. (2017). The privilege of grit. About Campus, 22(5), 11–20. Schultz, K. (2010). After the blackbird whistles: Listening to silence in classrooms. Teachers College Record, 112(11), 2833–2849. Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2010). ICCS 2009 international report: Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower-­ secondary school students in 38 countries. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Sears, A., Clarke, G., & Hughes, A. (1999). Canadian citizenship education: The pluralist ideal and citizenship education for a post-modern state. In J. Torney-­ Purta, J. Schwille, & J. Amadeo (Eds.), Civic education across countries: Twenty-­ four national case studies from the IEA civic education project (pp. 111–135). International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

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Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34(4), 317–342. Souto-Manning, M. (2014). Making a stink about the “ideal” classroom: Theorizing and storying conflict in early childhood education. Urban Education, 49(6), 607–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085913496797 Souto-Manning, M., & Winn, L.  T. (2019). Toward shared commitments for teacher education: Transformative justice as an ethical imperative. Theory Into Practice, 58(4), 308–317. Stonechild, B. (2020). Loss of Indigenous Eden and the fall of spirituality. University of Regina Press. Sumida Huaman, E., & Valdiviezo, L. A. (2014). Indigenous knowledge and education from the Quechua community to school: Beyond the formal/non-­ formal dichotomy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(1), 65–87. Teitelbaum, K. (2022). Curriculum, conflict, and critical race theory. Phi Delta Kappan, 103(5), 47–53. Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H., & Schulz, W. (2001). Citizenship and education in 28 countries: Civic knowledge and engagement at age 14. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Tupper, J.  A., Cappello, M., & Sevigny, P. (2010). Locating citizenship: Curriculum, social class, and the “good” citizen. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(3), 336–365. Tyson, K. (2011). Integration interrupted: Tracking, Black students, and acting White after Brown. Oxford University Press. Upright, R. L. (2002). To tell a tale: The use of moral dilemmas to increase empathy in the elementary school child. Early Childhood Education Journal, 30(1), 15–20. Utheim, R. (2014). Restorative justice, reintegration, and race: Reclaiming collective identity in the postracial era. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(4), 355–372. Vaandering, D. (2010). The significance of critical theory for restorative justice in education. Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 32(2), 145–176. Vaandering, D. (2014a). Implementing restorative justice practice in schools: What pedagogy reveals. Journal of Peace Education, 11(1), 64–80. Vaandering, D. (2014b). Relational restorative justice pedagogy in educator professional development. Curriculum Inquiry, 44(4), 508–530. Wien, C. A. (2015). Emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia approach in schools. Teachers College Press. Wildcat, M. (2010). Restorative justice at the Miyo Wahkotowin Community Education Authority. Alberta Law Review, 48(4), 919–941.

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CHAPTER 3

Building a Sustainable Practice: Restorative Training and Mentorship

Illustration 3.1  Outward chairs under tree by PhDcartoon

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_3

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Conflict exists in all schools. At some it may be overt, while at others it may be embedded systemically in ways that promote structural violence. More and more, restorative justice methods are being used to engage constructively with this conflict—in private schools, whose students come from privileged backgrounds, and in public schools, whose students come from mixed-income communities. Restorative principles and the shared values they espouse are intended to guide an equitable—and, most importantly, inclusive—process. Yet educators receive essentially the same restorative justice training, despite the important differences among the school communities in which each teaches. One common challenge across circles, regardless of the school setting, is the power dynamic. Educational hierarchies invite an automatic power dynamic because, typically, adults control the practice; they can exert their power over students at any given time (Reimer, 2018; Winn, 2018). Ultimately, educators need to concede their presumptions of power to equitably participate with their students in a circle process. Their students—and the restorative process—need them to do this: “Children within any community need the adults to remain true to their values and to be clear and intentional about living those values” (Boyes-Watson & Pranis, 2015, p. 208). Only then can a restorative journey begin. To truly understand circles, one must experience being in circles. This helps facilitators acquire the skills needed to establish a successful restorative justice practice. Thus, the training process must be experiential: people need practice in how to be in relationship with each other, communicate with a talking piece, listen attentively, and wait for their turn to speak. The physical element of a circle is important for nurturing the emergent process that comes from being in the circle. Connections are established by physically sitting with people, making eye contact, and having nothing in front of them, such as screens or desks, or even a pen or pencil. As the talking piece circulates, each person in the space is invited to share. So, for example, when circles are used to respond to postconflict incidents, each person who has harmed and each who has experienced harm shares their feelings. Some external organizations have worked with schools to train the students in restorative peacemaking skills, but usually adults in schools are the first to receive training and to experience circles. Training can be led by school board personnel, external organizations, or consultants. Some teachers have practiced being restorative for most of their career. Others are self-taught: they have learned it by reading books. I have also met

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teachers who have worked alongside colleagues who have practiced restorative justice in education and have adopted the approach by listening to the stories and experiences shared by those colleagues. Other teachers have been guided by external organizations who have offered support and mentorship, cofacilitating circles in the teachers’ classrooms. Thus, just as training varies, so does implementation. Even teachers who are well versed in restorative principles can benefit from the theoretical foundation within the training because it further refines their skills. Too often, teachers’ connections with each  other are dependent on whether they pass each other in the hallway or in the staff room; some rely more closely on the teachers within the hallway or neighboring classrooms. The depth and strength of relationships among all school staff show up in the classroom, impacting any restorative process. Restorative justice training focusing on circle dialogue allows teachers (and at times other school staff) to have valuable time to come together to sit and listen to their colleagues with intention. Boyes-Watson and Pranis (2015) clearly articulated the importance of this adult-driven endeavor: Creating a positive school culture is a collective activity. It cannot be dictated from above or enforced through laws of policy. It is the result of thousands of gestures, words, smiles, acts of kindness, consideration, and care. These gestures, small and larger, arise from countless individual decisions made every second of every day. If the goal is a positive school climate that supports the well-being and belonging for all students, then adults must create and experience this kind of climate as well. (p. 208)

Professional development and training for teachers is crucial for nurturing a healthy school climate that focuses on proactive approaches to mitigating conflict. In a whole-school approach, this would include bringing in the maintenance staff, the frontline staff, and the students as part of the process—for the health of the entire system, the training and philosophy need to extend to all school personnel. Many school boards around the world have required training in restorative practices. In this broad and rapid wave of implementation, various approaches to implementation have arisen—ranging from full-on restorative to complete negation. Even when schools call themselves restorative, there are great variances in how they approach and implement restorative justice in education. Some train only their child and youth workers  or social workers. Others train their administrators and one or two lead

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teachers. Yet others train all the teachers. For a whole-school/community approach, training is provided for all members of the school community, including administrators, teachers, support staff, caretakers, parents, students, and community members. Some choose to have these trainings in mixed groupings, and others focus on training each group separately. Whole-school (postincident) approaches to restorative justice have been documented as the most successful, in the eyes of both teachers and students (Brown, 2018; Cremin et al., 2012; Hopkins, 2003; Morrison, 2007; Reimer, 2011; González et al., 2019). However, in any supposed whole-school approach, there will be people who are not necessarily on board—usually, in fact, not all the so-called whole-school staff are involved (González et al., 2019; Sandwick et al., 2019). Variances in implementation are part of the process—some will take to it faster and will use it in different ways, across different tiers; and some will choose to decenter equity and anti-racism in their practice (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). In the context of Ontario, Canada, some of the schools I worked with considered themselves to be whole-school models, which for them meant that everyone in the building was trained. But when I ran into teachers in the hallway or popped in to visit a few who had become friends, they would say, “I know circles are great, but I just don’t have the time.” What teachers are personally navigating in their own lives may also impact how and when they choose to facilitate circles. Clearly, continuous follow-up and mentorship post-training is a critical part of ensuring a sustainable restorative justice practice in classrooms and the larger school community. The cases that I explore in this book illustrate how teachers’ level of support influenced their individual classroom pedagogy. Having supportive colleagues and administration that are committed to both proactive inclusion and postincident repair processes shift how teachers and students show up when conflict arises. Integrating restorative justice into classrooms provides both teachers and students with a unique platform for establishing relationships and participating in community-building activities. Such integration contributes to interrupting the cycle of violence and conflict students experience at school and beyond, preparing them for engaging more deeply in a postincident restorative process. Training is crucial and training for a multitiered and holistic approach is necessary to interrupt this cycle of conflict. Centering the philosophy of restorative justice in a multitiered practice involves careful attention to how teachers understand and approach conflicts—including interpersonal concerns, conflicts embedded in the curriculum, and postincident contexts.

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Training for Restorative Justice in Education A Caveat: The Feminization of Peacemaking Eight female teachers volunteered to participate in this research study. Five of them had participated in a professional development training in 2015, which had been offered across 15 schools all located in the downtown core. Male teachers at each school had been trained in circle processes as well, but the few that I spoke to after the training said that they “just don’t have the time to do circles.” As I continued to follow up with various teachers, I found that even trained teachers might still choose to not implement circles. Furthermore, for some teachers,  their lack of understanding and commitment to racial equity indicated a lack of understanding of how discipline disproportionately impacts marginalized students (Bastable et al., 2021). Such resistance to justice-oriented practices serves to reinforce exclusion of and violence to historically marginalized students, and sustain hegemonic conceptions of normalcy (Kulkarni et al., 2021). Identifying the needs of the community is critical for the transformation of culture and involves having committed leaders who are willing to lead. The teachers who stepped forward illustrated how, because of the feminization of teaching and peacemaking, women bear the brunt of the work to both envision and enforce peace (Llewellyn & Smyth, 2019; Winn, 2018). While women’s leadership is necessary for building and sustaining peace, it is also an additional burden for them to carry, a burden that at times they are required to carry in silence (Selimovic, 2020). Sustaining a restorative transformation involves intense, very challenging emotional and psychological work. Often, this work is met with resistance and structural violence, which is inherently connected to the patriarchal systems that restorative justice seeks to transform. The feminization of peace work is not new (Brock-Utne, 1989; Grumet, 1981; Laird, 1988; Reardon & Snauwaert, 2015; Reay, 2001). While women historically and contemporarily play a significant role in peacemaking, their roles are often underemphasized (Adjei, 2019) or only informally acknowledged (Dayal & Christien, 2020). Women’s voices are often ignored when confronted with dominant male norms (Tannen, 1998), such as maintaining inequitable spaces for women’s voices during deliberations and debates (Kostovicova & Paskhalis, 2021). This exclusion of women in education and the teaching profession is felt even more strongly by Black women, who are often dissuaded from entering the profession (Aladejebi, 2015). When organizing resistance and leadership initiatives in

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schools, these Black female teachers are often met with gatekeepers (Cormier et al., 2021). Not surprisingly, Black students are directly impacted by anti-Black and white liberal approaches to peacemaking in schools (Howard & James, 2019; Ladson-Billings, 2006, 2020). Many Black female students who do resist are often tasked with independently advocating for themselves and organizing approaches to peacemaking in schools, albeit with little support for structural and institutional change (Annamma et  al., 2019; Morris, 2012). Different Schools, Different Approaches There are varying approaches to professional development for restorative justice in schools (Brown, 2021; Hollweck et  al., 2019; Vaandering, 2014). Popular among many school boards is a two- or three-day training developed by an international organization that has streamlined restorative practices for educators, providing detailed scripts and sequencing for school personnel to follow when conflict erupts. There have been many criticisms of such corporate-driven restorative justice models for training. One principal in this study held a critical perspective on equity-oriented processes. She had begun her restorative path as a peacemaking circle trainer with a community-based organization. She went on to be trained in the more scripted corporate model (which provided a scripted list of questions to pose to students postincident), with which she had issues, and yet felt there was no other organization that had streamlined the formative process for teachers: “Teachers need the guidance,” she said, “and they [external training organizations] provide it.” For teachers who are struggling with the process or trying to understand how to begin a restorative process, having access to scripts may be beneficial. Some teachers I met said they wouldn’t have remembered what to say or do in the heated moment of conflict; the scripted questions supported their process. However, it is still necessary to use these tools with a critical perspective, paying deep attention to how the (scripted) questions are asked, in what context, and whom they are benefiting. In another school board, I and colleagues conducted an evaluation on restorative school culture. We found that while some teachers transformed their approach to conflict, many teachers chose to not implement restorative processes (Parker et al., 2020). In this board-wide initiative, an external, local, community-based organization—and an all-female-led

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team—facilitated the training and follow-up mentorship for selected teachers. The three-day training included teachers, administrators, child and youth workers, and a few community members; it focused on personal self-reflection and community building. In this introduction to circles, there was little or no discussion of how to handle conflict or conflictual issues embedded in the curriculum. The training and facilitation team felt that in the initial stages, it would be too early to engage in conflict—that, first, participants had to focus on developing internal strength and resilience. Post-training, one facilitator said that when she had followed up with her principal, he had insisted that she help manage a conflict between a group of female students. However, as she described it, the process backfired; and she became more resolute in her decision to shy away from mitigating escalated disputes head-on in circles until the groundwork of building community and exposing students and school personnel had been established. Laying the groundwork and preparing teachers, administrators, and all school support staff involves building a restorative community—a community in which shared agreements are in place for relationships to take center stage when harm has occurred.

Implementing Restorative Justice in Schools Circular Approaches to Implementing Restorative Justice (in) Education The circle process challenges processes that move in a straight line from incident to punishment. Deeply ingrained linear systems seek to control and stifle collective approaches. Too often, educators prioritize managing behavior over focusing on teaching. The inconsistencies of how to enact educational justice have deeply impacted multiply-marginalized students, who suffer debilitating consequences to their learning (Annamma & Handy, 2021). For building justice, well-being, and connection, a multitiered approach is needed (Chatmon & Watson; González et al., 2019), and a firm foundation of how to theorize justice in schools needs to be enacted through critical conversations about racism and whiteness (Milner, 2014; Winn, 2018). Restorative justice happens at different paces at different schools. Practitioners need to understand the guidelines of the circle process; however, they must also understand that putting a circle into practice is itself a

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circular process—it involves a continuous commitment to revisiting guidelines and setting norms for participation, fairness, and inclusion. It takes time (Pranis, 2015). And, at times it might not always “work”: teachers might feel that they are failing. In the context of baseball, Kingwell (2017) wrote about how to “fail better”: Baseball is a game that teaches us much about justice, but usually by way of its absence. Yes, we seek to record accountability with every passed ball or error, every run earned or unearned. But the game itself is so shot through with contingencies and near-misses that it is instructive mainly in a negative fashion. (p. 239)

Even when a restorative process appeared to have failed, as educators and students commit and recommit to each other, the learning continues. In this way, even if it appears to be not working, they keep trying. It’s not all about coming away from training with a card and hoping all will be well (although the teachers I studied found the small pocket cards with restorative questions very useful, particularly in high-conflict moments). Kingwell (2017) again said: “We learn best by failing, because failure is the site of success illuminated” (p. 13). Maintaining a calm and neutral stance in any high-conflict situation is challenging. Consider that the presence of complex conflicts may be an indication that the process is working. Some young people, especially those who have experienced deep trauma, may start to engage more deeply in conflict because they are wanting to test their teacher’s response—will the teacher continue to be calm and loving? For these children, conflict is also an indication that they feel safe enough to share deep feelings—it is a process of healing (Brummer, 2020). The teacher’s role in classroom circles is complex. As a participant in the circle themselves, they are also typically the facilitator, particularly in the early stages, and need to preserve and facilitate safety. The elicitive (participant-generated) process (Lederach, 1996) of a circle means that the outcome is not known. In this way, circles can be a messy process; however, the conflicts and messiness are welcome when a clear structure is in place. Norms, guidelines, and process are critical for establishing the necessary conditions for a successful and equitable practice. They still, however, may prove to be insufficient for facilitating justice; power and privilege continue to permeate dialogue even in restorative forums.

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Peacebuilding Takes Time Despite variations in approaches and assessment, all educators pursue a process—which may include setbacks and honest mistakes—that allow for seeds to be sown. But many teachers who do not work in a restorative environment return from the training to their classrooms unsupported. When assessing how or whether a program is restorative, some approaches have led to punitive models being adopted (Olson & Sarver, 2021). And many school personnel—administrators, front-desk support staff, and teachers—are far too constrained to take on the task of allocating the time to manage and assess the many postincident conflicts that occur in schools. Clearly, any restorative process takes time. Implementing restorative justice practices and pedagogies will look different in different schools. The ways in which teachers and students engage with the processes will shift over time. Ultimately, though, training everyone and walking away will not offer the kind of support that everyone needs (Lustick, 2022). In all stages of implementation, it is a good idea— right from the start—to check in often and have everyone ask each other: “What do we need?” All participants—teachers, students, and parents— need to consider asking: “Who are we at our schools?” and “How can we work together more equitably?” “Who’s carrying the load (for others)?” Ultimately, the more students are exposed to circles before harm has occurred, the better prepared they will be to participate in a peacemaking circle focusing on how their actions in a conflictual situation may have impacted others. Community circles need to precede escalated conflict or aggression incidents. Allowing students—and teachers—to refine their skills and relationships for communicating across difference prepares them for conflictual dialogue processes. In the end, the power that students develop and nurture in circle is available outside of the circle, and applying these practices is critical for societal change. Fly-In, Fly-Out Methods Not doing the work to change the culture and climate, but inviting experts into the school to manage one-off conflicts instead, can create harm (Schweber, 2006). This fly-in-and-fly-out method might expose some members of the community to the power of restorative justice in education, but as soon as they come out of that experience, they may then be put back into a punitive setting. This is one example of how some

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educators come to label (some) restorative justice initiatives as harmful— particularly if the process seems to fail. Restorative justice in education is a philosophical approach that is challenging for school boards to mandate and for teachers to implement. It is a relationship-based approach—and not everyone is aware of how power imbalances permeate relationships. Perpetuating isolated restorative experiences does not serve students or teachers, and can also create unsafe conditions. Isolated, top-down initiatives are a form of structural violence; they allow the patriarchy on which they are based to persist. Misimplementation There are many different approaches to restorative training for educators and other facilitators. As schools and districts move through the process of implementation, they are bound to have setbacks. It is part of the process. Allowing mistakes to be made is part of the learning. That said, misimplementation approaches may inhibit restorative initiatives. Gregory and Evans (2020) have provided a strong foundation for understanding misimplementation, identifying five misimplementation approaches: . Mandated top-down initiatives, misaligned with values of RJE 1 2. Narrow approaches focused on a single restorative practice 3. Color- and power-blind models that further marginalize people 4. “Train-and-hope” approaches that offer minimal implementa tion support 5. Under-resourced and short-term initiatives that likely result in minimal buy-in, inconsistent practices, and teacher frustration and burnout In the mandated, top-down misimplementation model, school boards or districts introduce RJE as a new initiative without actively engaging school personnel. Since connecting and collaborating is crucial to the process, a top-down approach inhibits the process of engaging with the teacher across the hall or next door—instead, it brings people in from outside. The narrow model focuses solely on selective students and incidents— for instance, having students participate in circles and conferences yet not committing to a whole-school model where all educators and school

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support staff are on board. The model also includes grouping restorative initiatives with other initiatives that may not necessarily complement each other, such as hiring school policing officers as well as restorative justice personnel. Obviously, there can be no justice if critical attention is not paid to racism and oppression. Some schools preach the need for restorative justice in education, but choose to not address racism. They attempt to introduce restorative initiatives that ignore and exclude structural racism. In the train-and-hope misimplementation model, participants may experience deep connection and learning over the course of the training, but then are left unsupported post-training. And finally, in the under-­ resourced, short-term misimplementation model, the focus is obviously on the short term. Such initiatives won’t last. The schools I worked with had varying models of implementation that looked, at times, like the train-and-hope model and at other times like the under-resourced and the color- and power-blind models. My role as participant researcher helped to support the restorative work of the teachers I worked with. As part of my research, they had the opportunity to connect and meet with other educators working toward shared goals.

A Restorative Training Initiative Two school administrators conducted two-day professional development workshops for a cluster of schools in one region of their Southern Ontario school board, starting in the spring of 2015. Both facilitators were skilled trainers with over 25 years of teaching experience, and were administrators in the same school board as the teachers. I observed the principals conducting this training with a group with 33 teachers (21 females and 12 males), and one male school principal. Almost all the teachers came from schools that were identified as high-priority communities, located  in an urban core that included schools with a large range of diversity and socioeconomic status among their students. The facilitators acknowledged that bringing the intermediate teachers (Grades 6, 7, and 8) all together was intentional, so that they could focus on issues related to their division. All the teachers were selected and required to attend the training by their school administration. The facilitators continued to train teachers across all the schools and divisions in their region up until 2020.

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These teachers appeared to have a great deal of respect for the facilitators—one white and the other South Asian, both female. The trainers modeled a restorative approach to connection by inviting everyone to come together and share a meal over the course of the training. The participants were appreciative of their efforts to create a safe space—catering a full lunch during each day of the training was not part of the norm for school meetings and events.

Context for Professional Learning Sessions This professional development initiative served as an introduction to restorative practices, and to peacemaking dialogue circles. There were eight weeks between the first and second sessions, which allowed teachers to test their practices before coming back to the next session. The training promoted restorative principles and practices as a significant philosophical and relational shift—away from punishment, conflict avoidance, and conflict escalation, and toward horizontal engagement and mutual respect—in how teachers and students would relate to one another in classrooms. Most teacher participants did not have prior experience with restorative practices or peacemaking circles. The facilitators focused on delivering content and information on restorative practices, with some opportunities for large- and small-group discussion. All the teachers participated in sharing and discussion circles during the workshops. While some teachers discussed the potential for using circles to address postincident problem solving, the focus of the training and discussions remained on how to build a strong classroom culture and community, as a proactive approach to prevent student aggression. The first training session introduced restorative practices, focusing on building relationships with students, such as by doing circles before there was outright conflict, and how to build teachers’ resilience to deal with the conflict when it did arise. It also focused on postincident dialogue processes designed to replace punitive suspensions as well as school violence, in addition to proactive pedagogical approaches to support responsive and restorative alternatives to traditional discipline. 

Postincident Response At the beginning of the training, the facilitator asked participants what they hoped to get out of the training. Some of the responses included community building, relationship strengthening, dealing with stress and

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fatigue, dealing with children’s shifting emotions, implementing initiatives school-wide. The principal in the group said: “I see conflict every day from K–8 and know that I handle things the wrong way sometimes so would like to know how to do it better.” A teacher in the group shared her introduction to restorative practices. She had witnessed a vice-principal (VP) handle a complicated situation, and she was, like, “How? What? How did you do that?” And the VP said, “I’m not sure, I think it was restorative practices. Here are these cards, they might be helpful to you.” The facilitators believed that a lot of the participants were already doing restorative justice work and that the training would help provide a name and framework for what they were already doing. One facilitator shared that she had begun her career in a high-priority, low-socioeconomic-status community. She said that the school was incredibly punitive, and the kids there feared the teachers. She hoped to resolve fear-based teaching through an approach that could build healthy group dynamics.

Building Connection One of the facilitators showed them a small ball with protruding spines, with the intention of illustrating what a child with a “tough” exterior might look like: “It’s pretty hard to get to him, but the ‘why’ is beneath the prickles and there’s no way to get to it. What kinds of things cause kids to take this position?” Moving through the exercises and discussions, the group focused the conversation on building empathy and supporting relationships—looking for what was beneath the porcupine’s prickly skin. Participants mentioned factors such as fear, the teacher’s tone, a learned behavior, or the child’s expectation of a negative response, such as humiliation or shame. The facilitators spoke to how empathy and compassion are key ingredients for accessing a child, to affirm to the young person these sentiments: “I’m not angry at you. I want to understand. What’s your story?” During a small-group discussion, one teacher said that she would never do circles again, because when she did, one of her students started to cry and talk about his parents’ divorce being his fault: “Nope, never again, I’m not going to circles,” she said. She said she feared sharing this with the large group for fear of being too critical of the process. One of her peers asked her: “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if the student opens up?” She replied, “No, no, I will get into trouble with the parents and they’re going to tell me that I’m in their business.” Such a fear is common among teachers, many of whom wonder why they should engage in speaking about

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young people’s traumatic experiences. But research continues to repeat that when teachers understand and know their students their connections to each other and to the class community deepen (González, 2015b; Wearmouth et  al., 2007; Weaver & Swank, 2020). Furthermore, when students can address and deal with a traumatic situation in a supportive classroom environment, the likelihood diminishes of them suppressing and internalizing experiences later in adult life (Alvarez, 2017; Wolpow et al., 2009). Training teachers in trauma-informed practices can increase their skills and their own emotional well-being to support students who experience trauma (Brown et al., 2022). The facilitator reframed the dialogue by telling of another experience. Some students were caught smoking, and by building connection using restorative practices, a model was created where they could explain why they were doing what they were doing. She stressed that, in her years of experiences, there was never a situation where building connection did not work.

Community Building, Restorative Integration In the second training session, eight weeks after the first session, the same group came back together to share their experiences and to engage in a more practice-oriented day of training. In the first training day, participants sat around tables in small groups of five or six. In this second training day, participants sat in a whole-group circle around the periphery of the room. The space was somewhat confined, creating more of an oval than a circle, and some expressed a concern about being able to see everyone in the circle. The same set of facilitators taught and engaged the teacher participants in practicing circle processes as a method for building community and facilitating dialogue. Using a more experiential approach than in the first session, the facilitators guided the teachers on how to facilitate and participate in circles, providing various opportunities for small-group circle discussions. The teachers explored techniques and tools promoting positive relationships, connection, and a sense of safety and belonging in the circle. At the start of the session, many teachers shared their reflections and attempts at restorative integration. Most of them shared challenges around implementation. They sought to recall guidelines for the process, in sentiments that included: “I tried it and it didn’t work.” “I just went back to doing what I was already doing.” “Something came up and I knew there

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was another way to do it differently and I was just trying to remind myself of what that was.” “I felt like I should have remembered in that moment.” One of the facilitators addressed these concerns by reiterating the importance of seeing restorative practice as a process and philosophy: “It is a community-based practice, not a panacea that will magically change everything; there are different ways of being.” The other facilitator continued to review concepts from the previous session, citing the social discipline window that had been developed specifically for educational contexts (McCold & Wachtel, 2003; Wachtel, 1997), which was adapted from Glaser’s (1964) work with parole officers and the criminal justice system. It illustrates different approaches to maintain societal expectations for social norms and emotional well-being (see Fig. 3.1). The “To” window presents a punitive approach; the “Not” window a neglectful approach; the “For” window a permissive approach; and the “With” window a restorative approach, which maintains high control and

Social Discipline Window

control (limit-setting, discipline)

HIGH

LOW

TO

WITH

punitive

restorative

authoritarian stigmatizing

authoritative reintegrative

NOT

FOR

neglectful

permissive

irresponsible

paternalistic

support (encouragement, nurture)

HIGH

Fig. 3.1 The social discipline window. Credit/Copyright: McCold & Wachtel (2003)

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high support for students. The four different approaches show how responses to conflict represent varying kinds of high or low control and high or low support or care for the student in the process of managing their behavior. The facilitators’ goal was to work with the top right quadrant: a restorative, authoritative, respectful approach, which combines a high level of control and care—working with students instead of doing things to or for them, or neglecting the issue entirely (Wachtel, 2016). This conceptual framework guided participants in understanding the purpose of restorative justice in education, in which teachers move away from punitive outcomes, exercising a high level of fairness, and using a high level of expectation and support. The social discipline window has been critiqued for promoting behavioral compliance, which could perpetuate harm (Brown, 2018; González, 2015a; Vaandering, 2011, 2013). Vaandering (2013) extended this framework to include critical attention on how to build relationships and to work within an equity-oriented lens through a relationship window. Vaandering’s reconstruction of the relationship window was based on her research, which showed that educators did want to work with students when in conflict. In moving beyond permissive and punitive responses, Vaandering focused on how educators also need to work with students in deep and relational ways (Fig. 3.2). The relationship window is illustrative of how restorative justice evolves in schools as it is built into the ecosystem—developing and sustaining critical relationships between students and teachers. While the facilitators did not show this framework to this group of teachers, their prior experience and training contributed to how they emphasized many of the relationship window principles. The relationship window uses a vertical axis to illustrate varying “expectations” for being human, including accountability, and a horizontal axis for how to support people’s inherent worth as human beings. Since this training occurred, the International Institute of Restorative Practices has renamed the axes of Wachtel’s social discipline window and now call it the social relationship window. The teachers sat around the circle, engaged and open to being challenged, but mostly wanting to be heard. One teacher shared a challenging experience with using a circle in a way that may have further marginalized a female student. The teacher reflected: I realize what I did wrong: I didn’t condemn their behavior enough. I didn’t let them know that what they did was wrong. I just brought them

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Fig. 3.2  The relationship window: Moving from power-over to power-with. Credit/Copyright: Vaandering (2013) into the circle, and then expected them to get it, but they didn’t, and it went horribly. I condoned their behavior, I wasn’t firm with them, and then they spent their time in the circle blaming this one other girl, and it was even more harmful, it was awful. I jumped to the step of: “Let’s talk this through and listen to each other’s perspectives”—without preparing everyone for the circle. This gave the girls the message that what happened wasn’t bad. In the end it was worse and inflamed the anger.

Another teacher raised a question about whether it was “really necessary to do a circle with the whole class of 30 kids, when it really only involves five or six kids?” In that case, everyone knew that there had been an issue with stealing. The facilitator said that it would be fine to work with only the small group of affected students, but that in following restorative principles, it would then be useful to share the resolution with the entire class. The teacher could bring the issue back to the whole group, to show how it affected everyone and to indicate that it had been resolved after a

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discussion with those individuals directly involved. This would open a space for all the students to share their reflections. The facilitators’ approach to training, which allowed the teachers time to implement their learning, proved to be useful. For the teachers who came to this second session with the strong perspective that they tried it and it didn’t work, they now had another chance to try again with more support and potentially refined skills. Thus, I see the second-session follow-­up as vital for sustainability. Training teachers to build connection and deepen their relationships with their students is challenging. Each teacher—with their own identity and experiences—brings a different approach to how they connect with their students. Some come to restorative justice from a mental health and well-being perspective, while others place equity and anti-racism at the center. Asking or mandating teachers to create communities of care and inclusion won’t work. Teachers need to be empowered and supported to use these tools not only with their students, but with themselves. Allowing space for forgiveness, time for reflection and compassion. While a whole-­ school approach to restorative justice is a hallmark of the process, teachers working individually can make a remarkable difference. In this way, it is possible for teachers to create a small community of connected students, even in big schools that still uphold a punitive mindset.

Restorative Questions and Process: Exploring the “What” Question One of the facilitators reviewed a list of questions projected on the screen—many of which have come to be known as typical restorative questions for responding to incidents: • What happened? • What were you thinking about at the time? • What have you thought about since? • Who has been affected by your actions? In what way? • What do you think you need to do to make things right? One teacher questioned whether it was necessary to have a Plan B, particularly when a student may respond with “no, nothing, I don’t know …” to each question. The other facilitator acknowledged that these responses

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were possible, but reminded the teachers that the process takes time. She felt that, with consistent use of restorative justice in education, “students will eventually come around.” Another teacher questioned how to approach a conflict when there was no clear victim or offender—a typical situation for intermediate students— such as when a conflict has built up over the course of time. The facilitator responded that it was possible to modify these questions and choose those that were most appropriate to the context. The first facilitator pointed out the difference between the institutionally driven restorative practice training and peacemaking circles. In the latter, the focus is more on how we all have been harmed and sharing experiences of such harmful experiences, whereas peacemaking circles follow a more elicitive unscripted dialogue (Lederach, 1996). The second facilitator extended this response, sharing from her personal experience: “In some cases, I don’t use this language, I just focus on using the ‘What’ and then modify the question, such as asking, ‘What do you think needs to happen?’” Taking Risks Posing any question in circles involves taking risks. Preparing teachers to take on these risks was part of this training. Even asking questions that are typically considered nonconflictual can become risky or complicated. The teachers in the group reflected on this as the facilitators asked everyone to think of a nonrisky question all students could respond to and, using a talking piece, invited everyone to respond in circle. One teacher observed that what may seem like a simple question could be quite risky for some students, such as “What did you do this summer/weekend?” Another teacher agreed with her, sharing stories about her own students who didn’t have anything to do on the weekend. Others chimed in as they recognized that simple questions are not always nonrisky after all, especially after considering how some of their students were being abused or dealing with violence on the weekend. One facilitator responded to this by suggesting that it may be useful to make it about a wish: “What do you wish you did this weekend?” The other facilitator also highlighted the importance of being consistent in saying the same response back to each student after they expressed themselves, such as “Good” or “Thank you.” An issue raised by another teacher focused on addressing English language learner (ELL) students. The teachers shared ideas for addressing this, such as seating a student who can act as translator beside the ELL

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student. Another option they thought of was to give ELL students the question(s) in advance, to allow them to prepare their response in their own time. One of the male teachers remarked that teachers needed to be sensitive to diverse cultural backgrounds, since some students—such as new immigrants—might not be familiar with local superheroes or cultural idioms. Getting Under the Porcupine’s Prickly Spines As part of the training, the facilitators asked participants to sit in smaller circles with five or six colleagues. They did not have to sit with their school or division colleagues, so participants from various schools intermingled during these smaller sets of circles. As a participant researcher in the training session, I moved to a small group that had six teachers. Together we reflected on the pros and cons of circulating a talking piece. A white male teacher interrupted the discussion to state his perspective on the talking piece: “I hate this thing, it just gets in the way and creates a lot of confusion,” whereupon he proceeded to throw it into the center of the circle. A female teacher, also white, responded to him saying that she “sees it differently.” She said, “I really like it and feel that it’s a way of being in my class. I brought an Elder into my class this year and he really showed all of us the importance of the talking piece and it’s a way of being in my class now.” Another white male teacher, a dominant speaker in the session, reiterated benefits of the talking piece: “I talk a lot. I like the talking piece because it helps me stop talking, and make sure that other people are speaking, otherwise I could just talk the whole time.” This small-group reflection brought up several themes that resonated with me. The circle process is an Indigenous process, but this quickly slips many people’s minds. The male teacher who threw down the talking piece in frustration evidenced a dismissal of this cultural appropriation. The female teacher who responded to this behavior, drawing on her connection to an Indigenous Elder, appeared to reposition the group’s perspectives on the issue. Her colleague did not challenge her—in fact, he said nothing. Another male in the group acknowledged his dominance and expressed his gratitude for a process that helped him control his dominance, furthering the collective ideologies that were building in this small group. Having this glimpse of how teachers could be themselves while in and out of large circles also proved to be quite beneficial. This reflective time, without the facilitators’ gaze, allowed them to do just what circles

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ask people to do: drop their masks and deepen their dialogue. It also raised concerns for me as participant researcher over how best to elicit people’s underlying fears and feelings. Many facilitators and trainers do their best to teach restorative ways of being. Yet, this might not necessarily allow for those in doubt to speak their minds. The workshop closed with a fishbowl exercise, in which a small group moves to the center of the circle, while the rest of group sits around them as observers, forming an outer ring. Those in the outer ring can choose to enter the inner ring by tapping an inner ring participant and switching places. Similarly, inner ring participants can tap their way out of the center. One facilitator invited teachers from her school, where she was the principal, to participate. The discussion of the teachers in the inner ring focused on how to deal with the Roma and Hungarian students who they described as having consistently posed significant problems for their classroom community because of their transient status in the school (Some students who are refugees await their approval; those who are not approved must return to their home country.) The teachers shared their challenges: how to get these students to come to school, and how restorative practices might work with them, due to their different cultural backgrounds. The facilitator guided participants to brainstorm their options together. She suggested they ask clarifying questions, to be sure that they all understood the nature of the problem, and to then go around the circle, asking “What if” questions. The teachers came up with several ideas, including giving gift cards to families and students, translating notes into Hungarian, and inviting those students to participate in extracurricular activities, such as soccer and sewing. The teachers in the outer circle observed that those in the fishbowl all appeared to be listening, but only one, a male teacher, joined the conversation to ask additional clarifying questions about the topic. No one tapped anyone in or out during the exercise. Clearly, some teachers may have come out of the training still unsure of how to best reach all their students. What was most affirming, however, were the ways in which the facilitator of the training allowed teachers to voice their concerns; the “circle within a circle” format of the fishbowl helped to create safety for those “inside” to feel supported in taking the risk to speak their truth. While a useful format for demonstrating circles in practice, it can also be intimidating to be the “fish” being watched. While some participants on the outer circle did join the inner circle by tapping someone to switch positions, most on the outer circle chose to passively observe.

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Furthermore, since this cohort of teachers all taught intermediate grades, they were able to relate to each other based on their subject matter and the grade areas of expertise. It proved useful to have a common starting point to deepen their connection and open more possibilities for sharing and discussing relatable conflicts. They shared concerns and approaches to conflicts that typically arise in this age group, such as gender-based bullying/exclusion, behavior connected to hormonal changes, and issues on school trips.

Enthusiastic and Reticent Post-training Reflections After the training, 11 of the teachers participated in a post-training survey in which I asked them about their experiences with conflict and their confidence in moving forward with restorative justice in their classrooms. Of this group, five teachers volunteered to participate in the larger study discussed in subsequent chapters. Seven of the teachers felt that they dealt with conflict to some extent. They all reported experiencing ongoing interpersonal conflicts, and few instances where conflict escalated to physical violence. One white female teacher, a novice in her restorative justice practice but with 15  years of experience as a teacher, described being challenged by “a group of athletic boys.” Over the course of the year, this conflict resulted in “a deterioration of respect for one another and people in authority.” Other male teachers described the “emotional baggage” that students bring to the classroom, and ongoing issues with “exclusion, teasing, ridicule, and bullying.” All the teachers felt some degree of confidence in addressing conflict in their classrooms. Some teachers with many years’ experience still felt challenged when responding to conflict. Challenges included confidence in their capabilities and skills, as well as time and resources. However, one South Asian  male teacher described how the professional development training had shifted his perspective on conflict management: “I think I may have answered this question differently before I took the course. I think I have some better strategies for dealing with the conflict I may face.” Teachers’ responses indicated that restorative justice practices had the potential to build sustainable “long-term life skills for the students” and to contribute to a safer classroom environment. It is crucial to consider this question of teachers’ confidence and readiness to implement restorative justice, since successfully integrating it in the classroom depends on teachers’ developing greater confidence in adopting the approach. For students

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to engage in the process, they need their teachers to be ready and equipped to facilitate it—particularly in the early stages of implementation when much of the facilitation is typically guided by teachers. When a restorative culture is built up in a school, the students can be trained to also facilitate circles and can often be more effective than the adults in facilitating conflict resolutions (Brown, 2018; Reimer, 2019; Winn, 2018). None of the schools I worked with trained students to be circle keepers—student-led circles might allow students to share in different ways (Aquino et  al., 2021), but many adults find it challenging to share the power in (or beyond) circle processes, especially with some of their students, whom they distrust or have strained relationships with. Ultimately, students need to be willing to participate in the process, and this involves constant and consistent exposure and immersion in a restorative culture. One white male teacher noted: “If the students don’t buy into the practice, then it becomes much more difficult to implement.” All teachers felt that restorative justice would have a positive impact on relationships between students. One South Asian male teacher described the value in giving students the opportunity to talk: “I think students like to talk, especially when they feel that what they have to say is valued.” Still, while some teachers felt that it would have an impact on their individual classrooms, they were less sure about whether it would impact their students outside of the classroom and school. Yet another white male teacher felt that even in contexts with challenging students, restorative justice would build strong student relationships: “I feel that this will develop in any situation regardless of whether the student changes his/her behavior.” While most of these selected teachers felt that students’ ethnic and cultural identities had not influenced how they addressed conflict on a day-­ to-­day basis, many were nevertheless aware of how cultural differences impacted their restorative approach. One white  male teacher, with four years of teaching experience, felt that peacemaking (e.g., dispute resolution that does not address justice) served to create a sense of equality among diverse students: I think it is important to be cognizant of different cultural backgrounds to help understand the point of views and individual differences of the ­students. However, I also feel it is important to treat everyone with equal respect with regards to conflict resolution, as it shows uniformity.

It is not uncommon for teachers, especially novice teachers, to strive to maintain order through peacemaking when addressing conflict (Parker &

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Bickmore, 2012). However, this default position of presumed neutrality and equality—to maintain order—when addressing conflicts is antithetical to restorative philosophy (Lustick, 2021). Cultural differences create a need for diverse approaches to discussing and resolving conflict: there is no one-size-fits-all model of restorative justice (in) education. A justice-­ centered approach includes an inventory of the culture of the classroom, school climate, and sociocultural environment in which each student is situated. Another white female teacher placed responsibility for her reticence to use restorative justice pedagogy on the shoulders of the diverse students in her classroom, arguing that the familial values embodied by certain groups of students made a restorative process challenging: I have students from various parts of the world with various expectations about how the school system and others should treat them. If they are getting yelled at home by their parents, their culture enforces punitive measures. It’s sometimes hard to sell this to them and their families because they think it’s “soft.”

Cultural Assumptions and Gender Biases in Conflictual Situations Clearly, when considering the diverse cultural backgrounds of their students, some teachers felt that prescriptive responses would achieve inclusion. In this kind of “yes, but” approach, teachers may find themselves justifying the use of punitive discipline because they are assuming expectations and behaviors from particular marginalized cultural groups (Utheim, 2014). Supporting teachers and parents to align and understand restorative justice is critical to successfully implementing it. When teachers rely on cultural assumptions and underlying biases to mitigate conflict, the potential for conflict escalation increases, as relationships deteriorate and misconceptions prevail (Parker, 2013). Some teachers did describe the importance of becoming familiar with the cultural norms of their diverse students, and valuing them, in an effort to reduce culturally based exclusion or disrespectful interpersonal cultural conflicts. For instance, one South Asian teacher described how her knowledge of students’ cultural backgrounds allowed her to better understand their moods and feelings—for example, she noted that when they were fasting during Ramadan, they might not be as engaged: “Some of my

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students are fasting for Ramadan, which means they are tired and hungry especially in the late afternoon. My understanding of their tradition helps me to understand some behavior changes.” Most teachers said that gender identities (which were culturally constructed, as opposed to students’ sex) did not affect the ways in which they addressed conflict in their classroom; but others acknowledged the influence of heteronormative dynamics on responses to conflict. One teacher pointed out: “The nature of conflict between boys and boys and between girls and girls can be very different. I think intuitively, I have a greater understanding of the conflicts that can occur between my own gender.” Two teachers reflected on the role of male conflict and presumed instances of aggression. A white  female teacher reflected: “Sometimes I judge a behavior as aggressive with male students when they are just having fun with each other, and they are not the least bit upset.” Another white  male teacher described how male students’ behavior could sometimes be a result of how those students believed that they were expected to respond to conflict (Bickmore, 2002; Weikel, 1995): “Students may internalize roles. For example, some boys may think it is the ‘manly’ thing to be dominant and be aggressive (physical or verbal) and this can shut down lines of communication.” Teachers who did pay attention to how gender influenced conflict processes identified differences between the kinds of conflicts students experienced based on their gender, and how this could influence how teachers responded or interpreted male or female student behavior (Bergsgaard, 1997). Many of these recently trained teachers had preconceived ideas of how to approach conflict. Some reinforced prescriptive solutions, maintaining a supposed cultural order (Lederach, 1996). Still, at this critical stage in their learning and development in enacting a restorative approach, they generally appeared open to learning. When asked what resources or assistance they needed in facilitating restorative practices in their classrooms, most of the teachers identified time as a necessary resource for learning, practicing, and facilitating restorative justice in their school. Three teachers identified administration as being a pivotal instrument in successful integration, in addition to accessing funding, ongoing professional development, and full-staff training opportunities. Clearly, these newly trained teachers understood what it would take it to make this a successful transformation. A white female teacher with more than 15 years of experience said that she needed “A supportive admin, who sees the importance of

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these practices rather than just sending two teachers to a workshop and never discussing the issue again. I will do what I can, start small, and share with my teaching partner.” Overall, most of the teachers indicated an awareness of how restorative justice needed to be a whole-school approach to make it sustainable and integrated. Underlying all feelings, the extent to which teachers described the need to engage in a pedagogy of love and inclusion depended on their grit and resilience. Clearly, for such a pedagogy to flourish, a supportive administration and clear goals for justice were prerequisites. Teacher Training and Ongoing Professional Development Teacher training is often the default response when things are not going well: “We need better training for our teachers” is a continuous refrain. Too often this is said by people who have spent very little time in the classroom and have either forgotten or are unaware of the day-to-day constraints. Showing up and being present for young people each day requires physical, mental, and emotional energy. Teachers working on the ground are often met with many struggles that are not visible or accessible to those who hold administrative or academic positions. Despite their distance from daily interaction and understanding of classroom contexts, many outside of schools tend to blame and hold teachers responsible for outcomes that were clearly structurally designed. Translating restorative principles and ideas of community building into action is different for adults than for children. Adults have the mental and emotional capacity to spend an entire morning doing a community exercise and responding to reflective questions. Youngsters might not have the mental and emotional capacity to reflectively respond—at least not immediately. Thus, there is often a gap between how adults experience and respond to training—beginning with a three-to-four-day immersion in a room with other adults—and what they experience when they go to their Grade 2 classroom to implement it. In the training, they are held in a space that allows them to be vulnerable, and that may open the possibility of feeling deep emotions. Moving from there into the classroom and expecting a transfer of skills can provoke deep cognitive dissonance, which can potentially inhibit implementation. The training is important, but also so is personal-professional support—ongoing mentorship and coaching is vital for restorative educators

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and school leaders. Their journey takes them from training to follow-up connections post-training, including annual meetings and access to trainings, coaches, and mentors. Some people do this work intuitively; others are fine with adopting the language and moving forward with prescribed restorative questions, but holding tight to color- and power-blind ways of being. Yet others look at themselves more closely and deeply and use the restorative work to examine their own unconscious biases and anti-racist practices, and to think about what they could change within themselves to create more equity. In the same way that restorative processes in schools may provoke educators to critically reflect on the ways things were done before (e.g., punitive cycles), the common repetition of exclusionary and oppressive language phrases in school settings also needs to be confronted. Across all my interviews with students and teachers and observations of classroom lessons, I saw how circles benefited many, yet at times also excluded others. I now turn to introducing these various classrooms and teachers that went on to implement circles in their classroom following this training.

Key Takeaways • Not all teachers who receive training are persuaded to implement what they were taught post-training. • School administrative support and communication are critical for challenging siloed practice. • Diverse students, including ELLs and those with special needs, benefit from teachers exposed to training that addresses their exceptionalities, and, where needed, traumas. • Misimplementation is related to the kind of training and ongoing support that teachers (do and do not) receive. • The masculinities and femininities of peacemaking are prevalent in restorative approaches and need to be named and explored.

Questions for Reflection • What would an ideal RJE training look like for you? • How can teachers and others best address some teachers’ resistance to RJE? • How can teachers who work in silos deepen their restorative pedagogy?

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• How can we rely on the usefulness of scripts while also bringing awareness to their potential harm, and to diversity-responsive alternatives to prescription?

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Brown, M. A. (2021). We cannot return to “normal”: A post-COVID call for a systems approach to implementing restorative justice in education (RJE). Laws, 10(3), 68. Brummer, J. (2020). Building a trauma-informed restorative school: Skills and approaches for improving culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley. Cormier, C. J., Boveda, M., Aladejebi, F., & Gathoni, A. (2021). Black teachers’ affirmations on the social–emotional and mental health needs of learners: A transnational examination. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 57(1), 30–36. Cremin, H., Sellman, E., & McCluskey, G. (2012). Interdisciplinary perspectives on restorative justice: Developing insights for education. British Journal of Educational Studies, 60(4), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/0007100 5.2012.738290 Dayal, A.  K., & Christien, A. (2020). Women’s participation in informal peace processes. Global Governance, 26(1), 69–98. Glaser, D. (1964). The effectiveness of a prison and parole system. Bobbs Merrill. González, T. (2015a). Reorienting restorative justice: Initiating a new dialogue of rights consciousness, community empowerment and politicization. Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, 16, 457–477. González, T. (2015b). Socializing schools: Addressing racial disparities in discipline through restorative justice. In D. J. Losen (Ed.), Closing the school discipline gap: Equitable remedies for excessive exclusion (pp.  151–165). Teachers College Press. González, T., Sattler, H., & Buth, A. J. (2019). New directions in whole-school restorative justice implementation. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 36(3), 207–220. Gregory, A., & Evans, K. R. (2020). The starts and stumbles of restorative justice in education: Where do we go from here? National Education Policy Center. Grumet, M. (1981). Pedagogy for patriarchy: The feminization of teaching. New Political Science, 2(3), 91–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148108429534 Hollweck, T., Reimer, K., & Bouchard, K. (2019, July). A missing piece: Embedding restorative justice and relational pedagogy into the teacher education classroom. The New Educator, 15(3), 246–267. https://doi.org/10.108 0/1547688X.2019.1626678 Hopkins, B. (2003). Just schools: A whole school approach to restorative justice. Jessica Kingsley. Howard, P. S. S., & James, C. E. (2019). When dreams take flight: How teachers imagine and implement an environment that nurtures Blackness at an Africentric school in Toronto, Ontario. Curriculum Inquiry, 49(3), 313–337. Kingwell, M. (2017). Fail better: Why baseball matters. Biblioasis. Kostovicova, D., & Paskhalis, T. (2021). Gender, justice and deliberation: Why women don’t influence peacemaking. International Studies Quarterly, 65(2), 263–276.

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Parker, C.  A., Llewellyn, K., Manku, S., & Leclaire, M. (2020). The restorative schools project [Interim evaluation research report]. Community Justice Initiatives. Pranis, K. (2015). Little book of circle processes: A new/old approach to peacemaking. Simon & Schuster. Reardon, B. A., & Snauwaert, D. T. (2015). Betty A. Reardon: Key texts in gender and peace (Vol. 27). Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­11809-­3 Reay, D. (2001). “Spice Girls,” “Nice Girls,” “Girlies,” and “Tomboys”: Gender discourses, girls’ cultures and femininities in the primary classroom. Gender and Education, 13(2), 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250120051178 Reimer, K. E. (2011). An exploration of the implementation of restorative justice in an Ontario public school. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 119. Reimer, K. E. (2018). Adult intentions, student perceptions: How restorative justice is used in schools to control and to engage. IAP. Reimer, K. E. (2019). “The kids do a better job of it than we do”: A Canadian case study of teachers addressing the hypocritical application of restorative justice in their school. The Australian Educational Researcher, 46(1), 59–73. Sandwick, T., Hahn, J. W., & Hassoun Ayoub, L. (2019). Fostering community, sharing power: Lessons for building restorative justice school cultures. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 27(145), 1–32. Schweber, S. (2006). “Breaking down barriers” or “building strong Christians”: Two treatments of Holocaust history. Theory & Research in Social Education, 34(1), 9–33. Selimovic, J.  M. (2020). Gendered silences in post-conflict societies: A typology. Peacebuilding, 8(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2018.1491681 Tannen, D. (1998). The roots of debate in education and the hope of dialogue. In D.  Tannen (Ed.), The argument culture: Stopping America’s war of words (pp. 256–290). Random House. Utheim, R. (2014). Restorative justice, reintegration, and race: Reclaiming collective identity in the postracial era. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(4), 355–372. Vaandering, D. (2011). A faithful compass: Rethinking the term restorative justice to find clarity. Contemporary Justice Review, 14(3), 307–328. Vaandering, D. (2013). A window on relationships: Reflecting critically on a current restorative justice theory. Restorative Justice, 1(3), 311–333. Vaandering, D. (2014). Relational restorative justice pedagogy in educator professional development. Curriculum Inquiry, 44(4), 508–530. Wachtel, T. (1997). Real justice: How to revolutionize our response to wrongdoing. Piper’s Press. Wachtel, T. (2016). Defining restorative. IIRP Graduate School, 1–12. https:// www.iirp.edu/images/pdf/Defining-­Restorative_Nov-­2016.pdf

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CHAPTER 4

Implementing Restorative Pedagogy in Eight Elementary School Classrooms

Illustration 4.1  Hands in Circle by Lorrie Gallant

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_4

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Observing teachers’ pedagogical strategies to engage various students provides opportunities to understand how differences in participants’ attitudes, perceptions and behavior may change within different contexts and times. Furthermore, observations of teachers’ daily classroom pedagogy and ongoing student discussions inform how restorative and antiracist practices are embedded in the school curriculum. I observed how eight teachers in five different schools implemented restorative justice in their classrooms over the course of the 2015 to 2020 school years. All were white women with varying levels of experience and administrative support. Seven of the eight had had training in restorative practices. The other had had another kind of dialogue training, one that focused on nurturing conflict in math classrooms. The schools, all elementary, served students in the surrounding community, from Junior Kindergarten (age 4) to Grade 8 (age 13). Schools 1 through 3 generally followed the principles of a multitiered approach to justice. All the schools were located in the inner city of a diverse metropolitan area of Southern Ontario. Some of the schools reflected the socially constructed view of urban schools—situated in areas that predominantly included lower-income people of color. Other schools were in historically lower-income areas that had recently begun to gentrify; white and students of color from higher-income families attended (see Table 4.1). In the following introductory profiles, I share some of the teachers’ feelings and perspectives about restorative justice in education as well as examples of what restorative justice pedagogies looked like in their classrooms. Their facilitation of mutual respect in student interactions strengthened relationships, and the inclusion of diverse students contributed to the quantity and quality of dialogue about social conflicts. I compare how each teacher learned, facilitated, and thought about restorative principles and peacemaking-related dialogue strategies, and how diverse students responded.

The Schools, Teachers, and Students The degree of restorative dialogue pedagogy implemented, as well as the processes and strategies used, varied significantly among the participant teachers. Whether or not their training had been recent or five years prior, the teachers had different approaches to implementing circles; some held them weekly, others less often. Some of the circles were consistently held, but the depth of dialogue remained quite shallow. For instance, a lower depth of dialogue involved students sharing or opining without connecting, questioning, or reflecting deeply. Other circles were held sporadically, but with the intention of resolving or approaching conflictual issues. These circle topics appeared to generate more depth of student engagement.

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Table 4.1  Racial identities represented across classrooms Name School 1 Ms. Spence (T1) School 2 Ms. Harding (T2) School 3 Ms. Weaver (T3, Y1) Ms. Weaver (T3, Y2) Ms. Weaver (T3, Y3) Ms. Fitzgerald (T5) School 4 Ms. Rossi (T4) School 5 Ms. Davis (T6) Ms. Clark (T7) Ms. Roberts (T8)

No. of students

Black

East Asian

South Asian

White

Other/ unknown

8 100%

0 0%

1 12.5%

1 12.5%

6 75%

0 0%

27 100%

3 11%

10 37%

10 37%

2 7.5%

2 7.5%

25 100% 25 100% 26 100% 20 100%

3 12% 4 16% 3 11.5% 2 10%

9 36% 6 24% 10 38.5% 4 20%

2 8% 5 20% 8 30.8% 1 5%

7 28% 4 16% 5 19.2% 11 55%

3 12% 6 24% 0 0% 1 5%

30 100%

1 3.3%

5 16.7%

4 13.3%

18 60%

2 6.7%

20 100% 23 100% 22 100%

0 0% 1 4.3% 1 4.5%

5 25% 4 17.5% 3 13.6%

2 10% 1 4.3% 0 0%

12 60% 16 69.5% 18 81.8%

1 5% 1 4.3% 0 0%

Other teachers, particularly those who were in (or beyond) their fifth year of implementation, used dialogic processes that carried restorative principles into their encounters, whether they were enacted in physical circles or not.

First Year of Implementation Most of the teachers in their first year of implementing circles said that they still needed some personal-professional coaching when initiating restorative circle dialogue processes. Given this need, I drew on my own training in circle facilitation to offer collegial coaching and support. One of my coaching strategies, for those teachers who were reluctant to facilitate student dialogue on their own, was to cofacilitate circles with those

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teachers in their own classrooms. I would begin as the lead circle facilitator with the teacher as the cokeeper. This coaching method helped the teachers to feel more confident in taking on the lead facilitator role later. These circles allowed me to gain deeper insight into the teachers’ choices, perspectives, and the social and emotional experiences when implementing restorative dialogue. For their part, the teachers received a kind of two-dimensional professional learning opportunity: in addition to their generally prescriptive training about restorative justice, they also benefited from ongoing mentorship and partnership as they worked with me in my role as a participant researcher in their classrooms. Ms. Spence (T1)1 Ms. Spence’s special-needs class, where all students had a diagnosis of autism, provided unique insight into the value of preparation and circulating a talking piece to symbolize and facilitate attentive listening and sharing the floor. Some of these students could not help speaking or making verbal sounds during the circle. Teaching aides joined the circles to scaffold student participation: for instance, they took students who needed a break to another room, or gave them noise-canceling headphones or an object to hold. This, according to Ms. Spence, allowed her to continue facilitating “without as many interruptions.” Students in the class ranged from being in Grades 6 to 8, based on their age. I observed their classes in language arts and social skills. All the teachers at Ms. Spence’s school had participated in the two-day restorative justice trainings led by their principal, a skilled circle practitioner and trainer, between 2015 and 2018. Just over 500 students attended this school, of whom 250 students spoke a language other than English as their primary language; many were first-generation Canadians or second-­ generation immigrants. Based on standardized tests, many students at the school struggled with math and literacy. For instance, recent scores for Grade 6 students who achieved a Level 3 or 4 were: reading, 49%; writing, 43%; and math, 17%.

1  The names of the students and teachers are all pseudonyms. Where students’ names represented ethnocultural and gender identities that students self-identified, I have made efforts to assign pseudonyms that reflect those identities.

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Ms. Harding (T2) I observed Ms. Harding’s language arts, history, and drama classes. Ms. Harding was a veteran teacher, yet still appeared to struggle with implementing restorative  justice practices. In an interview, she said she had found it difficult to reframe the language she used with students during conversations with them after incidents of aggression. In keeping with restorative justice principles, she was attempting to replace blaming-and-­ shaming “why” questions with restorative’s “what-happened-and-howdid-­it-feel” questions, to invite each young person to voice their own concerns and to imagine those of others empathetically. Ms. Harding often sent students to the office and limited classroom talk. Yet she continually expressed an interest in learning and practicing more restorative and dialogic approaches in her classroom. In the teacher group interview, she said: I think with [the researcher’s] support I really found the confidence to try it out. . . . The kids talked about how they felt listened to and enjoyed using the talking piece and that was helpful for me, but some days I feel like I really cannot do this.

Ms. Harding was one of two teachers who had been trained in RJE in 2015. The principal had not received any training and was fundamentally opposed to the practice. Only one of the two trained teachers (Ms. Harding) implemented circles in her classroom post-training. Of the 350 students, 198 spoke a primary language other than English, and 92 students had lived in Canada for less than three years. Recent test scores for Grade 6 students who achieved a Level 3 or 4 were: reading, 75%; writing, 81%; and math, 47%. Ms. Weaver (T3) I observed Ms. Weaver’s Grades 7 and 8 classes over three academic years (2015/2016, 2017/2018, and 2019/2020). The three classes were populated by equal numbers of female and male students from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, where most of the students (on average 80%) over the years were of color. In all years, she used non-circle discussion pedagogies, in which students raised their hands to volunteer (or not). The male students typically spoke up more than the female students. During her first year of implementation, she conducted several postobservation

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small-­group interviews with students in the class, who confirmed their awareness of gender participation inequalities. Boys said that they had “more confidence” and “like to talk a lot” and that girls “feel shy and they feel like they’re going to get judged if they put their hand up.” Another boy elaborated that girls “have more to lose if they mess up. . . . People will judge them.” When asked what could be done to address this dynamic in their classroom, the boys enthusiastically responded that circles (compared to typically structured class discussions) provided greater opportunities for their peers to engage; similarly, female students said that, even though they might not participate as much, circles allowed them to “share thoughts” and “talk to people they don’t usually talk to.” All teachers at this public school, including the principal, had been trained in RJE between 2015 and 2018. The principal was a strong advocate for restorative justice and regularly did walk-throughs of her school to ensure that it “felt like a restorative school.” Of the 401 students, 135 spoke languages other than English as their primary language. Recent test scores for Grade 6 students that achieved a Level 3 or 4 were: reading, 80%; writing, 87%; and math, 37%. Ms. Rossi (T4) Ms. Rossi taught Grade 8. I observed her language arts and science classes. Ms. Rossi had had more prior experience with circles than the other three teachers; unlike the others, she had once participated in a circle prior to the school board training. This prior exposure to circles appeared to drive her enthusiasm for both the training and implementation in her classroom. She taught circle dialogue norms and circulated a talking piece; she did not use precircle writing prompts. In an interview, she indicated she believed that the circle process was beneficial for her very transient class population, including several refugee and displaced students. For instance, one of her newcomer students, who was learning English, spoke for the first time in front of his peers when they were in circle. After he spoke, all his student peers spontaneously clapped to acknowledge him. Ms. Rossi was one of two teachers at her school who had been trained in RJE in 2015. The principal showed interest and support in the process but had not yet been trained. Both teachers used circles at the school, but remained siloed in their own individual classroom experiences, since there was little time for them to connect and collaborate with colleagues outside of the initial training in which they had participated.

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Of the 644 students that attended Ms. Rossi’s school, 335 spoke a primary language other than English. Over 100 students had lived in Canada for less than three years. This school had a highly transient student population—many students were refugees and new immigrants to Canada, and were awaiting their approvals for resident status, some of which were not approved. The most recent test scores for Grade 6 students who achieved a Level 3 or 4 were: reading, 79%; writing, 87%; and math, 69%.

Teachers Trained in Restorative Justice in Education in Their Fifth Year and Beyond Unlike the four teachers I followed in their first year after RJE training, the five trained teachers I observed in their fifth year and beyond (which included one I had also observed in her first year) generally felt more at ease in handling conflicts head-on. I did not take on the role of cofacilitator or mentor as readily in these contexts. For most circles, I acted as participant researcher, and followed the lead of the classroom teacher. In each of the classes, I consistently observed these teachers using restorative responses to conflicts. The teachers’ confidence was evident both in wielding larger issues and in how they described their classroom relationships (among students and between students and teachers). While these classrooms were still not without exclusion, the teachers appeared to be better equipped to handle conflicts when they did arise. Ms. Fitzgerald (T5) Ms. Fitzgerald’s Grade 2/3 class was known to be the calmest classroom in the primary wing of the school. Despite having a somewhat boisterous group of young students, Ms. Fitzgerald was known for her calm demeanor and for keeping control of her class. As is typical in most primary classrooms, Ms. Fitzgerald held circle each morning. During her circle sharing time, she sat on the floor with the rest of her students. One of her male students had turned his desk off to the corner, while the rest of the class sat in their peer groups. Oftentimes, this male student refused to come to the circle and when he did, he tended to fidget and turned to face away from the circle. I observed Ms. Fitzgerald most mornings as she prepared him for the circle. He always had a puzzle on his desk and when he entered the classroom he worked quietly on it, apparently lost in his own world.

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She would crouch down beside him and review his agenda, to see if his caregiver had signed it, and then reminded him that circle would begin soon and that he was expected to come over and sit down and participate when she called everyone over to the carpet. This worked occasionally, but never consistently. Ms. Fitzgerald relied on classroom norms and structures to keep the rhythm of her classroom. Students might make noise on five different levels, from loud lions to quiet turtles. She almost always had the fluorescent lights turned off, relying on the sunlight from the large windows in her classroom to light up the space. She used mindfulness activities with her students, and was a believer in the power of restorative justice in education for getting her young students to accept responsibility. The morning circle mostly encouraged them to share about their lives, but was also used to address interpersonal conflict, such as speaking about each other behind each other’s backs. I observed Ms. Fitzgerald’s classes in health and social studies. Ms. Davis (T6) Oftentimes, students develop strong connections and relationships with their homeroom teacher. Ms. Davis was an itinerant teacher of Grade 8 math; she did not have a homeroom class. While therefore the classes I observed were not her homeroom students, she had strong relationships with her students and a deep understanding of where they came from. She had been trained in restorative justice circles 11  years prior. She shared with me that she had come to teaching from a long career in social services, which helped her engage with her students at different and deep levels. While she held high academic expectations for her students, making them respect her need for accountability, she also deeply cared for them. She always stood at the door and greeted her students as they came in, often quietly inquiring about how they were doing, paying particular attention to those who might have been ill in previous classes, or who were quieter. Many of her students struggled with math, and while this appeared to drive up students’ emotions as they entered her classroom, she quickly acknowledged their feelings in an attempt to not only quell their anxiety, but to transform those feelings into deeper love for learning about math. At the same school as Ms. Clark and Ms. Roberts (profiled below), Ms. Davis’s school had posters on the walls in the hallways with the restorative

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questions, and many teachers appeared to rely on these questions when conflicts arose, indicating their apparent acceptance of the scripted process. Of the 535 students (245 female, 290 male), 92 students spoke languages other than English as their primary language, and 28 students had lived in Canada for three years or less. Recent test scores for Grade 6 students that achieved a Level 3 or 4 were: reading, 83%; writing, 83%; and math, 39%. Ms. Clark (T7) Ms. Clark was the Grade 7 language arts and math teacher. Her classroom was next door to Ms. Davis. While she was the only teacher who did not have training in restorative justice, she worked as a math coach, and had extensive training in creating space for dialogue and deliberation in math classrooms. This included creating space to nurture constructive conflict and to build relational connections through math. Most of the classes involved a group exercise where students had to work out problems together and present them back to their peers. She kept tight control of students’ interactions, quickly calling out those who disengaged and readily moving those who spoke out of turn or showed disengagement. She also didn’t hesitate to keep students back who didn’t complete their work. In terms of creating a safe and what she described as a “risk taking kind of community,” she started the year by co-creating class norms with students. The students also collectively created and conducted surveys, connecting them to their math curriculum, about specific stressors that affected each of their domains for self-regulation. For this, she drew on Stuart Shanker’s (2016) work as a framework for understanding stress in children. The students identified that they were most nervous about public speaking. Ms. Clark explained: “This was a red-hot issue for them. Students did not want to speak in class and feared public speaking.” So, Ms. Clark made it her focus to create a supportive environment for her students to speak. Each of her math classes involved small-group deliberation in addition to whole-group presentations where each group walked their peers through the process of how they had solved problems. By the end of the year, her students were doing an independent public speaking exercise; many of them chose to speak about social issues, such as racism and oppression. While Ms. Clark did not have formal training, she was doing restorative justice in education work, albeit by other names. She is included in the dataset in this book because of the ways in which she

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linked this to curriculum learning goals and processes which were important for understanding restorative justice pedagogies. Ms. Roberts (T8) Ms. Roberts had a wealth of teaching experience. She had taught in many high-priority schools and in Indigenous communities  in Canada. She openly spoke about the challenges she witnessed and experienced on the reserve where she had taught. Ms. Roberts, whose partner was also an educator, committed her life to teaching. She said, however, that for her teaching didn’t come first—feelings did. When I visited her class for the first time, her students told me that “[Ms. Roberts] doesn’t care about what we learn. Learning comes second. Feelings come first.” On that same visit, Ms. Roberts dealt with a conflict between two boys after they had come in from recess, with a sick female student who believed she had a concussion, and with several other students who simply wanted her attention. Her classroom walls were covered with posters that represented social justice, including an “upside-down” map where the Southern Hemisphere was above and the lower hemisphere below: “Who said they get to be at the top?” she questioned. “The world is round, and this is the way I choose to teach my students to see the world.” I observed Ms. Roberts’s math and social studies classes. Ms. Weaver (T3) By the fifth year, Ms. Weaver was a leader for restorative justice pedagogy in her school and was completing her principal’s training, where she worked closely with her principal to do school walk-throughs and mentor her peers on using restorative approaches. I observed Ms. Weaver’s drama, language arts, health, and media studies classes.

Varying Approaches to Restorative Justice Pedagogies Implementation of restorative justice practices in the schools I studied varied considerably. Their approaches varied according to the support they received, how they applied their training, and how much mentoring and coaching they received. The variance in their implementation styles illustrated that many other factors were at play.

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Administrative Support Of the eight teachers, three had strong administrative support, four had minimal support, and one had no administrative support at all (see Table 4.2). Interestingly, one teacher with a very supportive principal did not implement many circles through the school year, while another teacher who had a principal who opposed circles, and even viewed them as frivolous, implemented them weekly, even in this constrained context. I analyzed these indicators based on my subjective interpretations of the data—carefully reviewing observations, interviews, and my personal reflections that I recorded after each observation and interview. Based on this analysis, I categorized the teachers’ level of support and implementation frequencies. Use of Scripts: Enhancing or Inhibiting? In the course of the 2015 to 2020 school years, the teachers’ application of circles was at times obvious and at times more covert. In some of my observations, I found teachers who used a circle process to address a Table 4.2  Varying approaches to circle implementation Name

School 1 Ms. Spence (T1) School 2 Ms. Harding (T2) School 3 Ms. Weaver (T3) Ms. Fitzgerald (T5) School 4 Ms. Rossi (T4) School 5 Ms. Davis (T6) Ms. Clark (T7) Ms. Roberts (T8)

Grade Teaching Circle experience experience

Administrative Circle Use of support frequency restorative dialogue

6–8

2 years

Novice

Strong

Low

Low

8

20 years

Novice

Unsupportive

High

Medium

7/8

15 years

High

Strong

High

Medium

2

20+ years

Intermediate Strong

High

Low

8

4 years

Intermediate Minimal

High

High

8 7 6

20+ years 15+ years 20+ years

High Novice High

Low Low Low

High Medium High

Minimal Minimal Minimal

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perceived wrongdoing or conflict between teachers and students or between students and their peers, but it was not always clear that the outcome was satisfactory for the students. Students are aware of when outcomes stay within the realm of peacemaking and are acutely aware of when justice is centered through peacebuilding approaches. For instance, in one incident, the teacher went through the list of restorative questions and the students quietly responded, in short phrases, with their heads down—a position indicating shame or perhaps lack of interest. Being shamed did not solve the issue for the students. However, this approach appeared to satisfy the teacher, who made the decision in the end. As far as she was concerned, she had apparently resolved the conflict through a restorative process. The use of scripts shapes (constrains) the narrative of a conflict. Some teachers rely on scripted questions because they are unsure of what to say, and operate on the hope that they are being less harmful by following an approved model. Scripts can shape the narrative of a conflict in ways that further marginalize some students. Questions in scripts assume harm and position a student as the perpetrator of that harm. Students do not always assume harm in the same way that adults do. Students may not always feel they have the space to share organically; and teachers may miss opportunities to get to the root of the conflict. Alternatives to scripts include prioritizing student-generated questions to open more space for more students to participate agentically. My immersion in various classroom settings allowed me to see how approaches to conflicts often depended on how the teacher was feeling and what kind of conflict they were choosing to deal with. I observed some teachers choosing different conflict-handling options at different moments, depending on the student, the time of day, and their own apparent stress level. For example, one teacher who consistently used the circle process also practiced exclusion, and a win-lose approach to teacher-­ student conflict; she asked a student to leave the classroom when he was being disruptive. On another day, she attempted to connect with that same student, asking him, “What’s going on with you today? Are you feeling tired?” when he lay down during the circle process. The teacher-facilitator’s preparing for a variety of student-participant responses is as important as preparing a script or set agenda of questions. In interviews and debriefings, some of these teachers raised a concern: they envisioned responses from students that they found frightening. As the teachers continued to pursue their implementation of restorative

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circles, they found that students’ responses were not as scripted as the questions. For instance, it is entirely possible that a young person might choose to refuse to respond to a question (Starkey et al., 2014). A climate of exclusion might contribute to students’ marginalization or silence during conflictual discussions that touch upon or imply linkages to their traumatic experiences. I observed that at times the voices of less vocal (perhaps marginalized) students were silenced in some circles, for example, when personal issues were being discussed, or when their teacher or peers left them feeling unheard. Consistent with my observations and interviews, some researchers have found that students’ silence at times reflects their choice to keep their identities quiet or to not attract attention, particularly when they feel emotionally connected to or personally identified with the conflictual issue being discussed (Bekerman & Zembylas, 2011; Mangual Figueroa, 2017; Schultz, 2010). On the other hand, some students gain confidence and skills to communicate their experiences (which may be violent or oppressive), particularly in classrooms that have created a safe restorative climate where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and being listened to (Low & Sonntag, 2013). Restorative pedagogies that build critical consciousness challenge the culture of silence, and offer the possibility of transforming hegemonic classroom cultures (Parker, 2016, 2020). Leadership Roles A year after participating in the training, Ms. Weaver—in her excitement about restorative justice in education—opted to take on a leadership role in her school to support her colleagues’ implementation of restorative practices. This had been the original intention of training selected teachers across multiple schools; however, most of the teachers who had participated in the trainings did not do this. Ms. Weaver, unlike many others, was supported by her principal: she received a small amount of preparation time each week to work with her colleagues on using circles, and her principal sent out sample questions for teachers to use in their classrooms at the beginning of each week. During one staff meeting, Ms. Weaver and I presented the work we were doing in her classroom. Ms. Weaver told her colleagues that this “isn’t about training” and that it should be seen as “an intervention for creating a safer and kinder school.” Ms. Weaver felt that teaching, especially at the upper elementary level, should be about helping young people learn to be kind.

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As participant researcher, I supported Ms. Weaver in this presentation to her colleagues, sharing my own history and background in restorative justice. For some of the teachers, Ms. Weaver’s presentation was a review; for others it was brand-new information. She told the group that she used circles in her class to teach curriculum and provided details about the health unit she was working on: I used the circle to get them to think about what you look for in a relationship, and there was obviously a lot of prep that had to happen before the circle for us to have that kind of conversation! [Laughter erupted from both the teacher and her colleagues.]

She mentioned the challenges she was having, especially with a class of intermediate students who didn’t always listen, and how difficult that was for her: “A lot of the time, we’re the ones doing all the talking and we’re the focus and to force myself to sit there and to have them go in the circle was so hard.” She then shared her modification for her circle practice: she decided that she would use two talking pieces, instead of the one prescribed in the training: one for herself and one for the class. Ms. Weaver said that she felt she needed to intervene if she observed harmful or disrespectful behavior. This prompted further laughter, but many still agreed that restorative pedagogies and responses were good strategies for making space for dialogue. Mentorship and Coaching for Sustainable Professional Development If restorative justice in education is truly a principles-based way of teaching, then, to introduce principles with integrity, teachers need ongoing support—through mentorship, peers, and professional learning. Some of the teachers I worked with continued to persist in naming their practice as restorative, yet many of their responses and interactions with students did not reflect a firm commitment to restorative justice values. The focus in implementing RJE needs to not solely be on counting on how many circles teachers conducted that school year, since that might not always include information about how and why (which) students passed without speaking, sat away in the corner, or were simply not paying attention. Perhaps such outcomes reflect what is going on with the teacher;

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the teacher—or students—might be experiencing anxiety, which undoubtedly impacts the process. Restorative coaches and mentors can help teachers through such implementation challenges by modeling: spending time in circles, facilitating circles, and offering feedback. Mentors could then proceed to accompany teachers, having them facilitate circles themselves, and later checking in on them. Many teachers may feel uncomfortable about having someone in their classroom observing their restorative practice, particularly in the early stages of learning to implement circle processes. In our evaluation-focused culture, some classroom assessments have done harm by reinforcing settler and colonial norms and expectations. Using culturally responsive and decolonizing evaluation practices would allow for a more nuanced and critical understanding of the impact of various approaches (Brown & Di Lallo, 2020; Chandna et al., 2019). Some teachers are hesitant about having their colleagues or administrators present in their classroom because they fear tenure denial and relationship disintegration (Delvaux et  al., 2013). Strong yet supportive administrator leadership, along with coaching and mentorship (Grissom et  al., 2019; Kim, 2019) and ongoing teacher consultation, requires skill (Mayworm et  al., 2016; Song & Swearer, 2016). Building teachers’ capacity to create a restorative school and classroom culture allows for increasing levels of student engagement in restorative dialogue (Parker & Bickmore, 2021). As class sizes get larger and young people become more apt to communicate nonverbally—through social media, for example— the mere practice of speaking aloud and facing each other in a circle can be a powerful, humanizing connection method. Participation in circles was the only opportunity teachers had to hear the voices of some students in this study. However, even within the presumably inclusive and connected space of a circle, some voices may be left behind, and not heard. The implications for paying attention to the silence (and to those who are silenced) in circles are paramount. Young people are the beneficiaries of an education that should allow them to succeed, to communicate effectively, and to hear the voices of those that are often silenced. In the following chapters, I provide examples, based on my own classroom observations, of how circles provided spaces to nurture and build inclusion and resistance. Through these classroom vignettes, I share ways in which we can collectively learn from these practices.

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Key Takeaways • Teachers have varying degrees of confidence using restorative justice and dialogue pedagogies. • Diverse students, including ELLs and those with special needs, benefit from teachers exposed to training that address their exceptionalities. • Administrative support or lack thereof matters. • The number of years a teacher has been practicing and has had ongoing training and coaching matters. • Silos support structural violence in schools through perpetuating colonial and patriarchal norms.

Questions for Reflection • What would an ideal training look like for you? • How can we best address teachers’ resistance?

References Bekerman, Z., & Zembylas, M. (2011). Teaching contested narratives: Identity, memory, and reconciliation in peace education and beyond. Cambridge University Press. Brown, M. A., & Di Lallo, S. (2020). Talking circles: A culturally responsive evaluation practice. American Journal of Evaluation, 41(3), 367–383. https://doi. org/10.1177/1098214019899164 Chandna, K., Vine, M.  M., Snelling, S., Harris, R., Smylie, J., & Manson, H. (2019). Principles, approaches, and methods for evaluation in Indigenous contexts: A grey literature scoping review. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 34(1). Delvaux, E., Vanhoof, J., Tuytens, M., Vekeman, E., Devos, G., & Van Petegem, P. (2013). How may teacher evaluation have an impact on professional development? A multilevel analysis. Teaching and Teacher Education, 36, 1–11. Grissom, J. A., Bartanen, B., & Mitani, H. (2019). Principal sorting and the distribution of principal quality. AERA Open, 5(2), 1–21. https://doi. org/10.1177/2332858419850094 Kim, J. (2019). How principal leadership seems to affect early career teacher turnover. American Journal of Education, 126(1), 101–137. Low, B. E., & Sonntag, E. (2013). Towards a pedagogy of listening: Teaching and learning from life stories of human rights violations. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(6), 768–789.

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Mangual Figueroa, A. (2017). Speech or silence: Undocumented students’ decisions to disclose or disguise their citizenship status in school. American Educational Research Journal, 54(3), 485–523. Mayworm, A.  M., Sharkey, J.  D., Hunnicutt, K.  L., & Schiedel, K.  C. (2016). Teacher consultation to enhance implementation of school-based restorative justice. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 385–412. Parker, C.  A. (2016). Pedagogical tools for peacebuilding education: Engaging and empathizing with diverse perspectives in multicultural elementary classrooms. Theory & Research in Social Education, 44(1), 104–140. https://doi. org/10.1080/00933104.2015.1100150 Parker, C. A. (2020). Who’s in and who’s out? Problematizing the peacemaking circle in diverse classrooms. In E. C. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities. Living Justice Press. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2021). Complexity in restorative justice education circles: Power and privilege in voicing perspectives about sexual health, identities, and relationships. Journal of Moral Education, 50(4), 471–493. Schultz, K. (2010). After the blackbird whistles: Listening to silence in classrooms. Teachers College Record, 112(11), 2833–2849. Shanker, S. (2016). Self-reg: How to help your child (and you) break the stress cycle and successfully engage with life. Penguin. Song, S. Y., & Swearer, S. M. (2016). The cart before the horse: The challenge and promise of restorative justice consultation in schools. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 313–324. Starkey, H., Akar, B., Jerome, L., & Osler, A. (2014). Power, pedagogy and participation: Ethics and pragmatics in research with young people. Research in Comparative and International Education, 9(4), 426–440.

CHAPTER 5

The Pedagogical Value of Conflict: Dialogue and Dissonance in Restorative Classrooms

Illustration 5.1  Teacher speaking, students listening by PhDcartoon

Nurturing Peaceful Peer Relationships Through Talking Circle Pedagogies In the vignettes that follow, I introduce the complexity of the conflict talk (Bickmore & Parker, 2014) that happens in circles. I explore how conflict brings issues of identity and social positions to the fore in circles. And © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_5

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therein lies the risk and opportunity. I show, through thick descriptions of classroom dialogue, how four teachers (introduced in Chap. 4) used conflict as an opportunity: in their first year of implementation, when conflict arose, they used it to build inclusion. None of the vignettes illustrates the right way to facilitate a circle. There is no one way. Every circle is different. Each has different teachers, with different levels of expertise, different participants, different issues, and different ways in which these issues are brought up. There are, however, ways educators can pay attention to facilitation strategies that emerge during the circle process by critically reflecting on and responding to how students show up in circle. Also, different kinds of conflict generate different types of dialogue. What remains constant, however, is the deep need to not only nurture connection and dialogue, but to engage with conflict to discover ways that educators can build and sustain inclusion. Restorative justice dialogue, especially in educational settings, is a transformational process because it engages participants emotionally—in their hearts as well as in their minds (Morrison, 2007; Morrison et al., 2005). Classroom circles amplify young people’s skills and their capacity to positively enter discussions about conflictual topics, whether the topics relate to historical events or interpersonal issues. Talking about conflict constructively and inclusively deepens the relational ecology in classrooms (Llewellyn & Morrison, 2018). Teachers do not need any further training in how to shut down conflict expression. On the contrary, when teachers nurture dissent, engaging students in deep conversation, they promote democratic peacebuilding (Bickmore, 2017, 2022). As I and others have shown, controversial issues present valuable learning opportunities (Barton & Ho, 2020; Pace, 2021; Parker, 2016). Conflict dialogue enhances students’ engagement and academic achievement. Possibilities for constructive conflict dialogue are increased when teachers are equipped with the tools to create a restorative school culture (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). Proactive restorative processes challenge a culture of low expectations and short-term remedies. Underachieving students are more likely to do better when their teacher communicates high expectations and strengthens their motivation to succeed in school (Walkey et al., 2013). Having the chance to speak up and participate in school motivates students to engage further (Abdullah et al., 2012). Circle processes also offer quieter students the opportunity to participate.

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Oftentimes, students expect teachers to respond to conflict in a particular, prescriptive way, and teachers also often have similar expectations, especially when it comes to student behavior (Parker & Bickmore, 2012). Many teachers, like those whom I interviewed, often seem to conflate restorative justice and conflict resolution—peacebuilding with peacekeeping (see Chap. 2, “Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding”). One participant in a focus group summed up how proactive methods focused on communication skills and community building: If I could use circles to teach them those same social skills, like respect and listening, and at the same time deliver the curriculum, then that [would be] a very practical application. . . . [Since the training] I’ve completely just gone in the way of building community and teaching curriculum. It’s preventive rather than reactive.

Foundations for Restorative Dialogue: Engaging Current Events and Challenging Fake News in School 4: Ms. Harding For the first year after she completed the two-part training on restorative practices, Ms. Harding led weekly scheduled circles in her classroom. I participated in 18 of them. She was the one teacher in my study who did not have a supportive administrator. Despite this difficulty, she persisted in her practice. Even with her 20 years of experience, this was her first time using circles in her classroom. She described feeling challenged, and so did her students, whom she encouraged to talk about current events in the weekly circles. The students came to know what to expect and this routine created space for them to speak about issues they identified as important. Omar, a male student from Syria, was characterized by Ms. Harding and the school as a troublemaker; he chose to self-select out of the process. He seemed to live up to their expectations of him, while pushing boundaries—and clearly crying out for attention. He was often absent or late and when he did arrive, he sat slouched, outside of the circle, hiding over his phone that he sometimes felt compelled to answer. I often chatted with Omar when he came in and developed somewhat of a relationship with him through silent interactions. I smiled at him when he came in late and positioned himself outside of the circle, and he would nod his head at me in response to my smile or wave. Omar’s usual resistant behavior was an ongoing struggle for Ms. Harding: while she initially made many efforts

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to include him, he continuously excluded himself. She believed he was in a gang and was waiting (or perhaps hoping) for him to be removed from school. One day when in circle, I decided to throw the talking piece (a teddy bear) in his direction. He was behind me, outside of the circle. Ms. Harding quickly intercepted, saying, “No, no, no. If he’s not sitting in the circle, he doesn’t get to participate,” and asked that I give the talking piece to the student sitting beside me. I acquiesced. Ms. Harding wanted her students to know what was happening in the world and was not shy about sharing her left-leaning perspectives on social issues. One day, she started her circle with an icebreaker focused on current events, asking the students to “Share one thing [they] wonder about.” The conversation became conflictual when one male student questioned whether there would be a World War III. As the talking piece was passed around to the other students, they all began to respond with their perspectives about the potential for another world war. As students talked about what they had heard in the news about ISIS and chemical weapons, Ms. Harding said she heard that a ringleader for terrorist attacks had been killed in Paris and that his death seemed to provide a sense of safety for some people. Omar interrupted Ms. Harding, chiming in with, “Do you even know what chemical weapons are?” Ms. Harding, not used to being interrupted by Omar in what they were talking about during class, chose to engage him. He pulled his chair in and sat in the circle, listening to the perspectives of his peers. When Omar found a space to enter, he came in, and when he did, he changed the discourse. He revealed knowledge based on his lived experiences with trauma and conflict in apparent nonchalance. This engagement changed how he engaged for all the subsequent circles that year. Other students shared stereotypes they had heard. One East Asian male shared what he said he read online saying, “I read somewhere that some halal foods, the money goes to terrorists.” Ms. Harding quickly attempted to combat such stereotypes by suspending the talking piece—a rule she had not previously agreed upon with her students, and one that was not available for students to sanction—and responded directly to the student’s comments. The others remained seated in circle, silently listening to her, with most of the students meeting their teacher’s gaze indicating their interest in what she was saying. She named this conspiracy-related, fake-­ news claim about halal foods: “That [is] a racist and stereotypical statement. It’s the same as saying ‘every Muslim is a terrorist’ and we know that that’s not the case, so we must be careful when we say stuff like that.”

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The process of sharing information gleaned from online sources and personal experiences continued in this male-driven dialogue: Ryan: (East Asian) I hear that ISIS is making chemical weapons. (Continues to volunteer more information he heard in the news, and is interrupted by Ms. Harding.) Ms. Harding: Yes, this is ugly news, and my theory is that a lot of what they’re saying is because they want to scare each other. They announced today that in a raid in Paris yesterday, the ringleader of the Paris attacks was killed, and they think that will provide people with a sense of safety. (Two male students’ hands immediately go up.) Deepak: (South Asian) How about the man they killed? How will that stop it? Ms. Harding: Well, they just say that he died and he was the ringleader behind it all. Omar: (Syrian) Do you even know what chemical weapons are? (Interrupting in a satirical, yet serious tone, directing his question to the teacher.) Ms. Harding: Yes. Do you know? Omar: You turn whiter and whiter, and then your mouth starts to foam and then you start to have seizures, that’s what it does. Ms. Harding: How do you know this? Omar: I’m from Syria, I go there every year. Of course I know this. (Half-laughing, with a sarcastic smirk on his face.) Ms. Harding: Well, ISIS is trying to create fear; this is one of the tactics they use, to threaten people. Ryan: ISIS only makes a million a day. They get their money from kidnapping people, but that’s actually not a lot. Ms. Harding: A million dollars! Sure, it’s a lot! I sure don’t make a million dollars a day! Ryan: Yeah, but they can’t really do anything with that. Now, if they make a billion a day, then they could actually start WWIII. Abdi: I heard on the news that there was more fighting in Mali. It’s happening everywhere. (All of the students appear to be listening actively and are eagerly engaged.) Ms. Harding: In these situations, everyone is labeled, and all Muslim people are seen as violent. Waleed: (Self-identified as Muslim) A lot of people are saying a Muslim saying (“Allahu akbar”)  that means a prayer and they are using it to say they’re terrorists and that’s not even what the word means. Like the saying means, “God is great,” but people have turned it around and are like saying it’s a terrorist saying, but it’s not.

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Restorative circles supported Ms. Harding’s choice to make current events a central part of her classroom. As she thanked all the students for participating in the circle, she also reflected aloud that she never imagined having a conversation with students about World War III. She commended students for their engagement, saying, “I didn’t plan for that; it turned out to be quite deep.” In these moments, we see how both the teacher and the students took a risk, scaffolded by the restorative circle format, to dive deeper into dialogue—sharing aspects of their identities, asking questions, and challenging the content. Informed discussions about current events contribute to students’ civic and political learning (Avery et al., 2014; Hess & Avery, 2008; Hess & McAvoy, 2015; Hodgin et al., 2020; Schulz et al., 2010), but many teachers hesitate to facilitate such conversations, particularly in the wake of misinformation in the media and society (Corser et al., 2021; Garrett et al., 2021). Ms. Harding’s circle facilitation shows how she extended her circle training to facilitate conflictual dialogue about social issues in her classroom—a skill she felt would further engage her students, while also preparing them for effectively addressing conflicts in the future. Ms. Harding also used this circle time to address the conspiracy theories and “fake news” that students brought to circle. Despite hearing their Muslim peers advocating against the misconceptions about Muslim people, some students still felt compelled to say what they had heard, aligning their trust with what they had absorbed from the media. Apparently, this conversation quelled misperceptions and beliefs about Muslim people, since students—including those that presented perspectives from fake news in the media—listened with empathy to their peers and teacher. Ms. Harding then chose to drive the point home, cautioning about online tales: Remember that anybody could put anything online. Remember when we were talking about how a whole cultural group could get labeled, like with Japanese people in Canada and the Sikhs and the Jewish people as well as our First Nations, and now people are quite prejudiced against some Muslim people, and we must be really careful about that. Even in Toronto, what’s on the local news shows that some people are treating others with disrespect.

In response to this, two male students raised the impact of Islamophobia in their own community:

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Vishal: So, this Muslim parent was picking up her kid from school and she was attacked! (Speaking in a shocked tone.) Abdi: By two men! (Speaking with emphasis in an angry tone.)

Ms. Harding went on to remind her students that everyone has “the right to be here,” reinforcing the dominant liberal multiculturalism prevalent in Canada. However, while also freely stating her own anti-oppressive sentiments, which included calling racist people “idiots,” she chose to critically engage with social justice by encouraging her students to share their feelings. Clearly, students in this classroom felt comfortable sharing sentiments from current events that they grappled with, such as the assumption that purchasing halal food funded terrorism. The teacher provided an opportunity for dialogue around privilege and power, which supported students in building a foundation for active citizenship and empathy (Castelli, 2015; Svennevig et al., 2021). By navigating dialogue regarding religion and dominant groups, this teacher created a community that was accepting and inclusive of all, and helped students learn about religion and faith, furthering their self-knowledge and self-awareness (Skerrett, 2013, 2019). The radicalization of youth in Western contexts creates grave security risks and challenges in offering support to these young people, as well as in identifying them. When young people join hate groups, such as white-­supremacist groups or Islamist extremist groups, they are interpreting social, political, and religious doctrine from various ideologies that are strangely blended with some degree of Western norms and values. Oftentimes, these young people have been ostracized to some degree already. For instance, youth (especially Brown males and/or dissenting students of color) are distrusted and labeled radicalized (Davies, 2014). Educators need to understand the context of choices that radicalized youth have made, and the root causes and underlying motivators contributing to those choices and beliefs. The criminal justice system and high-­ security organizations focus on tackling the problems postincident, after harm and conversion have occurred. Restorative justice offers practices that would allow victims and (ostensible) offenders both to be heard and to go through a process of taking responsibility for their actions. For instance, Sultan et al. (2020) proposed restorative interventions to address deradicalization and reintegration experiences of returnees from Islamic extremist ISIS groups to their European home countries. These

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interventions would involve support circles, mentorship, and relational connection with former extremists (Aiello et  al., 2018; Ercan, 2017; Mattsson & Säljö, 2018). The school system is critical to such participation in a process of integration and inclusion, such as by establishing anti-Muslim anti-racism practices (Brooks et al., 2021). Challenging hate and bias perpetuated by white-supremacist groups or other hate-based groups can be mediated through what Au (2021) has referred to as a “pedagogy of insurgency,” which involves speaking back in resistance as well as creating solidarity across communities of struggle and reimagining curriculum and schooling. A youth who is questioning their perspectives or toying with extremist ideologies would benefit from being not only in a culture of care, but also in one of critical thought—where ideas are nurtured and explored to better understand how harmful ideologies impact people around the world (Jerome & Elwick, 2019). Teachers’ ability to navigate these perspectives is also essential for equipping young people to understand intergroup conflicts and the realities of violent extremism (Jerome et al., 2019; Shirazi, 2017). Students’ Perspectives on Circles Ms. Harding worked in isolation at her school—none of the other teachers there (even those who had participated in the training) implemented circles. The administration did not support her—her principal acted as a negative gatekeeper, impeding any implementation of circles. He warned her and the researchers that any implementation of the circle process in classrooms needed to “focus on curriculum, and not on conflict resolution.” He felt that students should not be using classroom time to “air their dirty laundry” or to share their emotions and feelings. Despite these constraints, Ms. Harding persisted. While Ms. Harding did implement circles as a tool to facilitate student discussions of conflictual social issues, she did not use the process to take up interpersonal conflicts between students, or to address disciplinary issues. When interpersonal conflict between students did arise in the classroom, Ms. Harding would lecture her students, using a top-down, authoritarian approach that limited opportunities for building relationships.  Her disparate approach reflected the internal struggles she experienced working in this constrained environment. Ms. Harding had many special-needs students in her class, who had been identified as having behavioral issues. Some students engaged in ongoing interpersonal conflict throughout the school year, including physical fights

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with other students in the class. For example, I was aware of a South Asian male student, Vivek, who sat on the other side of the circle from Omar. He participated at times, often sharing when the talking piece came to him. However, when he joined the circle, his countenance reflected a downcast mood; he slouched over, his eyes on the ground. Earlier in the school year, these two students had had a physical altercation. Being at a school where the administrator saw little value in restorative justice, the two had been suspended. Their conflict was left unresolved. While we might experience seeing “wins” in circles, many complexities impact circle dynamics—emotions that students are grappling with, or underlying, hidden interpersonal affairs. When I began interviewing selected students in this class, one male student said: “There are certain things I’m just not going to bother with. We’re graduating this year, and it won’t matter when we’re in high school.” Ms. Harding’s class also had a high number of ELLs who mostly remained quiet during circles. She struggled to get them to participate, and often reminded them that she needed to grade their communication skills for their report cards. Despite her attempts at being authoritative or supportive, most of these students passed the talking piece without taking their turn to speak. Others spoke quietly, sometimes mumbling their responses. Ms. Harding worked hard to come up with ways to encourage her students to speak up and participate. Toward the end of the school year, I interviewed one of them, an East Asian ELL student. He said that he had become more comfortable speaking and listening in circles, in part because of the preparatory, private, writing they did before speaking: Calvin: I think the circle is very good. Before it was more hard (sic) for me, and at first I can’t really do circles, but now it is easier. So sometimes we share from what questions we write (responding to teacher’s individual writing prompt). People [are] facing each other and they can hear them well.

Small-group interviews in this study revealed that participating in circle dialogues had helped the students to build their confidence, and facilitated their practice of communication skills, such as making eye contact. Many of the ELL students remarked that they appreciated the circulation of the talking piece, as well as the precircle writing preparation—both of which seemed to increase their confidence and willingness to participate. High-­ performing students in Ms. Harding’s class like Abdi shared similar appreciation for coming together in circle:

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Abdi: (Black, African descent) [Circles] build our social skills and our oral communication. Everyone learns new things about each other and how we think and about how others think. And it’s an important skill to know how to collaborate with everyone in the classroom . . . because in life you’re going to be working with people you don’t know, so it is important to know how to speak and how to be social with people you don’t know.

Ms. Harding had learned about the use of the talking piece in circles during the professional development session but at the beginning of the school year needed prompting from me (as the researcher, evolving into a coach) to use it. Initially I brought my own talking piece. Later, I suggested that Ms. Harding work with the students to identify a class talking piece, which they subsequently did. In an interview, a male student of color reflected on how the talking piece affirmed each person’s contribution to the dialogue: “The talking piece enables someone to state their opinion without being interrupted. That specific person, it’s like their time to shine, and gives them a chance to be in the group.” When teachers tap into intentional heart-work (Hatt, 2005), young people are included in the community, and healthier relationships begin to flourish between peers and their teachers. Such sustainable, long-term practices reduce in- and out-of-school suspensions and school-based violence. Reticent Speakers and Participation in Circles Ms. Harding felt that she needed to do something to help her students address the fear that she felt some students had of speaking personally in front of peers. Even though circles were part of the weekly routine, many students still chose to pass without speaking. In some circle rounds, only a few people spoke. At times she attempted to coach her students to speak more loudly and use eye contact when speaking. One strategy she used to prepare for talking in circle processes was to assign writing tasks such as journaling. The writing tasks and topics varied in level of difficulty and depth. On the days when Ms. Harding held a community circle, with the intention of building strong relationships between her students, she usually gave a prompt for the writing task in the morning, which typically previewed icebreakers for the circle, such as “Name something you wonder about.” While such prompts often encouraged most students to come to circle with something to say, it didn’t always seem to significantly alter the quality of their responses.

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I nterpersonal Dynamics in Circles During one circle, Ms. Harding had asked students to list ten items they would add to a magical witch’s brew. Ms. Harding expressed some surprise at how uncreative some of the students’ suggested ingredients were—water, pumpkin, spices, and roses. One ingredient of interest was “an Afro,” listed by an East Asian male student, and seemingly directed (perhaps disrespectfully) to his classmate who had an Afro hair style. Ms. Harding chose to confront the inappropriateness of this “ingredient,” suspending the circulation of the talking piece to do so. She directly asked the East Asian male student if his response would be offensive to some people. The student quickly replied, “No, it’s just funny.” The male student with the Afro remained silent and looked away. Ms. Harding reiterated that suggesting “an Afro” for a witch’s brew might be experienced as mean to some students but did not discuss this further and reopened the talking circle. Other students subsequently shared politically driven ideas presumably inspired by the Afro comment, such as “Stephen Harper’s head” and “Justin Trudeau’s hair,” for the divisive (Conservative/Liberal) candidates for the federal election. These ingredients, despite their connection to polarizing political ideologies, went uncriticized. Student relationship dynamics complicated how the dialogue ensued in this circle. The Black male student with the Afro was often a target of mean, so-called jokes concerning his hair and body weight. While this student remained quiet at times, he also took on the role of bully himself, returning aggression with aggression. Like a disproportionate number of African heritage students (Skiba et al., 2002; Welch & Payne, 2018), he was suspended many times throughout the school year. Ms. Harding often verbally reprimanded him in front of his peers for speaking out of turn and for being rude to her and his classmates. Clearly, the complexity of student-­ to-­student and teacher-to-student relationships in Ms. Harding’s class impacted how students engaged with each other during circles. In some cases, circles provided a platform to target others, while also at times, they opened space to label and challenge destructive behavior. Contentious Topics During another circle, Ms. Harding asked her students to respond to a discussion prompt she pulled from a deck of cards. Many groaned “No” and shook their heads at the sight of the cards. The prompt that day was “Talk about something interesting that you’ve found.” Nevertheless, students went in turn around the circle and answered the question. One

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Black male happily pulled a 1000-peso bill out of his pocket, excited by the seemingly large currency. A white male student, sitting beside him, quickly laughed, and told him it was worth next to nothing. Ms. Harding interrupted the circle to tell the white male student not to laugh; she said that the peso was still a cool thing, but also said that individual pesos were worth much less than Canadian dollars. Ms. Harding’s recognition of destructive conflict talk allowed her to use her power to quell this debate. This unplanned dialogue appeared to spark students’ interest and perhaps also curbed some other students’ willingness to openly share things they had found. A few students shared items they had found in their community’s park, such as bullet shells and bags of blood. When one South Asian male student said he found bullet shells from a police gun, Ms. Harding quickly asked him how he knew it was from the police. He responded with “I just know stuff about guns.” In continuing her effort to sustain dialogue, she continued pressing him on how he knew it was a police gun. Omar, the Syrian male student, once again entered this conversation by interrupting, “Wait, wait, wait” and then took a long pause and asked the South Asian student “Have you ever shot a gun?” At this point, Ms. Harding stopped the questioning and this line of dialogue, and firmly asked the students to move on to another topic, unlike the way she had handled the World War III dialogue. Ms. Harding did not encourage her students to discuss what was becoming a topic of even greater contentiousness, and there was little room for peer-to-peer dialogue. As the circle continued, many students passed, and the few who spoke mentioned generic things like money or lost toys. The overall lack of administrative support for Ms. Harding’s integration of classroom dialogue circles may have contributed to her reticence to delve more deeply into the conflictual experiences raised by these few students. She had been explicitly instructed to not use circles to discuss students’ personal issues and conflicts, which may have constrained her willingness to explore sensitive student experiences in depth, such as their experiences of violence in their communities. Furthermore, some teachers don’t feel well enough prepared, even if they have had training, to facilitate high-conflict exchanges (Vaandering, 2014b).  oving Away From Shaming and Blaming M In an individual interview, Ms. Harding spoke to the challenges she encountered when she attempted to reframe the language that she typically used with students during postincident conversations. She was

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attempting to move beyond the role of the disciplinarian, which focused on blaming-and-shaming “why” questions, and instead to ask restorative questions that invited each young person to voice their own perspectives and concerns: Ms. Harding: I know it’s not really valuable to ask a child why they did something, but how many times do I do it, and do I hear others doing it and hear myself doing it. And I try really hard to refrain from that, and instead try to use, “What were you thinking when that happened?” Just kind of rephrasing the question to validate even the offender of the problem, and I would say that that is something that I took away [from the training]. . . . Those questions on the little card really helped me to stop asking why and to look at the bigger situation of how are we going to solve this.

The traditional expectations of teachers to be “disciplinarians and curriculum deliverers” can pose barriers for teachers to embody and implement restorative justice processes, even after substantial professional development sessions (Russell & Crocker, 2016). For example, Ms. Harding often reverted to habitual, top-down, judgmental ways of handling conflict, which included sending students to the office and controlling classroom dialogue. This pedagogical style reflected the constrained system she worked in. She worked in a silo amongst colleagues and an administrator who did not support restorative processes. This environment hindered her capacity to consistently engage in restorative language. Yet Ms. Harding— the most experienced teacher in this study, having taught for over 20 years, as well as the most consistent in implementing community circles—continually expressed desire to learn more and to practice more restorative justice  approaches in her classroom. Her efforts to reframe her conflict confrontation style and language remained visible throughout this study. While her commitment to the change process waned at times, she still made concerted efforts to bring restorative justice into her classroom.

Facilitating Nonviolence, Mutual Respect, and Inclusion for Students with Special Needs in School 1: Ms. Spence In Ms. Spence’s small class of six autistic students, two key guidelines for restorative circle facilitation were embraced: encouraging her students to refrain from speaking if they preferred and insisting upon respectful,

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nonjudgmental responses to peer contributions. As in Ms. Harding’s class, some of Ms. Spence’s students had experienced violence in conflicts that erupted between students in the classroom and had been bullied at school. For the first classroom circle, she relied heavily on coaching to use and implement the talking piece. As a participant researcher, I co-led the introductory circle, which focused on icebreaker and community-building activities. Most of Ms. Spence’s students participated in this circle. During an interview conducted afterward, she expressed some reticence about her students engaging in circles: “I don’t know if my kids could handle it [circles].” When preparing for circles, she consciously planned for some of her autistic students’ unpredictable emotions: “Some of my students have a lot of anxiety, and a lot of impulsivity, so these circles can be challenging for them. . . . They don’t do well when there’s a difference of opinion.” She felt that inviting these students to express conflictual perspectives on topics such as elections or First Nations’ rights might turn out to be “quite explosive.” In her second circle, Ms. Spence chose the topic and controlled the facilitation of dialogue more independently. Following the principles outlined in the restorative justice training (see Chap. 3), she introduced the talking piece and reminded her students of the importance of respecting this symbol by listening and respecting peers when they held the talking piece. Prompted by coaching conversations with me outside of class time, Ms. Spence usually began circle activities with a community-building icebreaker: she asked low-risk questions for each student to answer, such as to share one superpower they would like to have. For the most part, her students participated in these icebreaker circles, apart from one mostly nonverbal student. However, in this second circle, Ms. Spence chose the topic of bullying—a topic that all her students had had direct personal experience with. She prompted them: “Share a time you were bullied, and again we’re not going to be using names, and you could just say what happened and share how this made you feel.” While she initially began by passing the talking piece sequentially around the circle, Ms. Spence then invited students to pass the talking piece to whoever wanted to share (although the training focused on passing the talking piece to each participant in order, for purposes of equity and inclusion). In response to this shift in circle pedagogy, two of the students consistently asked for the talking piece or spoke aloud (even when not holding the talking piece) to share their experiences and perspectives on bullying, while peers remained relatively silent. In one

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instance, a male student indicated that he would like the talking piece, by reaching his hand out, and Ms. Spence passed it to him, across the circle: Paul: So there used to be a lot of bullies at my school, mostly just toward me, but they have the strangest ways of insulting. Whenever I would try to sit down, one person actually tried to pull out the bus seat from under me. Alicia: (a mostly nonverbal female student, wearing headphones, speaking out of turn) Bullying! Derek: (interrupting) I would be so amused at that. (some laughter, from other students) Ms. Spence: Thank you for sharing, Paul, do you want to pass it on to someone else who might want to share? (he passes it to Mark) Mark: Whenever I see bullying in real life or in fiction or nonfiction, I just get this bubbling rage inside of me, just this urge to do something about it, and I usually try to, but usually my actions have no effect. I’ve tried over and over again. I’ve witnessed a lot of bullying these days, and I’ve been trying to stop it, but I’ve tried everything I could think of and none of them work. (Paul reaches for talking piece) Derek: (interrupting) Two things you need to make sure of: if it gets physical, one, make sure you’re a bit bigger than them, and two, make sure you know how to take them down. This is (raises voice) only when it resorts to violence! Just saying! (some snickering and laughter)

Ms. Spence did not address Derek directly, and instead continued to focus on whoever had the talking piece, modeling listening by giving her attention to that person. One of the three teacher assistants in the room, all of whom sat in the circle with the students and Ms. Spence, asked for the talking piece and told the students that it was important to tell an adult about bullying experiences. Ms. Spence affirmed this position. This comment triggered Derek to continue to speak. Ms. Spence asked him if he wanted the talking piece, and he indicated that he did. He passionately spoke to the issue: Derek: Um, comment on what you said: no. But I’ve tried that like so many times, and I’m going to say it right now, that it does not work. Like, in [PS], the principal would be like OK, we’ll do something about it. And the guy got called in and they’re like OK, we believe that you didn’t do it, and I’m the one who ended up with the suspension. Like it’s me, always. And (raising voice) I even came in with a black eye once! And they still blamed me. Paul: (calling out) You started the fiiiiggghttt!!!

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Ms. Spence: (closing the dialogue) OK, guys, you did a good job, a little bit of silliness, but overall a good job. Mark: (calling out) It just gets depressing over time! Ms. Spence: OK, and I get it that it’s not an easy topic to talk about, because I think that no matter who you are, you’ve probably seen bullying, or been a victim, or an aggressor, or a bystander, and so we all understand what bullying is, so it is a sensitive topic for sure.

Overall, in this circle, while three of the male students spoke consistently, they often spoke over each other and laughed at each other. In many ways, the dialogue that emerged glorified violent behavior and rejected peaceful approaches to make amends. This circle was also the first opportunity for these students—all victims of bullying—to share their collective experiences. Their attempts to gain power reflected their experiences with a punitive system that apparently did not offer them much protection. Ms. Spence facilitated the fewest circles over the school year among the teachers in this study. Her principal had initiated and led the restorative practice training and supported her efforts to integrate circles into her classroom pedagogy. Many of the teachers at Ms. Spence’s school were also trained in using circles. However, even in this supportive environment, Ms. Spence did not initially feel prepared to facilitate circles with her students. She attributed the few circles that she did facilitate to her participation in this research project and the collegial coaching that came with it. Over the course of the school year, Ms. Spence facilitated four circles with her students—all of which I was present at as a cofacilitator, supporting Ms. Spence in reviewing circle guidelines. Ms. Spence chose the topics and independently facilitated, while I and the educational assistants were present as participants. She was hesitant to use circles. As such, she felt that her students engaged better in classroom discussions when she used an extrinsic reward system—such as giving them special treats when they respectfully participated in class discussions, sat down at their desks (which were arranged in rows), and raised their hand to speak. She did not feel that a circle process would provide the kind of structure her students needed to participate. Ms. Spence’s class of autistic students provided unique insights into how a teacher learned both to prepare students for and to facilitate circles, circulating a talking piece, with students identified with special needs. The talking piece, symbolizing attentive listening and sharing the floor, seemed to help students who had limited control over their capacity to participate

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verbally in discussions—they could not help speaking or making verbal sounds during the circle. Three teaching aides assisted her, helping students who needed a break to go to another room, or handing out noise-­ canceling headphones or an object to hold in their hands. These interventions allowed Ms. Spence to continue facilitating without as many interruptions. These kinds of modifications also demonstrated the possibilities for facilitating restorative processes with students with special needs (Burnett & Thorsborne, 2015). In many ways, the students in this class were positioned as disruptors who needed to be controlled, a response that is typical in special-needs classes, and often used disproportionately in the punishment of Black and marginalized  students (Fisher et  al., 2021). The circle, while providing them with a chance to speak, also at times constrained their autonomy. Circles are meant to enable freedom through a structure that encourages people to speak their truth and to drop their masks (Pranis, 2015, p. 11). However, the confines of the controlled classroom structure appeared to impede the circle process. The three support colleagues, in addition to the teacher, meant there were almost as many adults as there were students in the circle. Unlike the situation in Ms. Harding’s class, these students were not on the same kind of level playing field characteristic of intermediate classrooms. The many adults in the room, many of whom were committed to top-down power dynamics, also appeared to constrain opportunities to build peace and deepen relational connection. However, the participating autistic students demonstrated that they could participate constructively in restorative circle dialogue practices. They gained capacity over time as their teacher gained courage and capacity to facilitate these speaking and listening activities. Toward the end of the school year, Ms. Spence independently facilitated a circle on accepting diverse sexual identities. Based on the students’ previous experience and exposure to circles, and their conversations and activities in the classroom about diverse sexual identities, one male student disclosed to the class that he identified as gay. Before to this student’s disclosure, Ms. Spence initiated the circle dialogue thus: The phrase “That’s so gay” has become so common now that most people don’t even think about the effects it would have on people.

One vocal male student immediately shouted out, “I do!” and Ms. Spence gave him the talking piece. This male student became emotionally charged, articulating:

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To be completely honest, if I was with a kid or someone and they said as an insult, “That’s so gay,” I’d probably lose it, because I have absolutely no respect for them. They’re just a bunch of bratty kids, and it’s, like, it’s the groups of people who stand around in the hallways, and cluster together.

After he shared this, one of the quieter male students, who rarely participated in any class discussions, asked for the talking piece, and said, “I also find it wrong that people use it as an insult, because I am gay. Yeah, OK, I just said it. OK, well that might come as a bomb to some of you.” Another male student responded “Wait! What?!” to which this quieter male student said, “I told you!” and then, in a comical voice, “So, don’t judge me.” The other student responded, “I don’t care if anyone cares if you’re straight or gay dude. It’s cool,” and another male student said: “There’s nothing wrong with that.” After this circle, Ms. Spence told me that she felt that this quieter male student likely had become comfortable enough to disclose their sexual identity to their peers because of the circle: “He never talks in class, like never. I don’t think he would’ve shared that if we weren’t set up like this in circle.” Facilitating constructive dialogue regarding sensitive topics in circles was not covered directly in either of the two PD sessions that focused on community building. Her approach to this controversial issue illustrated how she modeled empathic listening, which apparently contributed to this student’s safety in disclosing his sociopolitically marginalized identity of being gay (Conrad, 2020). Thus, overall, Ms. Spence’s initial lack of preparation in this area highlighted the importance of carefully training and coaching the teacher-facilitator, as well as the students, in how to do this.1

Restorative Circles to Support Literacy in School 2: Ms. Weaver After her training, Ms. Weaver’s principal asked her to take on a leadership position at the school in supporting other teachers to facilitate and integrate circles into their classroom activities. Ms. Weaver’s principal also started to suggest weekly topics for classroom circle dialogues to the  Unfortunately, due to the complex needs and the varying schedules for Ms. Spence’s students, I did not have the opportunity to interview any of the students individually. Thus, all the musings that they shared were in front of their classroom teacher and educational assistants within the classroom. 1

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teaching staff. In two different curriculum units during the school year, Ms. Weaver focused on integrating circles. In contrast to Ms. Harding’s elicitive conflict talk approach, Ms. Weaver purposely planned circles focused on conflictual content from her literacy curriculum. Her students read Iqbal (D’Adamo & Leonori, 2004), based on a true story about child labor in Pakistan. Ms. Weaver brought the students into circle to reflect on critical incidents within the novel. She encouraged them to identify personal connections with the experiences of the children they read about, such as the experience of being separated from family, or what it would be like to work in inhumane conditions. Pointing out the importance of empathizing with Iqbal’s life, Ms. Weaver modeled how to constructively draw on social conflicts to stimulate dialogue and facilitate inclusivity. In response to Ms. Weaver’s question of how it would feel to be separated from their parents and family, one female student shared her experience of living with her father and being separated from her mother. Ms. Weaver and another female student responded to this student empathetically by sharing their own personal experience of single-parent families, prompting a circle dialogue about different types of nonnuclear families represented within the class. In an interview after the circle, Ms. Weaver reflected on her personal facilitation strategies and insights: I learned so much about them during this circle. They were sharing a lot. Some really deep stuff about their families—I didn’t even know about a lot of it. I wasn’t sure when was the right time to take out the talking piece, so I just did it when the conversation was getting out of control. I also didn’t realize they would sit for so long. I think it went well. This is the first time they sat like this.

In exploring conflict in the circle, Ms. Weaver demonstrated what Pace (2019) referred to as “contained risk taking,” where teachers explore controversies in their own realm of comfortability. In Ms. Weaver’s case, this risk led to developing deeper relational connections in the class. She prepared her students by telling them that their responses in circles “could spark conflict.” She reminded them of the importance of listening and respect: “I’m trusting you to all be responsible with your answers. I want to make sure that we’re respectful and sensitive.” In response to Ms. Weaver’s preparation, when one typically quieter male student, James,

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shared that they had two moms, their peers displayed respectful listening and acceptance. This further contributed to destigmatizing nonnuclear, heteronormative families, which Ms. Weaver felt was an important outcome of this circle dialogue. Ms. Weaver had known about this student’s family, but as she later told me in private, she was surprised that the student shared this information with their peers and attributed this openness to the circle process. At the end of the circle, Ms. Weaver thanked her students (albeit using a non-gender-neutral term), saying, “Well, you guys have been awesome. And for you all to sit here for so long, and to have these discussions from the heart is really just amazing, and I’m really proud of you.” Upon hearing their teacher’s praise, the students all clapped to indicate their appreciation for each other and the circle process. Over the course of the year, as she learned how to facilitate restorative dialogue in circles, Ms. Weaver began to focus more on integrating the kind of restorative language she learned in the PD session by preparing her students to critically reflect on their experiences and perspectives, such as reflecting on their responses and behavior in conflictual situations. Gender and Participation in Circles Like Ms. Spence had done, Ms. Weaver first facilitated a series of lessons on the topic of diverse sexual identities, which scaffolded her students’ perspectives and prepared them for sharing in circles, engaging respectfully with conflictual content. The depth of the students’ apparent content knowledge seemed to be a driving force for the quality of dialogue in Ms. Weaver’s circles. Toward the end of the school year, after they had experienced eight months of weekly classroom circles that were scheduled at the same time and day each week, Ms. Weaver invited her Grade 7/8 students to react to a play about being gay and to share what they would do if a friend of theirs told them they were gay. In this circle, all the students voiced consensus that they would undoubtedly support their gay friend: Ms. Weaver: It’s a difficult question and I’m asking you guys to really think about your feelings and reactions to the play. What would you do if your friend said to you that they’re gay, how would you react to that? Remember when Daniel told Christina that he was gay, and she was reflecting on how she reacted, does anyone remember what she was thinking? Daniel: Yeah, she was like saying things that were weird.

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Ms. Weaver: Yeah, so she was thinking about why she wasn’t more supportive when Daniel told her. OK, so how would you respond to your friend who told you that she or he were gay? And I’m trusting you to all be responsible with your answers. I want to make sure that we’re respectful and sensitive. Who would like to start? (four male students immediately raise their hands, and Ms. Weaver passes the talking piece to one of these students) Brian: I would just accept him for who he is. Derek: I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just say, “cool,” and end the conversation. Rohit: I’d probably just keep calm and move on. Nathan: I wouldn’t say anything right away, and then I’d give him some time and then talk to him again when we had more time to think about later on, to give him some time. Alex: I’d try to support the person. Mark: I’d say “cool.” Ms. Weaver: Just based on the comments on this side of the room so far, I just want to say that you’re very lucky to be growing up in this day and age right now, because when I think back to my high school years, I don’t remember anybody who was gay, no one could really be open about that at the time. I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s and there was a lot of homophobia, and 10 years ago it was illegal for a gay couple to get married, so listening to your comments about acceptance is really refreshing. James: If one of my friends told me that they were gay it wouldn’t change my opinion of them, because my parents are lesbians, and they have a lot of gay friends and I know them, and I grew up with it, so I’m used to people being gay or lesbian or queer, so if they came out to me, it wouldn’t matter to me. I’m just so used to it, compared to some other kids I know. (other students in class respectfully listen) Maria: I’d just try to be there for them, and support them, and maybe not talk about it too much right away.

While a few students remained silent, most of the students in this circle chose to speak, echoing their peers’ and teacher’s sentiments about supporting gay friends. The students expressed homogenous perspectives on marginalized sexual identities. Still James, who became a more vocal speaker in circles over  the year,  was the only one who consciously used gender-neutral pronouns when speaking about this incident. While many of the students may have responded sincerely, this circle still served as an example of how group dialogue on contentious social issues potentially hinders expression of divergent perspectives. A groupthink phenomenon can impact the potential for thoughtful consideration of controversial or divergent perspectives, especially in ideologically homogenous communities (McAvoy & Hess, 2013). In such contexts, students might feel pressured to conform to the dominant discourse or politically correct response.

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During interviews with Ms. Weaver’s class many of the students—both male and female—reflected on the lack of participation from female students, noting that the male students typically spoke up more than the female students. This is evident in the above vignettes—many males appeared to feel more confident responding to Ms. Weaver’s “difficult” question about sexual identity. While Ms. Weaver’s class had about an equal number of male and female students, the female students still found it challenging to bring their voices into classroom discussions, when organized in the typical way that required them to raise their hands to volunteer to speak. Two of the four boys in a small-group interview frequently contributed to both classroom discussions and readily engaged in circle dialogue. One reflected on the gendered participation he witnessed in this classroom: Josh: Well, I think that this is the most obvious way: doing circles! ’Cause like community circles are like more like to build confidence, so if we do more circles the girls would gain more confidence and they would put their hands up more and it wouldn’t just be the boys talking all the time, so just do more community circles, that’s the answer.

In contrast to Ms. Rossi, in another Grade 8 classroom, Ms. Weaver shared that in her survey with students, her male students expressed lack of interest in circles, compared to her female students who all consistently asked to have more circles—even suggesting topics and issues for the class to speak about: I had them write out what they liked and what they didn’t like, and a lot of the boys (there’s 10 of them and 21 girls), and most of the boys said they hated circles, and a lot of the girls said they liked circles. The girls all said I should keep circles, and most of the boys said to get rid of them and dump them.

This gendered participation was evident in classroom observations—in this heavily majority-female class, most of those who participated aloud were female, and most of those who passed the talking piece without speaking were male.

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The Role of Peers in Securing Inclusion in School 5: Ms. Rossi Of the four teachers in this chapter, Ms. Rossi had sought and taken the most trainings in circle facilitation. She also used circles to facilitate inclusion. She indicated in an interview that she felt the circle process was beneficial for her very transient student population, including several refugee students in the class. For instance, one of her newcomer students, who didn’t know much English, spoke for the first time in front of his peers when they were in circle. After he shared, all his student peers spontaneously clapped to acknowledge him. In these contexts, the opportunity to speak in well-facilitated circle dialogues seemed to lead, over time, to more students participating orally, while also nurturing healthy peer relationships. Ms. Rossi’s circle implementation illustrated how, when done effectively, circles evidently increased the opportunities for quieter ELL students to participate orally in class. At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Rossi prepared for peer inclusion by inviting her students to identify and accept a set of class circle values, including respect, confidentiality, responsibility, and empathy. She posted these values on a board at the entrance to the classroom. She also had a poster at the front of her classroom that highlighted the restorative circle values. A few months into the school year, Ms. Rossi was still getting new students added to her Grade 8 classroom. This school community had recently experienced an increase in immigrants and refugees, mostly from Russia, Syria, and Hungary, many of whom identified as Roma. Ms. Rossi used Neil Pasricha’s (2010) Book of Awesome as the talking piece. Even though, by this time in the year, many of her students were familiar with the talking piece and the circle process, Ms. Rossi consistently introduced the talking piece at the beginning of each circle and invited students to review the circle guidelines and values. Ms. Rossi practiced what she had learned in the professional development workshops about talking piece circle facilitation—namely, that her role as facilitator required her to learn how to adjust to everyone’s individual needs: I feel like I’m like the maître d’ at a restaurant and I just have to cater to everyone, and people in the neighborhood are looking on and everyone expects to be accommodated. So, I try to make it my business to know everyone’s interests in the class, like in a restaurant, which is my classroom

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because I want them to be engaged and I want them to feel safe. Since November I’ve gotten seven new students, who don’t all speak English, and have various needs, so circles have been really helpful.

All the teachers in the study planned circles as community-building exercises or as ways to explore curricular content. But while both Ms. Rossi and Ms. Harding modeled many best practices for circle facilitation, Ms. Rossi’s students appeared to have built a stronger classroom community: most of her students showed personal interest in encouraging their peers to speak. One time, Ms. Rossi facilitated an unplanned postincident conflict circle that her students requested. On a field trip, the students witnessed one of their peers being robbed when paying her fare on the public transit system. The student was stunned when someone came and took her five-dollar bill from her and ran away. Her peers reacted in varying ways. A few were ready to chase the man that stole her money; others were scared; and others were angry. After returning from the field trip, full of emotion, many students immediately approached Ms. Rossi saying, “We need to have a circle.” Ms. Rossi told me: “They felt they needed the circle to help them process this experience.” Later, in a small-group interview, students in the class said they had become closer to each other after experiencing postincident peacemaking circles—this one, and one that involved a bullying incident. The opportunity for facilitated dialogue regarding both critical incidents had clearly impacted both the students and teacher—increasing their level of confidence in and commitment to the process. Ms. Rossi’s consistent implementation of circles in her classroom pedagogy appeared to have prepared her students for coming together in circles to address conflictual issues. In the student group interview, two female students shared how the regular practice of dialogue circles had increased their capacity for empathy in peer relationships: Svetlana: For me, I think with community circle it kinda makes me think that the class is getting closer by sharing each other’s thoughts and everything. Like what does respect mean, how would you like to be treated. And it kinda just makes me feel like the class is getting stronger, and we’re all going to be treated better. . . . Jian: We were sort of dealing with like some bullying incidents, so with the circle we used it to practice being nice to everybody, and once we started talking about bullying then everybody could relate to it.

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Svetlana: Yeah, it kinda like made us change, because I like feel empathy for him [male student who was bullied] because I know it’s hard for him and everyone wants to fit in. And the community circle helped a lot, and I love community circle because it just makes me feel like I have a closer bond with everyone and I like to hear what others think about the class in general and how we could all improve. And whenever [Ms. Rossi] writes community circle on the agenda on the board, I’ll just be waiting for that part of the day.

While the students who volunteered to be interviewed indicated their “love” for community circles, there were still several students in Ms. Rossi’s class who appeared to disengage and/or dislike the circle process. These students typically passed the talking piece without contributing; some slouched in their chairs, and others whispered to their peers. Ms. Rossi would often address these issues, calling out these students to remain on task, model attentive listening, and actively participate by vocalizing their perspectives. While most students responded to Ms. Rossi’s interventions by practicing what appeared to be attentive listening, most of those already disengaged did not verbally participate in the process. In the small-­ group interview, one quieter male student said: “Some people hate it [circle] because they don’t want to share anything. So, they’ll just pass.” Clearly, even in circle processes that appear to be relatively successful, some students may choose to not engage in self-disclosure or dialogue with peers. As in the work of Utheim (2014), who has challenged the cultural responsiveness and equality assumptions of restorative practices in schools, this pattern of only partial inclusion raises questions for further study. Ms. Rossi shared her experience with how circles supported her students to talk about difficult issues. In a group interview with selected teachers, she described the kind of impact circles had on her students as well as herself: I think some impact is risk, and being mindful of that space—so I had this poverty unit planned, and then I’m at this new school, second year I’ve had these students, and there’s 26 of them, and then suddenly in October five more students show up: two refugees, one from Wisconsin whose mom is a recovering drug addict, and another kid from a gifted program where it just didn’t work out because of bullying issues. And we’re reading this story about a teenager in the States, near Wisconsin, where that kid happened to come from, and whose mom is a drug addict, and he has to steal for himself and his brother to survive. And the school wants to kick him out because

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he’s a troublemaker, but mostly he’s just trying to survive, and he’s trying to make sure that Children’s Aid doesn’t take him and his brother away. And he’s a skateboarder and everyone looks at him like he’s a loser, and he wants to find his dad, because he thinks that his dad, who he’s never met, is going to save the day. Now these kids arrive, and we’re already into the book, and I’m like, oh my God, what am I going to do, I can’t stop this. And we have some affluent kids and not so affluent kids—in [this city], you’re either in one area or the other. And I had a box of cookies and everyone in the circle got a cookie, and the kids think it’s great and fun that we’re in our community circle and we’re eating cookies and it’s awesome and great, and then I asked them to share what it’s like when someone gives you a treat, and even if they never had one, they now just did, so share about that. So, they’re saying things like, “It’s great, I was hungry, Thanks.” And then I was like, So what if you were at a home where there wasn’t anyone to get you treats, and they were like, “I’d feel sad, alone, blah, blah, blah, and then the cookies started the ball rolling for everything, and it was just a really powerful way to get the kids talking, my new Saudi Arabia kid, and some of the Shia fleeing, Suni, Muslim kids who fled here, and my Hungarian refugee students too, who also know what it’s like to not have food. And the questions in the circle started to get deeper and deeper, and so did the kids’ perspectives. And that kid from Wisconsin, he related and he was like “I know what it’s like to have a moody mom, and I know what it’s like to go to school hungry, and with dirty clothes” and it was pretty amazing, and eventually we volunteered at the shelter and made beds for homeless men downtown and they were all part of it, and could see the characters in the story we read, and I didn’t plan for these new arrivals, but it worked out, ‘cause I could have just scrapped the whole unit because it was feeling too risky, but then I ended up feeling so like lucky to be part of that.

Ms. Rossi’s detailed description of how her students felt more included and engaged because the conflictual nature of the novel illustrates the power of conflict in bringing people together—to share and deliberate, but also to be connected. Like Ms. Weaver, Ms. Rossi consistently brought her students together in circle, particularly to discuss conflictual curriculum content, such as her unit on poverty. Nevertheless, like Ms. Harding, Ms. Rossi worked in isolation at her school, independently implementing circles without collegial or administrative support.

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Opportunities for Critical Reflection Through Quality of Student Talk When teachers adequately prepared students for circles (with, e.g., prewritten responses or preparatory circles), and insisted that students be disciplined about following the circle process guidelines, such as respecting the talking piece, listening attentively, and speaking respectfully, the quality of students’ responses increased. In these cases, more students engaged, and did so in a critical and articulate manner—such as by using full sentences, articulating their ideas thoughtfully, and demonstrating openness to each other’s viewpoints. The teacher facilitators always prefaced these instances of respectful, reflective dialogue by reiterating their expectation that students would follow constructive engagement norms. They also prepared students for the dialogue by asking them to reflect on the topic prior to participating in the circle. These norms allowed for contested narratives to become a process of productive knowledge construction (Tupper & Cappello, 2008). In student group interviews across all four cases discussed in this chapter, students reflected that the circle process allowed more people to speak. Teachers’ efforts to prepare students to talk in circle processes contributed to greater student participation and more in-depth responses. However, many also said that having to come up with an immediate response “terrified” them. The groupthink phenomenon within the circles about 2SLGBTQ+ was also apparent in many classrooms and contexts. In Ms. Harding’s class, a similar phenomenon emerged when students appeared to collectively challenge the student with the Afro, which in that case led to further marginalization of that student. Three of the teachers in this chapter independently opted to engage their students in the sensitive topic of diverse sexual identities, albeit in differing ways. Ms. Spence, Ms. Weaver, and Ms. Rossi opted to engage this topic after their students had had experience participating in circles. In these instances, students’ and teachers’ preparation for circle dialogue appeared to create space for relatively high-quality conversations that provided diverse students opportunities to respectfully listen and contribute to the dialogue. In three of these four classrooms (Ms. Spence, Ms. Harding, and Ms. Weaver), across-classroom observations over time revealed that female students on average took a longer time to start participating actively in

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circles. In these classes, male students spoke up more confidently in circles; they passed less often than the girls and spoke longer. However, this was influenced by the gender dynamics and make-up of each class. Ms. Harding’s class, for instance, was 90 percent male, so female voices were fewer. There, many girls did not begin to participate actively in circles until the end of the school year. In contrast, in Ms. Rossi’s case, it was the female students (80 percent of the class) who spoke longer and more frequently. Beyond the preponderance of girls, this dynamic may have been influenced by the teacher’s prior experience with implementing circles, and her commitment to implementing them frequently. The students in this classroom simply had more practice in and exposure to the dialogue process. Overall, the variance in peer relationships in these teachers’ classrooms provides insights into how quieter students, particularly ELLs and quieter female students, may experience and benefit from the circle process as a pedagogical innovation.

Teachers’ Implementation of Circles: Identifying Norms for a Consistent Practice The four teachers discussed in this chapter all implemented their professional learning, in various ways and in diverse classroom contexts. All of them sought to teach skills promoting active listening, empathy, perspective taking, and self-awareness, explicitly using circles. Their stories indicate the importance, yet insufficiency, of school administrators’ support for teachers’ ongoing implementation of dialogic pedagogies such as circles. For, while they were all motivated to use restorative circles, they still finished the year saying they felt constrained, inexperienced, and incapable of engaging headon in conflict dialogue with students. Still, these teachers did provide glimpses of the kinds of conversations about equity, justice, and social issues that were all taking place in diverse, high-priority school classrooms. They focused on using circles for proactive conflict management, for community building, for discussions of social issues and current events, and for reflecting on curriculum content. These kinds of conversations are an integral element for restorative schools. As illustrated in Ms. Rossi’s case, proactive attention to conflict clearly helped to prepare young people to address conflict when it occurred. Across these cases, the teachers acknowledged how the circle process provided a platform for facilitating what McAvoy and Hess (2013) called “best practice discussions”—including preparation ahead of time, balanced and inclusive student engagement, and peer-to-peer discussion.

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Still, even in instances ripe for discussion, such moments of student talk were often fleeting and minimal. Most often, the teachers held on to their power as teacher/facilitator, controlling the shape and form of the dialogue, constraining opportunities for restorative facilitation (Reimer, 2019a; Vaandering, 2014a). Varying students were able to engage in sustained, peer-to-peer dialogue in the circle. For example, Ms. Weaver’s circle dialogues (like more typical or normative pedagogies) most often elicited responses from her academically high-achieving students. She often gave vocal students opportunities to choose the content (e.g., current events, issues arising in the community, and plans for graduation or fundraising). However, she maintained an authoritarian position throughout the process. Reflecting on these challenges in an interview at the end of the year, she said she would have liked support in practicing having some of her students take on more active roles in the circle process. Teachers’ understandings of what it meant to implement restorative practices centered on building classroom community through circle dialogue. Some teachers noticed increased participation among students, particularly female students, and some felt that their students developed greater capacities to engage and reflect on social and conflictual issues. Most of the students interviewed said that they enjoyed participating in peace circles and enjoyed the opportunity to practice their communication skills. Still, interpersonal conflicts between students prevailed, and neither teachers nor students attempted to address these conflicts through restorative practices. The four vignettes illustrate how important it is for teachers to provide consistent opportunities for students to have conversations about conflict. Such conversations ultimately contribute to social and cultural inclusion and authentic engagement (Hammond, 2021). Generating this kind of holistic dialogic allows students to confront dominant historical and sociopolitical narratives in ways that will advance reconciliation efforts (Tupper & Mitchell, 2021). In an educational landscape such as Canada’s, which is rife with colonial perspectives, providing opportunities through restorative dialogue reaffirms Indigenous knowledge (Valandra, 2020). These pedagogical approaches are even more profound because of the ongoing struggle of Indigenous peoples in Canada and erasure of lived experiences perpetuated by colonial histories (Papp, 2020). Yet, implementing divergent or alternative pedagogical processes is challenging for teachers. Constraints present themselves—such as lack of administration support, expectations regarding core curriculum, or lack of

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confidence in diverse pedagogies. Even after participating in focused professional development, many teachers, like those in this study, may still feel unequipped and unprepared to implement what they have been trained in (Brown, 2018; Reimer, 2019b). Clearly, post-training many teachers may still need ongoing support and a strong foundation for traversing their restorative implementation. An integrated professional development approach to building students’ social and emotional learning through culturally responsive education could guide teachers’ practical implementation and their own foundational competencies (Donahue-Keegan et  al., 2019; Naraian et al., 2012; Sleeter, 2017). After participating in the restorative practices training, many teachers implemented and developed their practice in various ways. In the next chapter I turn to examine how circles can be used to reveal power dynamics and build relational connection through dialogue. 

Key Takeaways • In their first year of implementation after training, these teachers became confident using circles to build community and discuss controversial issues. • Justice- and equity-oriented topics increased opportunities for inclusion and engagement. • Two key factors are critical for facilitation: practice with the norms of the circle and preparation for the conversation. • Teachers and students’ expectations for identity-based (gender, social status) participation norms contributed to shaping the circle dialogue. • Teachers mostly felt unprepared to facilitate postincident restorative circles. • Engaging topics related to students’ lives and communities allowed for more students to engage—building both inclusion and resistance in the process.

Questions for Reflection 1. When students’ ways of being are seen as “interruptions,” what does this mean for the community?

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. Who defines the purpose and practices of the circle? 2 3. What gets missed when circles are adult-/teacher-centered in their purpose?

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CHAPTER 6

Relational Connections in Classroom Curriculum: Power and Privilege in Diverging Perspectives

Illustration 6.1  The puzzle pieces of the circle by PhDcartoon © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_6

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In this chapter, I examine how a restorative classroom culture was being sustained. I do so by contrasting Ms. Weaver’s experience (who actively worked with her administration and colleagues to create a multitiered restorative culture throughout the school) with that of Ms. Rossi (whose classroom was in a nonrestorative school culture). Both were experienced intermediate teachers, and both had taken their initial training three years prior. While the focus on this study remained on teachers’ classroom practices, the impact of the overall school culture was clear. The practice was impacted by the environment in which they taught. During her first year, Ms. Weaver was hesitant to use the talking piece and often questioned herself and the process. Having developed her confidence and skills in facilitating circles, she questioned herself in the face of new challenges, due to what she characterized as many strong-willed personalities in her classroom. Despite this, she persisted in her commitment to the process and she also benefited from a supportive administrator who was committed to creating a restorative school culture. By contrast, Ms. Rossi’s circle practice was at a disadvantage from the start, constrained by her nonrestorative school culture. Her circle practice evolved differently over time, as she navigated struggles between students and consistently questioned her expertise and skills.

Ms. Weaver: Building Healthy Relationships with Circles Ms. Weaver wanted to continue participating in this ongoing study because she claimed that she was using—and wanted to further develop—restorative practices in her classroom. In her third year of implementation, Ms. Weaver focused on her health and language curriculum: she had decided to teach an entire unit using the circle process. Ms. Weaver used circles to focus on relationship building and conflict management alongside the subject matter. Led by a passionate administrator who encouraged her teachers to practice restorative pedagogy, Ms. Weaver’s restorative school proved to be an ideal environment—at least, it seemed so from the outside. The school did not primarily focus on postincident conflicts between students and staff. The school administrator emailed the staff each week with restorative justice teaching resources and a sample question they could use to guide their

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circles. She also voluntarily teamed up with five other administrators (all female) in the area to do monthly walk-throughs of each other’s schools. In these visits, they would give each other feedback on what their restorative school felt like and looked like in practice. The school displayed posters in the hallways that promoted community, showed sample restorative questions, and showcased students’ classroom work.

The School and Community An Educative Administrative Leader Ms. Weaver’s school principal described herself as a leader in restorative justice practices in her school board. In an interview, she said suspensions and expulsions had decreased since integrating restorative justice practices at her school. She conducted her staff meetings using the circle format; during one staff meeting, she invited Ms. Weaver and me to share our insights and reflections on circle processes. This meeting served as another opportunity for teachers’ professional mentorship and learning. The principal encouraged teachers to use restorative processes (such as conferencing or reflection sheets) before sending students to her office or in conjunction with sending them to her office. The reflection sheet had four restorative questions on it: What happened? What were you thinking at the time? Who has been affected by what you have done? What do you think you need to do to make things right? Students would sign the document, and their teachers would make notes about next steps for following up on the issue. A Diverse Community Ms. Weaver’s school appeared to be closely connected to the local community: adults from the community volunteered at the school, and a local police officer regularly visited the school, offering preventive lectures to students, including stern warnings about such things as stealing or engaging in illegal activity. A diverse range of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds attended the school; what had previously been a high-needs community was gentrifying. Thus, students from low-income and high-income families coexisted. Many racial divisions intersected with

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the class divide. For instance, in one classroom observation, two white male students boasted about their cleaning staff at home, while a South Asian female student said that her mother cleaned houses.

An Instructive Survey Three years after their initial training, I surveyed the teachers in Ms. Weaver’s school. The teachers’ anonymous responses provided evidence of a multitiered implementation of restorative justice, including three different levels of intervention (Morrison, 2007): universal (proactive education and participation opportunities for all students), targeted (for some students), and intensive (for postincident management of complex conflict and violence situations). The teachers’ responses demonstrated a continuum of responses based on common restorative principles. Teachers throughout the school claimed to use restorative justice practices to promote community building and teaching lessons. Most teachers (69 percent) reported that they felt confident exploring conflictual issues from curricular content. And almost all (90  percent) felt supported by their administration in using restorative justice approaches to resolve classroom conflicts. Restorative justice in education is an ongoing process; it doesn’t happen in one year or in one day. All school community members at Ms. Weaver’s school sought to develop the social and emotional skills and relationships for resolving conflict in caring and respectful ways. However, I found that even with an administrator who was a strong advocate and practitioner of restorative justice, many teachers still felt unprepared. They said they were implementing circles frequently, but I found that that was not the case much of the time. They reported feeling confident, but I later concluded that that was also not the case. Nevertheless, their various perspectives contributed to my understanding of how circles worked—and didn’t work. Survey Results Nineteen teachers responded to the survey. Most of the teachers (84.3%) had teaching experience ranging from six to 20 years; 26.3% identified as males and 73.7% identified as females. In their self-reported race/ethnicity, 89% identified as white, 6.3% identified as Chinese, and 6.3% identified as Jewish.

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The teachers reported that their most-used technique was communication skills.1 They also felt that their restorative practice centered on community-­ building activities and discussing multiple perspectives.2 Interestingly, the least commonly used technique teachers reported using was “restorative peacemaking skills”; 52.9% of the respondents said that they did not use these skills at all or only to a small extent. Fully half of the teachers said that they had dropped the process altogether—they did not use restorative practices. Most teachers (58%) believed that restorative justice in schools contributed to building healthier relationships. A large majority (89.5%) felt supported by their administrator to integrate restorative and peacebuilding learning in their curriculum. And most (68.5%) also reported feeling confident when addressing conflict in their classrooms. Teachers wavered in applying a racial and gender justice lens when navigating conflicts, despite their reported confidence in addressing conflicts through restorative approaches. When asked to what degree their students’ ethnic and cultural identities affected how they dealt with conflict in the school, many teachers (47.5%) reported that students’ ethnic and cultural identities did not affect their responses. Others (26.3%) felt that these identities affected their responses a little; and 26.3% reported that these affected them a lot. Teachers indicated similar responses when asked about how gender impacted their reactions to conflict. Many (52.6%) felt that gender did not affect them at all. Some reported that it did a little (26.3%), while others (21.1%) said gender deeply impacted how they dealt with conflict. In their third year of implementation, many of these teachers were on board with a restorative philosophy focused on inclusion and deepening empathy. However, none of the teachers spoke to the need for restorative justice to address racism and exclusion related to oppression beyond gender-­based aggression conflicts. The teachers’ apparent lack of awareness of racial justice illustrated how the training they had had did not connect restorative justice and anti-oppressive practices. Most of the respondents (40%) said they dealt with conflict incidents five to seven times a week; some experienced more and others less. These 1  63.1% of teachers who responded reported that they used the technique to a “great extent” or “very great extent.” 2  57.9% reported using community-building activities and 52.6% reported using multiple perspectives.

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conflicts included physical violence, cyberbullying, sexual assault (such as unwanted touching), teasing based on socioeconomic status, clothing choices, and exclusion of others. Those who indicated that they dealt with more than nine incidents a week also indicated that communication and community building were fundamental goals of their practice. For instance, a male Grade 5 teacher who regularly navigated interpersonal conflicts explained how his students’ gendered assumptions impacted their relationships: “The behaviors of the boys are not meant to be aggressive but are perceived this way by some of the girls in the classroom.” His intention in using a restorative approach was to “build a stronger community with more empathy and stronger relationships.” The teachers were split on the effectiveness of a restorative response; 43% felt that it had no or little impact, 47% felt that it had some effect, and 10.5% reported that punishment was to a great extent effective at changing students’ behavior. The teachers’ perspectives on issues and conflicts shaped the students’ experience. A male Grade 6 teacher felt that “the circles help identify issues and have students expand on them from multiple points of view.” A female primary-level teacher commented on her experience with participating in the process with her students: When the students get to know one another as people similar to themselves, it is harder to victimize or be mean to one another. Also, when the teacher joins in, the students begin to see and relate to the teacher as a person. Circles promote seeing one another in more dimensions and with greater understanding.

Steps in Implementing the Restorative Justice (in) Education Agenda While not generalizable, given the small sample size, these results are not dissimilar to many teachers’ experience with and tendency to avoid or gloss over conflict (Parker & Bickmore, 2012). Many teachers continue to practice restorative justice pedagogies using an assumed race-neutral and gender-neutral lens (Parker & Bickmore, 2020). Many student teachers of color feel that these so-called neutral approaches, which are entrenched in teacher education programs, are merely veneers of inclusion, and often push for a change in them (Souto-Manning, 2022). When taking up issues with their students, many white teachers continue to push a (white liberal) restorative agenda without emphasizing its inherent connection with

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dismantling (un)conscious race and gender biases. The position held by teachers in this survey, of not being impacted at all by their students’ identities, reflects this bias. One Grade 1/2 teacher described multiple violent incidents of conflict in her classroom. In her view, these were perpetrated by one student whom she described as being “physically and verbally abusive.” She reported that she used restorative justice to “calm my youngest students when they witness so much violence in the class.” This teacher also indicated that race and gender did not influence her approach to resolving conflicts. While I did not observe her classroom, the situation she described complicates her interpretation of a restorative culture. It appeared that her view of her “violent” student was fraught with her own internal strife; the student had victimized the other students, and she used (what she viewed as) restorative justice dialogue to calm them down. The supposedly violent seven-­ year-­old male student was further excluded when his peers shared their concerns about how they had been impacted. In such an approach to circles, the perpetrator is targeted through the power dynamics that prevent them from being able to share their own story; their needs and feelings are left unacknowledged. The Othering process in this classroom culture was indicative of how restorative justice can be spoken about and applied in ways that perpetuate further harm and exclusion. Teachers placed their conceptions of violence where most research on school violence situates it—on verbal or physical violence, not on the subtle or systemic manifestations of violence (Hammarén, 2022). Their reactions also reified how power and privilege are structurally embedded in educators’ ideologies and in the schooling system (Blackmore, 2010; Vaught & Castagno, 2008). These results show the context in which these classrooms were situated—even in this presumably restorative culture, many teachers still struggled to mediate overt conflict and relationships, with minimal reflection on how systemic violence and racism impacted their interactions with students.

Laying Down Restorative Guidelines for Difficult Conversations Using an in-depth analysis of classroom circle practices, I now consider Ms. Weaver’s choices in teaching the sensitive issues of sex education and relationships in her health class. Her particular focus was on relational strategies.

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Ms. Weaver identified as a white, heterosexual female. She had been teaching for 15 years and was in her early 50s at the time of this study. The class of 25 students represented diverse ethnocultural identities. Most students were of color. Most had been born in Canada, while others had recently arrived in Canada—two female students, who consistently wore their hijabs, had recently emigrated from Eritrea; one female student had come from Jamaica six months previously. Ms. Weaver began by emphasizing the importance of maintaining confidentiality during sensitive discussions—particularly appropriate for the new health unit, which focused on intimate relationships. Given the issues she hoped to discuss, she was prepared for possible student disclosures. The confidentiality agreement was fundamental to the community-­ building circle practice in the classroom. She also reminded students of the class rule about her duty to report. She said that certain experiences might come out in discussing relationships, and if the students realized that such experiences violated their rights, by law, she would need to report it “so that it will stop.” A female student understood: “So if someone spoke to you about being sexually harassed, you’d have to tell.” A male student asked: “What happens next?” She explained the process, saying that she had had to do this once in her career. She determined ground rules for their dialogic engagement while in the circle and in the classroom overall. She reminded the students that people could still be friends even if they disagreed and that this applied to students and teachers alike: “And you could disagree with your teacher too. I’m going to put that as a first point on the chart here for our ground rules for our circle.” It was clear that Ms. Weaver did not shy away from engaging students in open dialogue about sensitive issues, such as sexuality, sexual health, gender-based violence, and relationships. Since her training in facilitating restorative classroom circles two years before, she had consistently implemented processes in her class to proactively address conflictual issues and encourage learning. Ms. Weaver said that this year, her homeroom class was particularly high-needs and had posed significant behavioral challenges for her. She described it as one of the more challenging groups of students in her teaching  career—one that might cause her to burn out. Ms. Weaver described herself as skilled at working with students from diverse

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backgrounds; she said she usually managed to win over challenging students. This class, however, was different. She described  the boys in her class as complex. Many of the students, particularly some high-powered female students of color, challenged her, defied her, and consistently spoke back. After having to break up a physical fight between a Black male student and a Black  female student one month into the school year, Ms. Weaver was talking about whether she’d be able to continue in the teaching profession for as long as she had hoped. Nevertheless, she continued; albeit, at times, adopting a saviour approach to remedy her discontent. She reframed her health education program to model a restorative justice  approach, hoping to deepen ­relational connections between  students. She extended the curriculum program content integrating restorative pedagogy and various perspective-taking approaches: building students’ relationships and the classroom community through multiple activities, discussions, and frequent opportunities for proactive circle dialogue. She focused lessons on healthy nutrition, bullying, internet safety, sexual harassment, and assault. Her goals were on developing healthy relationships and setting boundaries. A gender-based violence team from the board, preparing for a new rollout of the health education curriculum, supported her in this focus. This updated focus was in response to the increase in documented incidents of gender-based violence and was met with support from most teachers in the province to include more diverse and inclusive sex education (Bialystok, 2019; Cotter & Savage, 2019). The curriculum challenged the heterosexuality inscribed in much of health and wellness school curricula (Weis & Carbonell-Medina, 2000). Ms. Weaver received additional training that focused on gender-based violence and oppression. While not connected to the restorative training, this additional professional development contributed to building Ms. Weaver’s skills in facilitating dialogue about difficult topics. I observed the training, which consisted of four Grades 7 and 8 teachers at the school and saw how the facilitators encouraged them to engage students in dialogue and critical reflection on their choices. The facilitators also had these teachers participate in the dialogic and role-play activities outlined in the training manual. Having already been trained in restorative practices, this additional training on gender-based violence intersected with Ms. Weaver’s restorative philosophy. In her implementation of this curriculum, she integrated restorative processes, such as talking about healthy relationships while students sat in circle and modeled how to pause and consider people’s various feelings and needs when in conflict.

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Creating Space for Conflict Dialogue Inviting diverse perspectives was not a new concept for Ms. Weaver. As someone who held strong opinions and didn’t fear sharing them, she welcomed hearing about her students’ position on issues. For one exercise, she invited her students to physically place themselves in different corners of the room depending on their perspective on sexual assault and harassment issues. She then asked them to explain why they chose their position. A white male student, Paul (who was quite vocal in class), volunteered, saying that most people had followed their friends. Ms. Weaver reflected on students’ choices—she noted how peer pressure and the perceived need to conform could lead students to express or imply agreement, even when they disagreed. She reminded the students that people could still be friends even if they disagreed, and that this applied to students and teachers alike. Then she elicited other ideas for what their circle agreements—norms for interaction—should include. One female student, responding to a racist remark a peer had made earlier, suggested the importance of respecting other people’s opinions even if you disagreed with them. Ms. Weaver thanked her for providing this guideline, but also let her and the class know that, while the class intended to respect everyone’s opinion, there were still things that people might say that were not appropriate, such as “anything that is racist, homophobic, misogynistic, sexist or discriminatory—then that’s not OK.” Students continued the discussion. One male student said: “Some things that people might say might be racist.” A female student quickly reiterated the point: “People need to think about what you say and make sure it’s not’s [sic] racist.” Ms. Weaver drew the line between what could be an issue for debate and what would not be appropriate, but also acknowledged that some perspectives might reflect unconscious bias coming from their familial and social contexts: Some of us may be holding some of those views right now, so hopefully, we could challenge them, and maybe some of us are thinking a certain way and don’t even realize we’re thinking that way. And maybe we do think that boys are better at this than girls or girls are better at this than boys, and if you’re a girl, you’re supposed to act like this, or if you’re a boy, you’re supposed to act like this. Like we might already have had that programming going on, and we’re going to challenge it.

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Interestingly, even though her students raised racism, she attempted to settle the topic using gender. I reflected that, too often, conversations about race were taken up by more “comfortable” isms, such as sexism. This trend was apparent across many teachers in this study—gender closed conversations about race and racial justice. For many teachers, taking up discussions about race and racism is contentious and scary; thus, they often refrain, reframe, or simply refuse to engage in them (Gorski, 2019; Parker, 2016). When students open power-imbalanced, identity-linked bias concerns, such as racism, some educators might consider this too risky a topic for dialogue and avoid opening up discussions about unsettled issues (Hess & McAvoy, 2015). Raising unsettled issues in the classroom is a risk. For that reason many teachers use fact-based methodologies or “semicontroversial issues” that have a “scientifically approved right answer” (Noddings, 2012, p. 63). Still, even though the topic of evolution is “scientifically settled,” it could be presented as a semicontroversial issue in secular public schools. In discussing open or unsettled issues students might raise conspiracy theories or other misinformation. Hayward and Gronland (2021) suggest that the best way to handle this is to close the conversation. Entertaining these theories (which most often are racist or discriminatory) gives them further endurance. Circling back to the topic and discussion at hand in ways that are educative and offer critical thinking opportunities, such as critiquing news headlines or social media channels, is an example of how to temper risk, while intervening in ways that create lasting learning outcomes for students. Ms. Weaver chose not to address her students’ concerns about racism directly. Instead, she provided a genericized response to encourage them to voice what they felt. She added, “Sometimes when we share some things . . . we say things out in the open [that] might be upsetting and might be racist without people knowing, but we say it because we want to educate people about it.” Ms. Weaver’s presumption that “people” were uneducated or wanted to “educate” others about their point of view further complicated this discussion, as it shielded the reality of covert racism for those who had the privilege to ignore it. Meanwhile, the largely left-­ leaning, liberal student population carried the weight of conversations that would challenge racism. Ms. Weaver set her expectations high for engagement by the students. She consistently chose to address their apparent physical disengagement in the circle, continuing to elicit responses from students while pausing to refocus any students whose attention might have drifted from the circle

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conversation. One time, while the students were still in the circle, Ms. Weaver paused and calmly challenged a white male student, Robert, who had placed himself off to the side, outside of the circle, leaning against the wall. She said: “Robert, I can’t see you; would you please join our circle. Thank you.” Robert proceeded to move, but not without some protest. Sighing, he said: “I was so comfortable. Come on.” Ms. Weaver focused her attention back on the whole class and ignored his comment, proceeding to lead her discussion about norms for their circle discussions. While it was unclear whether Robert’s disengagement stemmed from the debate about setting criteria for addressing racist comments or assessing any models generally, he had felt motivated to tune out or at least to move away. Another time, Ms. Weaver continued to stimulate ideas for circle norms the group could agree on, summarizing her interpretation of the points that students raised: “Everyone contributes ideas that are to be respected; honest disagreement is acceptable, [and] personal attacks and criticism are not permitted.” Paul wanted to know: “What’s a personal attack?” She said it meant “personally targeting someone about their idea.” Paul challenged her: “What do you mean, do we not debate each other’s opinions then?” Ms. Weaver paused, refocusing a group of girls (of color) seated together whose attention seemed to have drifted, saying, “Excuse me, there’s a bit of chit-chat over there. [The girls stopped.] Thanks.” Then she addressed the student’s concern: “It’s a bit different, isn’t it, Paul, because you should be able to have a discussion with someone and them not attack you.” Not satisfied, Paul argued back: “What if it’s a really, really, really bad opinion? Then you should say something and get them to change how they think.” A Black female student, Rachel, now refocused on the group conversation, chimed in to offer clarification: “Yeah, but, like, it’s OK to criticize someone’s opinion, but you can’t criticize and attack them.” Another time, Ms. Weaver abstractly explored the concept of perspective taking with the students while setting clear boundaries. She affirmed the class ethos that she desired: “Discussion and debates are good, but personal attacks are not allowed.” The ensuing discussion about the nature of classroom dialogue prompted students to reflect on their capacity to empathize—a built-in opportunity for community building and inclusion. Ms. Weaver elicited examples of personal attacks and then, together with the students, reframed alternative options for responses. In this way, she modeled examples of what constructive communication might look like when disagreeing with someone while simultaneously using restorative

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approaches for classroom management during the circle, gently calling students back to attention when necessary. This modeling and the explicit discussion about the nature and ideals for disagreement are examples of how Ms. Weaver sought to develop students’ skills and ethical practices for constructive dialogue.

Generating Trust and Fostering Connection: The Fine Line Between Voice and Silence To encourage students to focus on self-care, Ms. Weaver used the circle to invite students to speak about what approaches they were already using. To start, she reviewed the circle agreements and the circle’s commitment to confidentiality. She suggested that the students think about their self-­ care strategies in terms of their physical, emotional, and relational well-­ being. She opened with a quote: “Do whatever it takes to make your life worth living, just don’t be mean.” The students then went around the circle and responded to Ms. Weaver’s guiding question. Someone made a joke about how chocolate could fix everything, and everyone responded with laughter. This humor lightened the energy in the room, and students appeared to perk up, engaging readily. Many mentioned things like getting enough sleep, using social media, playing games, asking for forgiveness, and eating well. Some students chose to pass and remained silent. One South Asian female student, Fatima, said she wanted to travel, but then went on to share that this fantasy stemmed from her feelings of confinement and sexism in her familial home: Because in my culture, girls are expected to be all nice and everything, but they can’t get away from their house, so like traveling would be a like a dream to escape it all. Like you should be able to do what you want to do.

This prompted another South Asian female student to share that she and her mother did all the cleaning in her home while her brother played outside and that her mother had told her that she had to get prepared for when she got married. Ms. Weaver responded to both students by saying, “This really does show that gender inequality is alive and well.” This naming of cultural norms illustrates how teachers may express implicit cultural knowledge in seemingly democratic spaces.

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Ms. Weaver went on to speak about her own experience of going away to live in Australia before starting university, saying this had helped her gain independence and freedom. While the two female students raised concerns about their plight for gender equality and independence, Ms. Weaver sought to acknowledge and empower these girls by voicing their experience as an example of inequality while also suggesting (indirectly, using herself as a model) how they could challenge their prescribed cultural roles by adopting a Western (affluent-class) practice of traveling during a gap year. In this way, even in a space readily prepared for varying perspectives, Ms. Weaver’s unintentionally loaded response, with its dominant cultural norms, conflicted with these students’ familial and cultural histories. During the circle, some students began to chat among themselves, and Ms. Weaver intervened, asking them to review the circle guidelines, reminding them that “the person who has the talking piece is the one speaking, and everyone else is listening.” She also called on a male student who was slumping, and then as he reluctantly sat up, she empathized: “You’re tired, aren’t you?” He agreed. Then she linked the incident to the lesson, suggesting that he reflect on what kind of self-care he might need, such as sleep and nutritious foods to help him feel better. The student appeared to reengage in the lesson, participating more readily in the circle. At the end of the circle, in a debriefing with Ms. Weaver, she shared with me her surprise at where her students went with the question she had asked. She had not expected such “dark responses with such tough emotions,” referring to student disclosures about gender inequity. The circle process had appeared to encourage her students to express themselves in a more profound way and in a way that Ms. Weaver herself—rooted in her cultural background—was not quite used to.

Holding the Dialogue Together: Contested and Unequal Spaces for Divergent Perspectives In the following weeks, Ms. Weaver chose to elicit students’ perspectives about discrimination, asking them why people discriminated against each other and naming some different ways discrimination occurred. Students offered responses such as physical appearance, race, money or possessions, religion, and age. Ms. Weaver affirmed all their answers and briefly expanded on the differing ways societal norms perpetuated discrimination.

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As students sat together in a circle, Ms. Weaver asked them to shift their seating, to close gaps in the circle. Throughout the school year, Ms. Weaver’s students had had many explicit lessons preparing for dialogue through circles and classroom discussions. By now, the talking-piece circle format allowed students to respond to other students’ perspectives in an open, dialogic manner. Conflict held the dialogue together, and the strong peer relationships allowed for respectful discourse (Bickmore, 2002). In an interview with me toward the end of the school year, Ms. Weaver explained her reasoning: “I have a really difficult class this year, and the circle really helps them. I know they want to talk about issues, and this provides them with a platform to do so.” Ms. Weaver began one circle session by asking students to share their experiences of being discriminated against. She encouraged them by disclosing something of her own experience first, sharing and showing some personal artifacts: a framed photo of herself taken when she was 15, and her experience of seeing her dad in Australia. This story got the students’ attention. They all perked up when they heard their teacher’s story about getting turned down for a job as dishwasher she had applied for in a restaurant in Australia. Many students laughed and asked her questions about her traveling experience and suggested that she didn’t get the job because she was young. Ms. Weaver affirmed that that was likely the case—she didn’t get the job because she was not male; she did not, however, say anything to complicate her white identity. The Controversy About Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Ms. Weaver then passed the talking piece to a female student of color with South Asian ancestry, Radhika. Radhika shared her discomfort with the policy that some bathrooms should be gender neutral: “They have one at my cousin’s school, and now one here too, and I just don’t think they deserve it.” Ms. Weaver asked Radhika directly: “So, you’re saying that you’re uncomfortable with gender-neutral bathrooms?” She used a tone that gave the student space to expand her perspective, which Radhika did: “Like they’re for kindergarteners, but to have a gender-neutral bathroom in a high school is weird.” When she finished speaking, a few students attempted to respond to her, and six students (all male, some South Asian and some white) raised their hands. Ms. Weaver silenced the voices,

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saying, “Sshhhh, we’re using the talking piece,” and then went silent before responding: I just want to say that this is part of a much bigger conversation about gender identity and transgender people, and this is why it’s important to have these conversations because I think the more you understand each other and ask each other questions, [the more] it becomes something that is actually quite normal.

Ms. Weaver then restated her question, asking students to consider their personal experiences of being treated differently based on their identities such as religion, skin color, or gender. Some students chose to pass as she passed the talking piece, looking down. Others shared how they had seen physical altercations that resulted from instances of ageism, or observed how people who were homeless or who had a mental illness were treated, or noticed discrimination against homosexuals, citing how some had had their jobs taken away because they were gay. Instead of sharing a personal experience, one white male student, Lee, chose to respond to Radhika’s comment about gender-neutral bathrooms: I just wanted to respond to Radhika to say something about the gender-­ neutral washrooms, because first of all we need washrooms for gender-­ neutral people because if somebody doesn’t want to be called him or she and they’re forced to go to a girl’s washroom or boy’s washroom, then how is that going to make them feel? I don’t really agree with not having it.

After speaking, Lee passed the talking piece to the male student directly beside him, who chose to continue this line of dialogue, arguing that he disagreed with his female peer’s comment, again saying that there were more than two genders and pointing out that “gender-neutral and transgender people wouldn’t feel comfortable” having to choose one or the other. The conflict dialogue in this circle allowed for students to constructively respond to each other in a relatively safe context.  In the following weeks, Ms. Weaver facilitated a circle connected to her health curriculum, which explicitly focused on diverse sexual identities. Students shared various perspectives on understanding masculine and feminine identities and respectfully listened to each other’s interpretations and understandings. Here, Ms. Weaver took the opportunity to expand on students’ perspectives about diverse sexual identities and continued to use the circle process to elicit students’ constructive dialogue and communication about this morally sensitive justice issue.

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Negotiating Morality in Circles: Spoken and Unspoken Perspectives Even in a classroom where the teacher consistently integrated opportunities for restorative dialogue, some voices remained hidden. Many students shared compelling experiences of exclusion, oppression, or difficult difference. For example, some students shared experiences of having an autistic sibling or having gay parents, divorced parents, or mothers whom they barely knew. However, it became apparent in these sharing circles that everyone’s issues were not always taken up equitably. Some stories remained unexplored and unattended to. When this happened, those students would often choose not to participate in subsequent circles, or they appeared disconnected from the process. For instance, one South Asian female student, Priya, openly spoke about her physical disability for the first time in front of her peers: Well, it might be very obvious that I get discriminated against by lots of people because of the swelling in my arm. A lot of people assume I can’t do stuff, or it’s broken, or I’m disabled. I can’t do anything about it. . . they just hurt my feelings a lot.

Some of Priya’s peers appeared to be listening to her; others looked down or away from her. Neither her peers nor Ms. Weaver chose to respond to her. Priya was academically strong; privately, Ms. Weaver told me that she believed she would “be the next Prime Minister.” Still, while she had had the opportunity to share her experience of being discriminated against, having her story unacknowledged in the circle appeared to fuel her sense of being marginalized. These incidents raise questions about how to facilitate peace-circle sharing in ways that allow participants to be acknowledged as well as heard—choosing not to take up or acknowledge this student’s admission of her discrimination furthered her silence. When I observed her in class during subsequent lessons, nothing much had changed for her—she studiously did her work, chatted quietly with the two friends she had at her table, and maintained her typical steady silence. Because of the nature of circle dialogue, particularly the circulation of the talking piece around (rather than across) the group, circle participants may share open and raw experiences yet never be personally affirmed or addressed. In some cases, circle facilitators, like Ms. Weaver, may offer a

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general summary of experiences or feelings participants have shared or personally comment on a few interesting questions and responses. However, when teachers in this study passed the talking piece around without such summary or responsive, inclusive questioning, some issues were left unaddressed, and experiences were not acknowledged. It is also possible that some participants felt further marginalized or even traumatized, their voices and perspectives excluded after taking the risk to speak up. Depending on the participants, facilitator, and scheduled time allocated for circles, specific issues and certain dominant or well-­articulated voices can be validated and empowered. In contrast, others may be disempowered (Parker & Bickmore, 2021). When one student’s perspective is unacknowledged, their disengagement can increase. Thus, even when teachers and schools intend to create a restorative environment, power and privilege remain present. Certain bodies, stories, and experiences are at times taken up more deeply in circle dialogue, while other experiences are left unacknowledged, unchallenged, and at times silenced. When people who voice experiences of discrimination—especially people who hold marginalized identities—they may open up raw emotions. This is a challenging process. Facilitators and participants must acknowledge each perspective—yet with junior elementary students, for example, the topics that students raise are vast and diverse and quickly change course as dialogue ensues about one matter or another. Topics might shift suddenly from discussing a serious issue about a student’s lived experience of exclusion to discussing a trending online game. Transitions can be constant and fast-paced. These moments in the classroom circle dialogue illustrate how power dynamics shaped who spoke and who was acknowledged and affirmed for speaking. In an individual interview, Ms. Weaver spoke about such experiences with circles: Perception informs reality, and language really shapes who we are. We’re doing circles to address behavioral issues, and one really big one is cyberbullying; and in one incident, I thought they would get that what they posted [online] was wrong, but they didn’t, and they actually sat there justifying it instead of recognizing anything was wrong—the majority of them thought it was OK. That’s something that really threw us off, and we weren’t prepared for that: that they didn’t really think anything was wrong. To them, there was no conflict, and it was just the way they talked.

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In this situation, the students’ perceptions had conflicted with the teacher’s goal of using the circle to discuss the online attack they had observed as a conflict. At the same time, students’ perceptions of justice presumably were also impacted by power dynamics between and among students, since those with greater power (such as the instigators of the online bullying) had generated a script of compliance and acceptance of put-downs that permeated the group dynamics. In this way, the students’ unequally distributed social and cultural capital carried weight in classroom discussions and impacted the outcome of this discussion.

Gaining Expertise in Expressing Different Perspectives Toward the end of the school year, facilitating an individual reflection exercise, Ms. Weaver asked her students to think about a situation in which they would have a different opinion from another student and how they would respond. Most students reported that they would discuss and justify their own opinion, respectfully wait their turn, and respond positively to their peers: If I ever had a different opinion from a certain person, I’d wait till they finish their statement. Then I’d politely say, “sorry, I don’t agree with your statement,” and give an excellent reason why. Ask them why they picked that opinion and tell them why you picked your opinion. So you won’t have a problem with your friends or peers.

During small-group interviews, students shared their feelings about participating in circles and their approaches to navigating different opinions and perspectives. They discussed responding positively using various terms: calm, respectful, honest, polite, and nice. They mentioned listening to other students, understanding their perspectives, and asking questions. Students also shared other ideas, like faking agreement, keeping their opinions to themselves, and arguing until the other student agreed: “tell them mine [opinion, and] if they don’t like it, I’ll remind them I don’t like theirs.” In interviews, some students reported positive experiences in circles, which had allowed them to share their opinions with their peers: “sharing all types of feelings, like, sentiments, happiness, laughter, not to mention the circle shape makes everyone able to see each other and be seen.” In

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contrast, other students reported feelings of indifference toward circles, saying they had been nervous that they would be judged or felt weird and awkward. A few students reported that they did not like circles; they did not like the pressure they felt during circles or felt so judged that they began judging themselves. As part of a whole-class reflection, I invited students to pose questions for the group about their circle experience. One Black female student, Anika, who rarely participated aloud in circles, suggested asking whether people had shared truthfully in circle dialogues. Anika felt that her initial attempt to speak her truth had not been acknowledged. In her reflection, she said she shared only “half-truths” when in circle. When other students were asked this, they also reported that they had not always shared truthfully. The exercise allowed Anika to find a way to articulate that her truth (and identity) had not necessarily felt welcome and had not been previously included in the classroom circle space. This was risky to say aloud in class: there may have been others who felt this way. Even in this classroom community, where consistent attention was paid to constructive communication and inclusive relationships, a sense of exclusion had led to the silencing of some students and their refusal to share their true selves. Still, students’ voice and perspective sharing increased over the school year, and so did female students’ participation, in general. The circles contributed to relationship building between students and between the students and the teacher. Most students appeared in observations to become more comfortable sharing their perspectives and experiences on conflictual issues. They seemed to become more confident about taking a stand on controversial issues, even if their peers disagreed. Finally, circles and other restorative justice practices provided a safe space for students to share grievances and discuss the impact of interpersonal conflict issues in the classroom. Some of the pedagogical challenges Ms. Weaver identified in our interview focused on her skills in facilitating circles, logistics such as time and place, and on student participation. A supportive administration contributed to this teacher’s motivation to continually use circles with confidence and engage with students’ perceptions. Most students shared that they would choose to participate in a circle to resolve a conflict. Some felt that more ideas could be generated through circle-based problem solving. One student said: “I’d suggest participating [in a circle] because you get some feedback on how to solve ideas, and

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others can help you get through hard times.” Still, not all students supported using circles for addressing interpersonal conflicts. One of them said: “I wouldn’t want to feel uncomfortable. It’s hard enough to be a kid, but to be a kid with things going on in your life and everybody knowing about it when you didn’t want them to know is even harder.” In many ways, circles seem to remove the protection that silence and anonymity can offer students. Overall, these intermediate students expressed how relationships were challenging and felt isolating at times. While some readily engaged with the circle process as a tool to navigate challenging dialogue, others felt compelled to disengage. Still, in being taught how to use constructive communication, set boundaries, and build empowering relationships, students learned to develop trusting and healthy relationships with friends, intimate partners, and family. Through Ms. Weaver’s deliberate discussion about 2SLGBTQ+ issues, some students expressed, in the circle, the importance of not holding stereotypes, mainly when it came to sexual identity. The students’ willingness to share in the circle illustrated their understandings of their individual uniqueness. Through participating in discussing various case studies and role-play scenarios, they reported feeling empowered to share how they would set their boundaries in various relationships; they practiced saying No. Setting boundaries and acknowledging the importance of consent was crucial learning for these students. In the space of this series of lesson observations, the students appeared to have developed a better understanding of the nature of relationships. Engaging in relational pedagogy, they learned about healthy and equitable relationships. Students waited their turn to speak and, when they felt compelled to do so, many also expressed disagreement with their peers. Ms. Weaver, through her commitment to working through the complexities of restorative justice pedagogy, said in an interview how her own perspective and values at times interfered with how various students felt empowered to make their views be better heard. In the end, Ms. Weaver felt that her class, one of the most difficult ones that she had taught in her career, became one of the strongest in terms of how they came to respectfully communicate with each other even in moments of disagreement, when apparent, and how their strong relationships appeared to impact their overall engagement in her implemented curriculum.

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Ms. Rossi: Moving from Peacemaking Circles to Community Discussions Ms. Rossi, skilled at using circles to facilitate inclusion and resolve conflicts peacefully, used circles to teach her science and language arts curriculum. She had come to the board-wide training with a strong background in circle practice. She used science as a place where she could invite circles into her classroom for students  to share both what they were learning about and what they were struggling with. In a classroom where relationships were strong, because of her consistent attention to community building, she intuitively felt that the circle process would encourage her students to raise their concerns about science concepts they found challenging. Despite working in her own silo, Ms. Rossi took it upon herself to build the kind of principles she felt would allow restorative justice to flourish. She had the same class of students for two years in a row. She initially only used circles to resolve interpersonal conflicts. However, at one point in her process, she felt that it was too much. “I’m not a child psychologist,” she confided to me during a debriefing after her class. She described feeling inadequate and ill-equipped to handle the kinds of disclosures her students began to feel comfortable disclosing. Ms. Rossi, having no colleagues or administrator to talk with about her process, thought that she needed to scale back her approach, and instead felt that curriculum integration would, for her, be a safer and possibly more engaging approach: Most of the boys said they hated circles, and a lot of the girls said they liked circles. The girls all said I should keep circles, and most of the boys said to get rid of them and dump them. This year, I still tried to integrate circles, and I did it in STEM and language. And that seemed to work a lot better than how I started with it last year, where I focused more on discipline and problem solving. This year, it’s more about the novel studies we’ve done, where we’ve focused on characters and their experiences and relating them to the students’ lives.

I observed Ms. Rossi’s science class as she prepared them for a unit that she had designed to facilitate collaboration between students. She asked them what it meant to collaborate and what that would look like in their science class. As students shared principles of interdependence, they began to make connections to biodiversity. While they didn’t speak to deep interpersonal conflicts, they did establish the kind of relationships that would allow for a more robust delivery of her programming. By the end of the

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school year, Ms. Rossi’s students were preparing for several science competitions that they entered. Ms. Rossi appreciated the flexibility she felt she had with circles: With circle, I really like the flexibility, and [the trainers] really spoke to using it with where your class is at and your class’s personality, and I liked that. It didn’t just have to be about the problem stuff; with circle, it could just be about a novel study, and the depth you can get to in circle is deep, that you maybe can’t get to in another way, or even on how you collaborate on an engineering project or for learning skills, and I think that training gave me permission to play with that a little bit more.

Ms. Rossi also designed a unit study on poverty and homelessness and held many community circles connected to that work. At times, however, she felt that she could have used a circle but felt too constrained for time to set it up. She had 30 students in her tiny classroom, making it challenging to move the desks and chairs physically. She continued to work with the process, embedding the principles and being flexible with the outcomes: I see places where I could have used a circle to highlight some things and get students to share what they thought equally, but it was just easier and more time-efficient to leave them in their regular seats . . . my bad.

She went on to say that she had ended up having many “community discussions” where she drew on the principles of circles while students remained in their seats. These whole-class discussions show how teachers could dissect the tenets of the process to apply them to conversations that happen outside of the physical circle.

Managing Intense Feelings and Experiences in Circles: A Trauma-Informed Approach Given that Ms. Rossi was not in a restorative school, there were no real expectations for how she would take up the process and deal with subsequent conflicts. At first, Ms. Rossi was enthusiastic about circles; however, over time, she became more reticent. She decided to use circles to introduce a new novel about poverty, addictions, and mental health. (See Chap. 5 for the complete details.). After each chapter they did a circle to share their thoughts and feelings about it.

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Initially, Ms. Rossi felt that this experience contributed to her students sharing a conflictual experience equally. She described this intense circle process as a positive experience for her new students, who felt included and on an equal footing with each other. However, she felt hesitant to continue when she realized that many of her students’ experiences were deeply connected to poverty. Many of her students were refugees and came from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and the story reflected many of their histories of trauma. Thus, she felt that addressing this topic in her class would not allow for the kind of cognitive dissonance that would promote the  learning  she  had  envisioned. Instead, after her  initial excitement,  Ms. Rossi felt that it would prove harmful for her to continue to critically interrogate and ask students to speak about their connections to this topic. Without adequate support about what to do, she scaled back the depth with which she explored the character’s life; she panicked. Over time, she felt less compelled to engage in her circle practice. When I checked in with Ms. Rossi five years after she was trained, she said to me: “I did fade away from circles in the last three years for several reasons: I had several kids sabotage the process and be really negative about them, and then there was an increase in mental health issues (including the suicide of a student). I just didn’t feel like I could cope with managing the circle when strong feelings (including my own) came up. I tried to keep the spirit of them going, but I wasn’t doing circles.” Her actions raise questions about whose voice was privileged and what silenced voices might mean, particularly when students are experiencing emotional trauma. Nevertheless, this fear about what to do when students share personal experiences is genuine—and often a moment when teachers and administrators begin to question the use of circles. Ms. Harding’s principal, for example, was adamantly against circles because he feared what the students would share: I’m relating it to the videos and the interactions I had in the training. I had people talk about very severe bullying, very hurtful and traumatic, and I don’t think that [Ms. Harding] or myself or anybody in this school is able to resolve that, and we’ll need to contact CAS [Children’s Aid Society] if we need it.

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This administrator’s legitimate fear constrained his support for circles. It caused him to give what he felt was a stern warning to the one teacher at his school who used circles: If you’re going to, it must be about the curriculum.  . . .  Don’t bring in personal experiences or anything from home. We live in a low-income community, and one student will say that “well, this happened at home,” and another one could come in and say, “well, this happened to me,” and it’s going to be very, very negative…. I’m not going to support that.

The feeling of unpreparedness when students bring up their personal experiences is unsettling and downright scary. Had Ms. Rossi and Ms. Harding been at the same school, they could have joined forces to support each other. Instead, each continued to do their circle work independently. Ms. Harding pushed the boundaries prescribed by her administrator, and Ms. Rossi weakened her practice to align with the sort of ideas that Ms. Harding’s principal articulated above. A trauma-informed restorative justice approach recognizes how trauma shapes students’ lives (Brummer, 2020). Their experiences (and those of their teachers) impact the depth to which they open themselves up to be loved and included. Even in classrooms where teachers make consistent efforts to connect with them, children may be so covered with layers of shame and hurt that they are hard to reach. They may carry deep wounds from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as from adverse experiences such as the divorce of parents or guardians, witnessing violence, living with people who have a mental health condition or are addicted to substances, relatives who are incarcerated, and the racial trauma of being mistreated because of their race (Crouch et al., 2019). These factors all impact how young people make sense of the world around them (Reinbergs & Fefer, 2018; M. S. Thomas et al., 2019). Ms. Rossi continued to have students request circles to debrief incidents. They wanted to come together to build relationships. For instance, a group of female students felt that the boys in the class didn’t believe that gender inequality still existed and wanted to use the circle process to help the boys understand. Despite her depth of knowledge and skills with

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consistent practice, Ms. Rossi still felt that the topic was too hot. She did not think she had the skills to address it.

Both Teachers: Delivering Curriculum With Relationships in Mind: Acknowledging Experiences to Build Capacities for Empathy Ms. Weaver’s health unit and Ms. Rossi’s science unit included careful planning and attention to building healthy relationships. Both sets of students were exposed to learning about relationships through dialogue pedagogies such as a relationship-focused pedagogical tool: peace circles. In keeping with the findings of Morrison’s (2007) multilevel approach to restorative justice practices in schools, students’ relationships appeared to deepen over the year as they participated in circle dialogue. These teachers were drawn to restorative approaches because they wanted to push back against inequitable approaches to teaching that silenced their marginalized students. To maximize opportunities for building trusting relationships, they invited restorative dialogue to bring their students closer together while examining curricular content and creating trusting relationships. Using equitable pedagogies allowed for the necessary conditions for students to learn safely (Osher et al., 2018). Making consensus-building statements, listening, paraphrasing, and acknowledging all participants are crucial facilitation moves in the circle process. How to effectively respond to and recognize all voices that have (or have not) been heard in the circle is a thorny question, one that is missing in the development and implementation of restorative circle pedagogies in classrooms. When facilitators make a point of acknowledging someone’s story—for instance, their experience living in oppressive or violent conflict situations—they demonstrate how to empathize with others who share traumatic experiences and thereby choose to encourage students’ moral development (Jackson, 2014; Zembylas, 2007). For instance, in one circle, when one student shared that her friend had died, the person beside her said, “I’m sorry that happened to you,” when the talking piece was first passed to her, before sharing her response to the facilitator’s question. This immediate acknowledgment allowed the student who had disclosed a painful experience to be immediately validated while also maintaining the principles of the talking piece. Such empathetic peer responses are learned through modeling and practice.

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Ms. Rossi felt that she needed to decenter emotional work, focusing instead on what she thought would be safer—curricular topics. Either way, the circle is an educative process that engages diverse perspectives in dialogue and discussion; however, each teacher’s level of comfort ultimately shapes the nature of that dialogue. Ms. Weaver and Ms. Rossi sometimes resisted engaging students in critical dialogue, or tried to maintain a sense of neutrality, thus avoiding conflict and thereby not disrupting the status quo (C. L. Duckworth, 2015). At other times, Ms. Weaver found ways to engage contrasting voices and perspectives in a restorative or potentially transformative manner. In both classes, students’ participation in circle dialogue allowed them to build the kind of skills that would be useful in their future careers. Teachers’ roles in teaching young people moral principles for preserving human dignity and well-being are critical and complicated (D’Olimpio, 2019). Inviting the expression of diverse perspectives takes courage; it also involves careful planning and preparation. Because of the emotional work involved in setting up and sustaining the practice, teachers need to implement structural pedagogical shifts to promote curricular development through circles. As we saw in these scenarios, teachers guided peer relationships and subsequent dialogue between students, and facilitated the circles. Adult-led circles in schools are inherently hierarchical. Students’ experiences of oppression were at times reflected in their teachers’ biases, which they unconsciously supported. In a restorative justice classroom, inclusive, mutually responsive dialogue is expected, nurtured, and applied to increasingly complex issues over time. Using discussion, students showed their capability to work through conflict, engage wholeheartedly with divergent ideas, and situate themselves within a strong classroom community. These contexts are ripe for engagement: students air divergent perspectives, and the platform of the well-facilitated restorative peace-circle process for classroom dialogue enables them to engage readily. Key Takeaways • Two key factors are critical for building relationships: set the stage for dialogue and engage multiple perspectives. • Maintaining a perceived sense of neutrality reinforces the status quo.

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• Even when teachers are supported by their administrator, their confidence wanes; deepening opportunities for teachers’ emotional support and the connection is necessary. • Lack of administrative support and interest leads to teachers working in silos; the potential for restorative implementation weakens without support. • Delivering a curriculum with relationships in mind means attending to how students are experiencing their learning. • A trauma-informed approach to restorative justice acknowledges students’ experiences, supports healing, and leads to deep inclusion to facilitate their learning and engagement at school. Questions for Reflection • How can we support teachers and administrators who fear students’ sharing personal experiences? • Is it possible for the curriculum to be detached from students’ experiences? • How can we recognize students’ experiences and perspectives in ways that empower them? • How do students’ identities (race, culture, ability, socioeconomic status) contribute to teachers’ choices to take up conflicts?

References Bialystok, L. (2019). Ontario teachers’ perceptions of the controversial update to sexual health and human development. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation, 42(1), 1–41. Bickmore, K. (2002). Learning/regulating gendered social citizenship in school. Theory & Research in Social Education, 30(3), 456–461. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/00933104.2002.10473205 Blackmore, J. (2010). “The other within”: Race/gender disruptions to the professional learning of white educational leaders. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 13(1), 45–61. Brummer, J. (2020). Building a trauma-informed restorative school: Skills and approaches for improving culture and behavior. Jessica Kingsley. Cotter, A., & Savage, L. (2019). Gender-based violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2018: Initial findings from the survey of safety in public and private spaces. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85–002-­x/ 2019001/article/00017-­eng.htm

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Crouch, E., Probst, J. C., Radcliff, E., Bennett, K. J., & McKinney, S. H. (2019). Prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among US children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 92, 209–218. D’Olimpio, L. (2019). Moral education within the social contract: Whose contract is it anyway? Journal of Moral Education, 48(4), 515–528. Duckworth, C. L. (2015). History, memory, and peace education: History’s hardest questions in the classroom. Peace and Change, 40(2), 167–193. Gorski, P. C. (2019, April). Avoiding racial equity detours. Educational Leadership, 76(6), 56–61. Hammarén, N. (2022, January 23). Are bullying and reproduction of educational inequality the same thing? Towards a multifaceted understanding of school violence. Power and Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/17577438211052650 Hayward, J., & Gronland, G. (2021). Conspiracy theories in the classroom: Guidance for teachers. https://www.skillsnorthtyneside.org.uk/wp-­content/ uploads/2021/11/ConsipiracyTheoriesClassroom.pdf Hess, D., & McAvoy, P. (2015). The political classroom: Evidence and ethics in democratic education. Routledge. Jackson, S. J. (2014, February). Rethinking repair. In T. Gillespie, P. J. Boczkowski, & K. A. Foot (Eds.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (pp.  221–239). MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/ 9780262525374.003.0011 Morrison, B. E. (2007). Restoring safe school communities: A whole school response to bullying, violence and alienation. Federation Press. Noddings, N. (2012). Peace education: How we come to love and hate war. Cambridge University Press. Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2018). Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development. Applied Developmental Science, 22(1), 1–31. Parker, C. A. (2016). Peacebuilding, citizenship, and identity: Empowering conflict and dialogue in multicultural classrooms. Brill. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2012). Conflict management and dialogue with diverse immigrant students: Novice teachers’ approaches and concerns. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), 47–64. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2020). Classroom peace circles: Teachers’ professional learning and implementation of restorative dialogue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 95, 1–10. Parker, C. A., & Bickmore, K. (2021). Complexity in restorative justice education circles: Power and privilege in voicing perspectives about sexual health, identities, and relationships. Journal of Moral Education, 50(4), 471–493. Reinbergs, E. J., & Fefer, S. A. (2018). Addressing trauma in schools: Multitiered service delivery options for practitioners. Psychology in the Schools, 55(3), 250–263.

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Souto-Manning, M. (2022, April). On the exploitation of cooperating teachers of color: Clinical practice as racial capitalism. Teaching and Teacher Education, 112, 103564. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103564 Thomas, M. S., Crosby, S., & Vanderhaar, J. (2019). Trauma-informed practices in schools across two decades: An interdisciplinary review of research. Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 422–452. Vaught, S. E., & Castagno, A. E. (2008). “I don’t think I’m a racist”: Critical race theory, teacher attitudes, and structural racism. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(2), 95–113. Weis, L., & Carbonell-Medina, D. (2000). Learning to speak out in an abstinence-­ based sex education group: Gender and race work in an urban magnet school. Teachers College Record, 102(3), 620–650. Zembylas, M. (2007). Theory and methodology in researching emotions in education. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 30(1), 57–72.

CHAPTER 7

Classrooms of Control and Connection: Restorative Approaches to Building Community and Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts

Illustration 7.1  Abacus thinking in the circle by PhDcartoon © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_7

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Conflict, when engaged constructively, can impact relational connection in ways that contribute to positive peacebuilding. An effective restorative justice process is the product of consistent training, practice, and attention to relational dynamics. The one circumstance where RJE will undoubtedly be ineffective is where teachers and students do not trust each other. A strong restorative justice practice requires teacher training and support, mentorship and coaching during the first year of implementation, and deep awareness of how power and privilege can show up in circle dynamics. Building on that foundation, the teachers showcased here managed conflict through restorative dialogue, using pedagogical strategies and principles of relationality. How students experienced conflict in the classroom reflected the classroom culture. For example, when students or teachers raised conflicts in harmful ways, such as attacking each other based on false claims or misinformation, the potential for relational connection deteriorated. The teachers in this chapter used conflict constructively, to build community, to provoke engagement and learning, and to repair harm. This proactive, educative approach nurtured and sustained an equitable dialogue. From early primary classes to upper elementary students (ages 7 to 13), when students experienced constructive conflict dialogue, they described feeling validated and connected, regardless of subject area and grade level. In this chapter, I start by illustrating how three math teachers created a restorative classroom through dialogue and relationships. These teachers approached math through relationally centered approaches, integrating the subject into the daily rhythm of their classroom. Next, I provide an example of a primary classroom that created a restorative culture through daily circles and restorative conversations yet failed to develop sustained connections with students. I close with Ms. Weaver’s intermediate classroom; in her fifth year of implementation, she struggled with implementing restorative justice in a classroom with many divisive cliques and groups. Equitable and inclusive relationships—between students, students and teachers, and students and administrators—are critical for a successful restorative justice approach in education. Without developing these vital relationships and focusing on restorative dialogue principles that offer spaces for inclusion and resistance, the process quickly wavers. Most of the teachers profiled in this chapter had many years of experience teaching restoratively. Their various approaches to building connection, community, and conversation were related to their personal goals

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and interpretation of what a restorative classroom looks like. These teachers’ stories show how restorative justice in classrooms can go beyond circles. Their restorative justice pedagogies included conversations they facilitated, focusing on centering relationships and repairing harm— whether that harm came from peers at the school, from dominant societal discourse, or from how content was usually presented in the mandated curriculum.

Restorative Justice in Mathematics: Identifying Productive Conflict Experiences for Dialogic Engagement I learned how three math teachers and their students nurtured conflict and prioritized relationships while observing Grades 6, 7, and 8 classrooms. The teachers, all at the same school, consistently spoke about encountering constructive conflicts in their math program. Drawing on Boaler’s (2002) work, they talked about nurturing a growth mindset in their classrooms. This involved reframing students’ fixed attitudes (or negative thoughts), such as “When I’m frustrated, I give up” to “When I’m frustrated, I persevere.” The drawback in positioning students’ learning through a growth mindset is that it focuses on competition and performance, which, like over-praising, can effectively shut down students’ interest and intellectual engagement (Kohn, 2015). These teachers— uncritical of the mindset approach—drew on restorative pedagogical methods to generate a better outcome for student learning. They challenged traditional approaches to math education, by deviating from the textbook and focusing on student-led, problem-based learning opportunities (Boaler, 2015). In this way, constructively conflictual and dialogic pedagogy allowed for deeper math engagement. Two of the three teachers had taken training in restorative justice 11 years before, with the same administrator who had trained the other teachers in this study. The other teacher had had training in students’ social and emotional learning and in integrating dialogue and problem solving in math curricula. While all were passionate about constructively working through problems, the two teachers trained in restorative justice appeared to have much more profound relationships with their students. This was evident in how they centered students’ feelings and experiences when conflict arose in their classroom. These teachers’ approaches deepened students’ interest in working through problems. Since these three

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math teachers were all at the same school, their professional learning community presumably influenced their commitment and confidence in refining their classroom practice to provide critical opportunities for dialogue and reflection (Larsen & McCormick, 2021). According to Boaler and other math scholars, testing crushes students’ spirits (Boaler, 2014; Clements & Sarama, 2020). For instance, students who use alternative methods or work at a different pace often internalize feelings of being incapable or develop math anxiety and may disengage from this curricular area altogether (Harper & Daane, 1998; Stoehr, 2017). Clearly, the focus on achievement creates debilitating consequences for students who have different approaches to solving problems (Namkung et al., 2019). Fraction Anxiety: Addressing Fraction Fear Through Emotional Connection Ms. Davis always greeted her Grade 8 math class students as they came in. She stood by the door as they arrived; she smiled and asked how they were doing. One time, she followed up with a student who had been absent the day before, quietly asking her how she was feeling and if her headache had dissipated. Ms. Davis exemplified care and inclusion in a multitude of ways. She described her approach to teaching as one from a social and community development perspective. After having a career in community work before coming to education, she saw the importance of building and sustaining relationships with her students. Her approach to nurturing connection was evident in how she taught math. Ms. Davis was a resource teacher; that is, she did not have a homeroom class. She taught special education and math to students who came from three different Grade 7/8 split classrooms. Of the 20 students, 11 were female, and 7 were students of color. The students sat in paired groupings and often worked together to solve math problems and discuss their processes. The pairs of desks were diagonally positioned facing a smartboard in the corner of the room. There was a round table at the front of the room, and the teacher’s desk, which appeared to be rarely used, was at the back of the classroom. The walls were covered in posters promoting positivity and encouragement. At the front of the classroom were signs that provided sentence starters to engage with conflict constructively, such as “I agree with you because,” “I would like to add on to what [name of peer] said about . . . ,” and “I disagree

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with you because. . . .” Also at the front, a sign of Math Class Commitments outlined the importance of productive struggle in math. It listed philosophical commitments such as learning from mistakes, taking risks, persevering through difficulties, and giving all voices an opportunity. Other posters were about accountable talk. They focused on behaviors such as staying focused, asking questions, sharing knowledge, encouraging others, and cooperating. In an interview, Ms. Davis spoke about inspiring accountability in her classroom. Her students needed to be accountable to each other in their language choices. This meant creating space for students to explore conflicts in math: “The struggle is really important, and mistakes are really important,” she said. By encouraging her students to believe in themselves, she also created space to develop their resilience and resistance when engaging with math problems. She firmly believed that everyone could learn math at a higher level and that these techniques were fundamental to making that happen. Ms. Davis described how important it was for her students to have mental breaks while doing math. At the back of the classroom was a makeshift divider, creating a small space that housed an exercise bike, a place to store games, and noise-canceling headphones for those who needed them. Typically, after 30 to 40 minutes of instruction, she encouraged her students to take a mental break. During this break time, I observed how various students opted to go to the back of the room to ride the bike or pick up the headphones; others played the board games. Meanwhile, some students continued to work at their desks. Ms. Davis felt that she and many of her colleagues believed in restorative justice in education, but they ran into a problem—“people power,” a lack of capacity to navigate the conflicts. In an interview, she described the struggle they encountered when they had to find people available to cover classes for them so that they could go to another room and do a circle with students who might be involved in an incident. To bring affected parties together, some schools have a designated circle room, while others may use the principal’s office, or an empty classroom. While Ms. Davis did not practice ongoing formal circles in her math class, she did engage in many dialogic processes, to build community and students’ sense of confidence in this presumably difficult subject matter. She invited various students to prepare and teach a lesson, which included offering support to their peers as they worked out problems related to the student-taught task. Before each student-led study, she would encourage

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students in the “audience” to think of how they could be their best during the lesson: their answers— “eye contact” and “active listening”—reflected restorative communication norms. She worked with students one-on-one at the round table and consistently encouraged them to articulate how they saw the problem. She promoted inquiry and dialogic pedagogy by encouraging students to ask questions; she always said to her students: “there is no such thing as a dumb question.” She commended students who emailed her to ask for an extension on their work, reminding them that this was an essential skill for when they went to university. One female student approached Ms. Davis and quietly explained that she did not finish her math homework the night before, due to volleyball practice, and asked if she could hand it in Monday. Ms. Davis’s gentle tone remained intact as she listened, nodding, and told her that would be fine. However, she still held the student accountable by reminding her that since she had handed the homework out earlier in the week, the student had had other evenings in which to complete it, and to please keep that in mind next time. The student nodded and said thank you, returning to her work at her desk. Ms. Davis’s relational approach to teaching math in her predominantly white classroom focused on providing accountability and tools for conflict management when students struggled with difficult math topics. She encouraged conflict dialogue and sustained reflection on difficult topics. While she did not directly address anti-oppression, her approach centered on creating an inclusive space for all her students, going beyond a focus on achievement—and in addition focusing on their experiences. One day when her students walked into their daily math class, the smartboard displayed the topic of day: fractions. Students moaned out loud, and Charles, a (white) male student said: “Awww, fractions!” Other students started to chime in as well, expressing their frustration. Ms. Davis let the students settle into their seats. She then said that she had heard quite a bit of negativity around them and wanted to know why they felt that way. A second male student, Robert, raised his hand: “When I actually saw fractions [on the board], I actually started choking.” A third male student, Jona, chimed in, saying he didn’t like them, and when Ms. Davis asked, calmly, “why?” many students began answering simultaneously. Vince, an East Asian male student, said: “When are you going to use fractions in your life?” Ms. Davis repeated this question to the class, and Linda, a white female student, responded: “To be honest, when would you ever use Grade 8 math in your life?” Her white male peer, Chris,

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responded, telling her that you must be able to read the contract when you buy a house. Ms. Davis responded that, when Linda was famous, she would need to read her business contracts. The students continued discussing how math would be helpful, and Charles asked when they would ever need to use pie charts, and Jona responded that there was no point, while Vince stated that you would only use some math if you had a job that required it. Ms. Davis assured the students that, even if they would not be using it for work, it was still important for them to learn how to read, analyze, and input data. She reminded them of how important it was to understand and interpret information. Ms. Davis wanted her students to prepare for adult life. She held them accountable for continuing higher education and entering a competitive workforce with relevant skills. She also promoted relationship and community building, assuring them: You’re all capable of doing and learning math, and it’s OK to struggle with it, and making mistakes is actually really important. Everyone is capable of learning math to the highest level. There is no such thing as a math person and a non-math person. Struggles and mistakes are important, so remember that you always learn from them, and your brain is working the hardest when you’re struggling. And last, you need to believe in yourself and take your time, and speed is not important.

Ms. Davis’s choice to temporarily suspend her lesson and engage in a no-blame manner with this conflict repositioned how students connected with their new unit on fractions. She continued leading the students through their lesson, giving them time to work with a peer and to practice the exercises. She then invited them to share their process and pointed out: “I’ve noticed that I haven’t heard from any of the girls in the class today. Perhaps I should say those that identify as girls.” As a teacher who was openly gay and had children, Ms. Davis told the class that people did not always make things easy for her. She had often experienced exclusion and intolerance, especially in the early days of her career in education. After being invited in this inclusive manner, a typically quieter white female student, Rosa, said: “I will share, but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.” Ms. Davis stopped her, “Hold on, that’s not how we start our sentences,” and Rosa then corrected herself: “OK, well, I don’t know if I got this right.” Ms. Davis focused on cultivating relationships with her students. When conflict arose, she chose to validate their lived experiences, connecting

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them to the relevance of math learning in ways that made sense to them (e.g., buying a house, signing contracts). She dismantled the strong hierarchy embedded in math education ideology about good and bad students, by reiterating her stance that everyone had access to math. Implicit in this approach was her choice to teach students the importance of critical consciousness. She wanted her students to be mindful of using equitable language, ensuring access for all students. She did not hesitate to call out students who used harmful language that reinforced negative math ideologies. She developed relationships with her students, creating a safe space for them to reflect and respond respectfully as part of their classroom culture and practice. Ms. Davis’s use of restorative pedagogies and comfortability in nurturing conflict dialogue contributed to building a strong and safe math learning community. Peer-Based Problem-Solving to Learn Math: Creating a Community of Learners to Address Conflict Next door to Ms. Davis, Ms. Clark taught math to Grade 7 students. As a confident math coach and teacher, her procedures and process were routinized. Her students came into each class knowing what to expect and what to bring of themselves. Ms. Clark’s students worked together in small groups to solve problems and, in the end, presented their process to the class as a whole. During work time, Ms. Clark would go around to the students to assist and provide guidance if she felt the group of students needed it. During one work time, Ms. Clark approached a male student saying, “You look upset. Are you feeling confused? Is that why you look upset?” The student remained quiet and looked down, indicating that her reading of his emotions was correct. She then sat down beside him and quietly reviewed the problem with him. Ms. Clark sat with me during another observation as I observed her class. She pointed out that one group approached another seeking advice and were given the wrong direction. As I continued to watch, another group came to the group who had sought advice and gave them “the right advice.” This collaboration initiated by her students was how Ms. Clark expected them to perform in math class. Her goal was to teach her students how to collaborate using math pedagogy and dialogue  processes. When I asked Ms. Clark what the purpose of dialogue was in her math

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classroom, she passionately described the importance of collaboration and engaging conflict: I think one of the biggest purposes of it is to create a community of learners. I guess part of that is it helps lower the stakes of communication. In a traditional model, it’s the teacher at the front, students raising their hands and giving the correct answers. There certainly is some time when I am leading the discussion. I want most of it to be student-to-student discussion, so they are sharing all their different ways of learning so that we are honoring the different ways of learning. If it’s just me at the front of the room, saying this is how we do it, some kids are sitting there saying “well, that’s not how I do it, so it must be wrong.” In addition to that, if we’re allowing multiple voices and strategies and solutions, then students also have an opportunity to hear someone who is thinking just like them. Maybe for one particular question the majority of students solve it straightforwardly, but there may be students who come to it a different way and if you’re one of the three who came to it differently, you get to see the way that someone else was thinking and again it’s the way of honoring that and showing that, okay I’m not alone and I’m not wrong. That’s a big thing for me because when I reflect on my math education, it was very much one-way, figure it out; if you can’t show it the way a teacher wants you to, you’re not right. I mean just through so much research in so many ways, thinking about how learning must be so visual, or through conversation. So many kids think that if you talk in math class, it’s cheating. It’s okay to talk in so many other classes, but in math class, it must be silent, or it’s cheating. To help them understand that collaboration is an important skill and it’s not cheating to talk about it is one of the hardest things that I had to talk about with my students in the beginning of the year. . . . Sharing strategies and solutions was okay, but at the same time, it wasn’t okay to take a back seat and let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. There was that part of the relationship in the conversation.

Ms. Clark built relationships in her math classroom by teaching her students to articulate their conflicts about math struggles; she encouraged them to engage in productive conflict dialogue. This learning about how to identify conflict appeared to filter into other aspects of her classroom. Some of her students expressed interest in learning about white privilege and anti-racism. Students spearheaded this effort when they found out that the media cropped out one Black Ethiopian activist from a photo highlighting the activist work that she and her (white) peers did. Ms. Clark felt that her students’ preparedness for dialogue and conflict

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came from the relationships and space she created in her math classroom. In a place where her students felt confident approaching her when they felt stuck—whether in a math problem or social justice issue—their participation in a classroom that prioritized relational pedagogy created the space for those conversations to happen. Addressing Interpersonal Conflicts to Create Positive Learning Environments Ms. Roberts’s Grade 6 math class, at the same school where Ms. Clark and Ms. Davis also taught, was the third math class I observed in this study. Ms. Roberts had held many teaching positions throughout her teaching career including, during her first four years of teaching, in a fly-in Cree community. Restorative justice in education was a personal interest and central to her teaching practice. The classroom was in the middle-school wing. Despite the students’ youth (they were 10 and 11 years old), students’ participation in creating their classroom culture was central. When I visited Ms. Roberts’s class one afternoon, students were just coming in from recess. She had them line up outside the door and then enter the classroom. She felt they were too loud and not focused the first time they entered. She asked them to go back out and do it again. They did. While she prioritized strong relationships, she also set high expectations for how they show up in their classroom together. After the students were seated, Jerome, a Black male student, approached Ms. Roberts. He said he had a head injury and explained it was from being targeted during recess by one of the students in the class. The (apparent) perpetrator in question, an East Asian male, Edwin, was sitting at his desk, looking down. Ms. Roberts decided to suspend the planned math class so as to open a mediation space. She asked students to work independently while she attended to the conflict quietly. First she conferenced individually with Jerome and Edwin and then brought them together to discuss what happened. Her voice was barely audible as she spoke to them, in this restorative conference. The two students sat on each side of her and appeared to be comforted and safe as they listened to her and she listened to them. After hearing each of them describe what had happened, she asked them to take a walk in the halls to finish resolving the conflict together.

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Ms. Roberts’s choice to have the students’ emotional needs take precedence, rather than proceeding with the math lesson, contributed to strengthening their sense of community. When the students returned, Jerome sat with his head on his desk, applying the ice they had picked up on their walk. Ms. Roberts began her class. But instead of asking students to get their math books out, she opened a classroom discussion, asking them to share their suggestions for classroom norms. Her strategy spoke to Ms. Davis’s similar concern—how to take care of the class while attending to specific needs of individuals in the class. Ms. Davis, in contrast, had felt that she had to get extra staff to cover her class while she stepped out to manage a problem with other individuals. Ms. Roberts held her restorative conference with the affected parties while other students did independent work. She then asked for everyone to come together to share about their days to create space for students who witnessed the conflict to reflect and reconnect. In this reintegration process, the classroom community came back together; their teacher asked the students to take out their journals and share about their feelings and needs in the moment. Ms. Roberts encouraged students to think critically about the relationships between students and teachers, reinforcing the work she had already done in establishing relational connections with the students. She started by having the students reflect on the idea that teachers are aware that they cannot keep their students safe. “Is that a weird thing to say?” she asked her students. In response, a white male student, Carn, reminded the class about what they believed their teacher’s main goal was: “In our class, you say that keeping us safe comes first and educating us comes second.” To hold herself accountable, Ms. Roberts invented a confidential message box she labeled the “CBC box,” named after Canada’s national broadcast system that she was personally a fan of. She placed this box in the supplies area, where students got their pencils and other materials, with the idea that the students would feel free to “air” their concerns by placing a piece of paper inside the box. This confidential communication system allowed for anonymity and personal connection to their teacher. It was what Carn described as a “safe and secure way of sending a message to Ms. Roberts.” This method of building community illustrated how Ms. Roberts prioritized her students’ needs and privacy. During the whole-class discussion, all students appeared to be attentive; many had their hands raised and looked enthused to share their reflections about the norms for building community in their class. At the end of the class, she asked the two boys involved in the conflict to stay back during afternoon recess. As she

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spoke with another group of girls at the back, I observed Edwin walk over to Jerome. They apologized to each other and ended their conversation by hugging each other. They then sat down together and completed their work at a shared table. In an interview following the incident, the teacher described Jerome as having a bad experience with schooling because teachers constantly told him he wasn’t good enough. When the school year abruptly ended due to the COVID-19 lockdown, she said that he struggled academically. She called Jerome weekly and spoke to his family and him. While at first his family was resistant to her calling, she said his father said to her, “You really care about my son.” Ms. Roberts felt that RJE in her classroom meant ensuring students’ physical, mental, and emotional safety. In almost all of our conversations, she spoke about her daily struggle to get her students to be accountable for their white privilege. She would often use data that documented missing and murdered Indigenous women and evidence of racial profiling that Black males experienced by police officers in Canada as content for her math class. Unlike Ms. Davis and Ms. Clark, Ms. Roberts focused on bringing counternarratives into her classroom. She suspended math class to dissect a classroom conflict that impacted all her students and used the opportunity to discuss what it meant to build relationships and community within the classroom while identifying privilege and opening spaces to make them accountable to each other. Many might feel that there is not enough time to teach content if they continuously suspend teaching time to address students’ emotions. However, the next day, Ms. Roberts’s students—including those who had had the physical altercation—were actively and deeply engaged in their mathematics lesson. Clearly, moving fluidly through processes of repairing, restoring, and reintegrating allowed for a safe space for students to actively engage in their learning.

The Benefits of Focusing on Experience Rather Than Achievement in Math The group of three math teachers discussed in this chapter moved away from what Danny Martin (2000) referred to as achievement-based commitments—processes that deeply exclude and are particularly harmful to Black children. Their alternative to a punitive and exclusionary achievement model focused on students’ experiences and relationship to math: “Experienced-based commitments focus on repairing, restoring, or

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transforming Black children’s relationships to mathematics and mathematical activity structures, not repairing, restoring, or transforming the child” (Robinson et  al., 2021, p.  97). In this way, holding students accountable and creating a culture where students are respected and feel that their teachers care allow them to thrive. Following principles of peacebuilding and restorative conflict dialogue, these math teachers focused on interjecting interdependence in their math program—relationships and content intertwined in ways that promoted mental stimulation and intellectual curiosity (Stuart McQueen, 2022). Their sense of humanity and collaboration came from their professional learning and the principles they later developed to engage with conflict. The kind of professional learning community they created supported their pedagogical practice while allowing for ongoing reflection and action (Larsen & McCormick, 2021). This collaborative approach to addressing problems, this sense of resolving common issues—whether a curricular mathematical problem or a conflict from the playground—shaped their restorative culture. While many teachers saw circle practice as a core element of restorative justice, the three math teachers demonstrated alternative approaches to building community, managing conflict, and implementing the curriculum. While none of them directly addressed issues of structural racism or oppression, they demonstrated indirect ways of ensuring equity and inclusion (Song et al., 2020; Song & Swearer, 2016). Their practice—not primarily through the curriculum content but through how they approached the curriculum—illustrates the power of restorative justice practices in classrooms. Too many students rebel and shut down during classroom lessons with intimidating and confusing content. Instead of applying traditional top-down pedagogies to inhibit expression or rid students of their confusion, these teachers nurtured the feelings and emotions that students experienced in their math classroom. There was less opportunity for students to feel threatened or embarrassed when collaborating.

Restorative Justice With Primary Students: Struggling for Compliance During Moments of Disconnection: Ms. Fitzgerald In primary classrooms, when it comes to interpersonal conflicts—or disconnection between students or teachers—the teacher’s focus is often on controlling students’ feelings and behaviors. In many ways, the struggle to

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control behaviors constrains relationships. During this time in students’ lives, they can learn how to listen to each other and, most importantly, how to listen to their teacher’s directions. Not having access to opportunities to practice these critical skills escalates much interpersonal and internal conflict, impacting students and teachers alike. Ms. Fitzgerald’s was a diverse Grade 2/3 split classroom, with with 20  students. Her class comprising 7- and 8-year-olds entered the room and sat at their desks, which were arranged in small groups, during morning announcements and the playing of the national anthem. Each morning Ms. Fitzgerald held a community circle. When instructed, all the students—except for one, Ethan, a white male student—moved to the carpet for circle. Ethan sat off to the side of the classroom, beside his teacher’s desk, facing the wall. He had a puzzle spread out on the top of his desk; he often stood as he put various pieces in place, or sat with his head down. Ms. Fitzgerald would come by multiple times to check on his agenda. She communicated with his parents, making notes about incidents that had occurred in the class on previous days—things like hitting, lack of focus, incomplete homework. Ethan was a challenge for this teacher. Sometimes, she would coach him before she called students to circle, reminding him that he needed to come to the floor with everyone else. She would often invite him to join the circle by saying to him in front of the class: “You are expected to be here too, Ethan.” Most days, he ignored her and sat at his desk facing the wall, continuing his puzzle. Some days he complied, even if he joined while sitting sideways, and focused more on the bookshelf behind him. Ms. Fitzgerald was known to be the calmest, most caring teacher on the primary-level floor. She did mindfulness exercises with students and purposely kept the fluorescent lights off, aware of how the bright lighting influenced her students’ moods throughout the day. She only allowed natural light to come in, which was easy, given the large window in the room. The walls were well organized. There was a map that identified the places in the world that students came from, and there were samples of students’ work. Pictures of different animals represented different classroom voice levels, in a method Ms. Fitzgerald used to manage noise: a lion meant students were being too loud, and a turtle represented students being quiet. She often praised students for being quiet turtles during independent work times and critiqued them as loud lions when their voice

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level was too loud. For times of quiet chatter, she commended them for being good chatty chickens. While identified by her administrator and colleagues as an expert restorative teacher, many of Ms. Fitzgerald’s approaches to conflict centered on keeping her authority in check. The students’ morning routine required them to enter the room quietly and read silently at their desks. As they entered the classroom, Ms. Fitzgerald enacted her interpretation of accountability by calling out the names of disruptive students who were not on task. In many ways, her pedagogical approach constrained spaces for dialogue. Her norms for engagement focused on compliance instead of on relationships. This was evident in how some students interacted with each other in their daily classroom circle. One morning, Ms. Fitzgerald opened the circle by raising a concern about students whispering about other students, a conflict communication pattern that was impacting relationships within the classroom. She said that they had already had to talk about this problem a few times but that students had brought it to her attention again. She prefaced the circle by saying how she (and her classroom community) felt when she heard students whispering: We don’t feel safe. And we feel a little worried about what they’re saying, and it might even feel like they’re talking about us. And I think I’d like us to go around the circle and share how we feel when this happens.

Ms. Fitzgerald began the circle practice stating how each student had their turn and that they could pass; but they were expected to respond. Students shared what they would feel if they heard other students whispering—frustrated, sad, not good, mad, hurt, angry, disappointed. Owen, a male student, asked Ms. Fitzgerald how she would feel, which shows how empowered he felt in this classroom. Her framing of the problem also positioned her feelings alongside her students’ experiences, which appeared to contribute to this young student’s empathic reaction. Ms. Fitzgerald promoted relationship building and inclusion by looking at Owen and stating, “Oh, I [would] feel horrible, I can’t think straight, I don’t feel good, and I can’t teach the class. And you can’t learn because it’s harder for me to figure out how to teach you better.” In this instance, Owen was interested in relationship building with his teacher and solicited her response to the circle prompt of how she would feel if someone was whispering about her. Her authentic response addressed the emotions she would feel. Her students all looked at her

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attentively, clearly interested in how their teacher would feel. This was one of the rare occurrences where Ms. Fitzgerald responded to the circle question herself. More often, her facilitator role focused on controlling the talking piece and students’ behavior during the circle. Ms. Fitzgerald then dismissed the students from the circle and asked them to proceed with individual work at their desks. She went on to support a male student with his reading. Ms. Fitzgerald’s classroom normally evoked a sense of calm. Her colleague next door frequently visited, taking a break from what she described as her rambunctious class to be in Ms. Fitzgerald’s aura of calm. One morning, the feeling in the classroom was different. The school had a meal program for students, including a morning snack, which that day was blueberries and yogurt. As two student volunteers passed the food out to the students, I observed the number of conflicts that quickly arose in this primary classroom. It became a day when Ms. Fitzgerald told her students they were “in dangerous territory” because of their lack of focus and loud lion voices. The tension in the class—and school—was palpable. Teachers across the province had been actively engaged in rotating strikes throughout the school year. A more immediate concern for Ms. Fitzgerald was how to keep her primary classroom sanitized amid the concerns over the newly arrived COVID-19 strain in Canada. It was early March 2020, and cleaning everyone’s desks and floors was a priority for the class, even though many rooms lacked adequate cleaning supplies. After intervening about their noise levels once again, she said: “I’ve been noticing a lot of things this morning that tell me we need to refocus. I just spoke to you about your voices and then they started to get really loud again.” Mark, a white male student, raised his hand to get Ms. Fitzgerald’s attention about a conflict with a South Asian female peer, Shreya. The incident had occurred when Shreya had put a blueberry that had fallen on the desk back into Mark’s yogurt bowl. Ms. Fitzgerald immediately stopped the class, stood in front of the chalkboard, and asked for everyone’s attention. She described what had happened in this incident and then asked the entire class how the male student might be feeling. The students raised their hands rapidly to offer responses, such as “grossed out” and “disrespected.” Shreya remained seated, eyes looking at the ground. Ms. Fitzgerald firmly told the students that they needed to be mindful of germs. She asked the whole group of students to describe the problem. “These aren’t good feelings, right? And what’s the problem with

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doing this?” “It has germs,” one student said, which Ms. Fitzgerald enthusiastically agreed with, explaining that “we have to be careful when we are managing food. Is it a healthy thing to do?” “No!” several male students spoke up in sync, and Ms. Fitzgerald agreed while discussing the issue of food management with the class. Ms. Fitzgerald centered on conflict management. She then told Mark to properly dispose of the yogurt container and get a fresh snack. Shreya rose to help Mark get the snack, but Ms. Fitzgerald asked her to remain seated. She then crouched down beside her and asked her, “What’s going on with you today? This is not like you. What’s happening?” Shreya never offered a reply. She seemed upset and continued to look down while fidgeting with things on her desk. The teacher asked Shreya what she could have done to make things right, indicating her use of restorative language, albeit in a way that pigeonholed the student. Respectfully, Shreya responded that she could have put it in the garbage. Ms. Fitzgerald repeatedly asked Shreya to look at her, but the student seemed embarrassed and continued to look downward. Ms. Fitzgerald eventually got up and continued to circle her class and prepare for the lesson that day.  The constrained climate didn’t allow space for Shreya to share how she felt: perhaps putting the blueberry back in the bowl was an act of kindness. Ethan got up from his desk, and Ms. Fitzgerald asked him to return, which he did, but only for a short period before he approached her again and was told to sit down, which he did not do until Ms. Fitzgerald angrily whispered that he wouldn’t be getting any stars. He slumped his shoulders and walked away from her. Another male student then complained to Ms. Fitzgerald that a female student had called him annoying, and Ms. Fitzgerald asked him to sit and eat at the round table to have some peace and quiet, but he continued to eat at his desk. Shortly after, the students were asked to go to the carpet, and Ms. Fitzgerald asked her students who were talking to retry their attempt to come to circle quietly. She told the class that they were going to work on their graphic organizer about Harriet Tubman and asked them to share what they had learned. Two students responded, sharing that she had been born into slavery and that she had freed slaves. Ms. Fitzgerald thanked the class for their participation and continued sharing more about Harriet Tubman. She paused to ask Ethan to sit appropriately, then a female student pointed out another male student who was not sitting correctly, and Ms. Fitzgerald asked him to adjust. Ms. Fitzgerald then told Ethan, “You’re in dangerous territory right now, and if you want to get what you want [a gold star], you better do things differently.” She

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continued to read about Harriet Tubman and then thanked another male student for intently paying attention. Ms. Fitzgerald asked the students to go back to their desks, where they worked on a worksheet about Harriet Tubman, which included coloring in a picture of her. Ethan approached Ms. Fitzgerald to tell her that he had finished, but Ms. Fitzgerald replied that his sentences were not complete and that, therefore, he was not done. She then moved on to another student, appearing to try to get to as many students as possible before they had to get ready for recess. Ms. Fitzgerald’s approach to rewards (e.g., gold stars, praise) and subsequent punishments to induce compliance (Kohn, 1993) was antithetical to restorative justice in education. Such controlled relationships clearly constrained opportunities for some students to internalize restorative values and their engagement in classroom activities. Containing Risks and Mediating Control in Primary Classrooms at the Expense of Restorative Justice While Ms. Fitzgerald was known as the peaceful, restorative teacher among the primary teachers, it was clear that her supposed restorative practice centered on high control more than on building relationships. She used the blueberry conflict as an example for the whole class to discuss a more significant issue about food hygiene and to reestablish classroom expectations. Her immediate choice to address the whole class (instead of conferencing first with Mark and Shreya) appeared to alienate Shreya, who was targeted for putting the blueberry back into the bowl. Ms. Fitzgerald did not prioritize the emotional safety of the classroom for Shreya. Instead, she chose to name her behavior as an example for the rest of the class to pick apart. She used restorative questions to deeply shame the student. Ms. Fitzgerald’s handling of the blueberry conflict contrasts with Ms. Roberts’s approach. That teacher first held a restorative conference with the students off to the side of the classroom, using barely audible whispers. She consistently spoke with her students directly about creating a classroom that allowed them to share their feelings—and for everyone to participate in making things right when conflict occurred. Ms. Fitzgerald used circles to address many disputes typical in primary classrooms, mostly centered on behavioral issues, such as hitting or saying mean things. She also used the circle to ask her students to share their cultural and ethnic backgrounds to their social studies unit on cultural heritage.

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Ms. Fitzgerald felt that it was essential to mandate that students respond verbally to circle questions to hold them “accountable:” I would tell them, and especially to [Ethan] too, that even though they pass, they would be required to participate [in the next round]. And I know that is kind of going against the restorative practices approach, that everyone has the option to pass, but I sometimes think that with the students they start to play with the whole idea, and they start to copy each other, and everyone says pass. You know it all depends on the group too. This year I thought my group was very conducive to doing a restorative circle because they were very willing, and really most of them were quite reflective and wanted to offer something, and most of them looked forward to the circles.

Ms. Roberts described different types of students, including one who would remain silent for some time and then come up with a unique response. In class outside of the circle, this student rarely spoke and was mainly silent. However, while the circle provided her with an outlet for sharing, it also perhaps mandated her participation based on her teacher’s expectations. I have included this thick description of this observation vignette to show how the various conflicts throughout the classroom impacted each other. The teacher’s mood, her treatment of the students, the students’ lack of agency, and the white liberal approach to teaching students about slavery all added up to an implicitly oppressive classroom climate. This expectation is characteristic of many white teachers and their need for quiet and complacency, particularly from students of color; loudness, especially from Black children, is often misinterpreted as aggression (Gay, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 2014). Ms. Fitzgerald also brought curricular issues to her circle, such as during Black History Month when she read students a picture book about Harriet Tubman. In this circle and subsequent classroom discussion, she invited them to respond to many information-­gathering questions—focusing on relaying the facts about slavery. Restorative justice pedagogies can encourage dialogue about diverse issues. This includes asking questions such as: “What happened?” “What were you thinking at the time?” “How do you feel about it now?” “How do you think this has impacted others?” As students engage in dialogue about these questions, they abide with certain dialogic and inclusion principles, including agreements around shared values of respect, compassion, and empathy. When applied to diverse classroom contexts, the commitment to acknowledging cultural diversity and developing an affinity for

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marginalized individuals and groups becomes more salient. Teachers can apply these questions to almost all conflicts, but the process (and outcome) is highly dependent on their relationship with their students. Building connections and community with students yields better outcomes. Such connection involves consistently using restorative language in conversations and interactions, both in and out of the classroom. It also means having clear expectations for students and staff in the building. When walking through the hallway, no one should have to hear a teacher raising their voice or sending students to stand outside in the hallway. In this way, restorative justice in education works hand-in-hand with trauma-­ informed and culturally sustaining anti-racist pedagogies, as restorative language already can integrate and enhance these practices.

Addressing Discrimination: Challenging Conversations Among Cliques and Constrained Classroom Culture Here I turn the discussion back to Ms. Weaver, in her fifth year of implementation. Some of the students in her class readily engaged in dialogue through restorative peace circles. In one peace circle in her diverse Grade 8 urban classroom, 26 students aged 12 to 13 sat side by side in an alternating male-female arrangement; an expectation she initially required. Some students opposed this seating plan. Ms. Weaver believed it would help students focus, but four gender non-confirming and also openly gay students voiced their discomfort, arguing that they felt it discriminated against those who did not identify as a boy or a girl. Ms. Weaver encouraged them to share their point of view and responded that she would think about modifying this plan for their subsequent weekly circle. In the meantime, she reviewed the circle guidelines, reminding students about the rules of a talking piece. In their circle, whoever was holding the piece had the right to speak if they chose, and everyone else had the responsibility to listen. In subsequent circles, she reframed her tendency to use fixed gender language (e.g., “boy” or “girl”). She faltered in her approach to a different way of seeing gender, which provoked some students’ discomfort, especially those who did not identify as one of the two binary choices. Eventually, Ms. Weaver demonstrated her intention of pursuing equity by effortlessly normalizing the diversity of gender identities. She simply

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suggested to her students that they find a seat that would allow them to focus on each other. The plurality of gender-neutral language can drive further engagement and inclusion. Shalaby (2017) contended: Rather than be afraid to use the wrong language—intimidated by how easy it is to cause harm through language—educators can feel empowered to make really exciting, intentional decisions about how to use language in support of love, to center the struggle for justice in how we use power, and to offer young people models of language that open up the possibility of relating to each other in human ways that give rise to collective care. (p. 151)

Language use in any restorative moment can shift how educators can potentially inflict further harm or facilitate further inclusion. Like many elementary teachers, Ms. Weaver struggled when dealing with students who were disengaged or not respecting the norms of the circle process. She felt that her class that year had been divided into cliques. There was a group of students more interested in books than movies, another grouped together for their affinity for sports, another group of female students all self-identified as queer, and micro groups that fit with those in any other group. Ms. Weaver picked a question from the box of anonymous questions: “How to get over the anger you feel toward a family member?” Most students discussed this in a joking manner, laughing and giggling. Their teacher brought them back, saying: OK, we need to stop here; otherwise, we are not going to have a good circle. Before, we were just joking around, but now we’re in an actual circle, and we’re using the talking piece, so when I have it, you are listening and not talking, and when you have it, you are speaking. I am going to try not to interrupt the circle, as I don’t like doing that, and I’d like for you not to interrupt either. This is developing our listening skills, which is really important. And this question [about how to deal with anger] gives us the freedom to help others feel less hurt and to be supported.

Ms. Weaver typically brought her students back to circle in this way: reminding them about the parameters of the talking piece. However, she also threatened to disrupt the entire process for the class, illustrating how she continued to hold—and wield—power when facilitating circles.

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Ms. Weaver opened the circle with a personal narrative about how her parents divorced when she was two and how she felt disconnected from her father. She explained how she had carried much anger toward him for many years but now realized that at a certain point, as adults do, she needed to stop blaming others and take responsibility for her own feelings. All the students participated in this circle round, with most sharing potentially generic or expected responses, such as “go to my room,” “listen to music,” “sleep,” and “play games.” One Black female student, aligned with the sporty clique, said “I should have punched them,” and many of her peers responded with laughter. Ms. Weaver summed up the responses— choosing not to address violent or passive reactions directly, instead saying: “You know conflict is inevitable. You don’t always want to avoid it, but you don’t want to be angry all the time too.” She closed the circle stating her hope that students would learn to handle conflicts they faced constructively. I conducted small-group interviews with Ms. Weaver’s students, with three or four students in each group. Many shared their appreciation for the question box that guided their weekly circles. They felt heard and respected in the classroom, as one male student of color said, “I like that we can write down what we want to talk about in circle and she picks randomly. It shows that she wants us to be a part of this.” Most students reported what they perceived as benefits to engaging in the circle process, which emphasized getting to know their peers. However, for many students, their affinity for circles depended on lower-risk, lighter questions. Another group comprised one Black female student and two male students, one white and one South Asian. They described liking the lighter questions that focused on fun. The South Asian male student admitted: “I like the fun questions, I don’t like serious questions because like  . . .  I just don’t like the serious questions.” The female student felt it was helpful to think about what to do when she was annoyed with her sibling. I interviewed the four female students who identified as queer, together, in a private room connected to the classroom. In what turned out to be a full hour of sharing, they disclosed their general discomfort in the class, primarily because of how disrespectful their peers were toward them. They had issues with their teacher asking them to sit boy-girl, describing how this contributed to their feeling unsafe. Not only did it not acknowledge their gender fluidity, but they also felt uncomfortable, saying: “It makes it really uncomfortable because we sometimes talk about sensitive things. It

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makes it hard to talk about things that are really personal when you aren’t sitting with people who are your friends.” Their point raises many questions about the importance of marginalized students having allies to support them during complex circle topics. This group also raised issues about bullying in their interview, sharing that their peers frequently used the word “gay” as an insult among their classmates. Ms. Weaver was not oblivious to the intergroup tensions within the cohort of her class that year. In another circle, she filtered through questions that students had anonymously submitted to their class circle question box and chose what she described as “a good one” as she read the question: “Why are people homophobic?” Some students looked uncomfortable, and one male student appeared visibly annoyed and asked to use the bathroom. However, Ms. Weaver sharply replied that he should wait until the circle was done. He complied but lowered his gaze and fidgeted in his seat. The teacher passed the talking piece, and many students chose not to participate and instead passed without speaking. The talking piece arrived at a white male student who hesitated and then said, “I have a friend, and I don’t know how it came up. . . . They are very Christian, and they think it’s a sin.” One white female student who was openly gay, and preferred they/them pronouns, appeared visibly offended. They silently mouthed their shock and crossed their arms in anger. They waited to speak until the talking piece came to them and then responded: Okay, it’s all right to be religious [strongly and sarcastically emphasizing the word religious], but if you use religion to disrespect other people, I won’t respect your opinion. You can’t say, like, “oh, you’re gay—that’s against my beliefs.” I don’t think that it should be an opinion whether you respect them or not.

The four other girls in the class who were also openly gay nodded their heads in agreement while most of the other students continued to look uncomfortable. Another female student added: It also annoys me when people say you made a choice to be gay. . . . People don’t choose to be discriminated against. That’s like saying to a Black person, why don’t you choose to not be Black, it’s a bit different, but, like . . .

Despite not having the talking piece, the teacher interrupted them and asked: “Do people choose to be straight? No. People know they are

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straight the same way they know they are gay.” Based on their body language and facial expression, some Black students in the class seemed to be confused about this point, but none spoke up. The circle ended shortly after that, and many students seemed relieved that the circle had ended. Students in this class almost used religion as a tool to perpetuate hate and harmful ideas against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. This case thus exemplifies how students’ religious literacy is influenced by the depth of their dialogic engagement (Parker & Gill, 2021). They will not engage in honest dialogue if they cannot understand or even listen to each other’s perspectives and beliefs (Chan et  al., 2020;  Castelli, 2015). As a result, religious students may be shamed into feeling excluded from the conversation. In the absence of dialogue, other students may perceive that certain religions promote homophobia, while students who belong to that religion may struggle to confirm other students’ biases. Furthermore, comparing as equal the struggles of the Black and the 2SLGBTQIA+community perpetuates a controversial idea: it does not consider centuries of oppression against Black people or the privilege of many white 2SLGBTQIA+ people. For homophobia and racism to be considered in examples such as this, it is fundamental for all those involved in the conversation to use an intersectional focus. By addressing homophobia while downplaying the impact of racism, one group is being supported at the expense of the other. By not facilitating a conversation around the intersection of religion and race and power imbalances inherent in these identities in this circle, the teacher did not support meaning-making for all students, and limited their exposure to alternative perspectives. She inadvertently privileged some students while excluding others. In educational spaces where conversation and dissent are encouraged, students may feel safer and more comfortable raising issues that concern them in their lives (Parker, 2020). When I went to visit Ms. Weaver another day, she greeted me with excitement, saying that it was a great day to observe because, as she put it, “We’ve had an incident with discrimination, and I’m going to take it up in the circle today.” Ms. Weaver asked the students to share times when students or their friends might have experienced discrimination and asked that students not use names, to keep the space safe and confidential. Eight students passed, and Ms. Weaver interceded to promote participation, saying, “I understand that this is a difficult topic and understand why many of you guys are passing. Discrimination is a difficult topic, but if you name it, you can understand it.” A student asked permission to share a story of

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discrimination that had impacted her friend, and Ms. Weaver agreed, reminding the student not to say names. The story focused on an incident of homophobia, and the student’s peers quietly listened to her speak. As the circle continued, more students continued to pass, and Ms. Weaver asked the class, “So for those of you who passed, can you think of maybe something that has happened to your parents? Some might be new Canadians, and that can be hard.” The discomfort that some students were experiencing appeared to heighten. While intended to encourage more students to share, this request inadvertently targeted students  of color. Further tension was created by assuming that students of color represented those new to Canada and that they would feel comfortable disclosing this. Ms. Weaver, five years since her training, had worked to create a supportive, confidential environment in which her students could share. Midway through that school year, Ms. Weaver confided to me during a debriefing session that she was dealing with many conflicts and transitions in her personal life. This undoubtedly impacted how she enacted restorative justice pedagogies in her class that year. When discussing contentious topics, such as race and racism, many students remained uncomfortable. Their discomfort raises questions about how boundaries can be established within a circle while creating a safe-­ enough space for all students. Ms. Weaver, while equipped with the fundamentals of a restorative circle practice, did not receive explicit training in engaging anti-racism or anti-oppression in circles. Furthermore, provoking complex topics without adequate preparation meant that some students’ trauma might have been triggered. Forced sharing is harmful. It alienates students and disconnects teachers from their students. The use of power to control dialogue is also harmful, in how it delineates relationships. In the end, Ms. Weaver closed the circle by acknowledging students’ emotions and deciding to respect their need for silence on the topic: “I know some of you are feeling things and not ready to share, and I respect that and your private thoughts.” This conclusion addressed some potential barriers and challenges students might have faced during the circle and ended by promoting compassion. As a participant and researcher, I struggled and felt frustrated after this circle that was supposed to engage with an incident concerning discrimination. My initial excitement at the opportunity to participate in observing how Ms. Weaver would handle this discrimination incident quickly waned.  I was surprised that the class didn’t end up talking about the

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incident. The teacher’s narrative focused on presenting discrimination generically while asking students to name what they had experienced. Most students didn’t seem to want to share. The few students who did share focused their responses on family dynamics and sexuality. As an adult participant of color, I felt responsible for bringing up a personal incident that I experienced with racism but also didn’t feel comfortable doing so. In this class, most of the students were of color, but they didn’t appear to feel safe talking about race. It remained a contentious topic, even for this skilled restorative justice facilitator. While this was not the first time I had observed Ms. Weaver facilitate a circle about issues concerning discrimination, it was the first time she facilitated a circle that directly linked to a conflict about a racist incident in her classroom. At least some of her students felt that the issue was adequately addressed. In interviews with students, many described the approach as effective, saying that it wasn’t necessary to name the incident and that Ms. Weaver “dealt with it subtly, she didn’t make it like someone was being mean to somebody; she made it like the bigger picture and how discrimination impacts people.” At the end of the circle, Ms. Weaver confided to me that she was furious about the incident, which had never actually been named in the circle itself. She also chose not to speak directly to the students involved in the incident. She said that one of her male students had instigated the aggression. She also said that she was surprised he did this because he was from Roma, and he was making fun of someone and using an Indian accent. “You’d think he’d get it. Doesn’t he know his people are the ones being persecuted,” she said in the interview. This perspective of Ms. Weaver’s raises many questions about how underlying biases about students’ identities influence teachers’ choices when mitigating conflict. In an interview, a small group of four white male students shared why they thought so many of their peers passed the talking piece without speaking: “Maybe they’ve never been discriminated against, or they don’t feel comfortable talking about it.” His peer continued, “It was effective [because] it tells people to not discriminate against other people based on their skin color or whatever.” What is most critical in studying how teachers guide students through conflicts is the power of learning while displaying vulnerability. Despite the equity that circles intend to develop in classrooms and schools, they will never comprise a truly level  playing field. The adults still hold the power in the process. In each moment of conflict, it is up to the adults in the room to show students that they are heard and worthy. When young people know an adult believes in them, they can move forward with being their best possible selves. These classroom conflicts were opportunities to

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connect, repair, and build relationships. Ms. Weaver told her students that she felt many of them had divided into different cliques and that “she didn’t know what was going on there” but wanted to encourage her students to reflect on how incidents impacted everyone in the class community: Sometimes the things you do really affect the community. And I really need to think about this too, like if I interact with a student that might affect them or other students, it also affects me. So, hopefully, with that [community-­building] activity, you really liked hearing about all the positive traits about yourselves. It’s a nice reminder about how special you are.

Unlike Ms. Fitzgerald, Ms. Weaver generally felt comfortable speaking about her personal life and the conflicts she experienced. Her students didn’t need to ask her for her opinion; she just shared it freely, and most of her students reciprocated. Still, in both of these teachers’ attempts to make peace among the classroom divisions, they generally focused on peacekeeping and peacemaking, encouraging their students to find commonalities across their differences to dispel conflict.

“When We Go to the Office, It’s Like We Don’t Even Get Into Trouble”: Interrogating Restorative Justice in Education From Students’ Perspectives Most of Ms. Weaver’s students felt that their participation in classroom circles allowed them the opportunity to speak and be heard. One male student reflected: “We get to talk to most people in the class.” In this particular class, where clique culture led to divisive conversations and unspoken tension, the opportunity to come together weekly appeared to lessen the rigid boundaries over the year. Many students began to feel more comfortable sharing their emotions and speaking up about issues, including political ones concerning the ultra-right conservative party that had formed that year in Canada (and that was quickly dissolved after one election). While Ms. Weaver was seen by her peers and administrators as an expert teacher, a continuous stream of support measures could have better enabled her success. Her administrator was crucial in supporting her practice. Ms. Weaver did send a few students down to the office that year, but because she worked with a like-minded administrator, she felt confident that their incidents would be responded to restoratively. One Black female student who had been sent to the office frequently, along with a South Asian male and white male, said to me as the three sat together in an

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interview: “When we go to the office, it’s like we don’t even get into trouble. They just talk to us and ask us how we’re doing. I don’t know why they bring the person you’ve fought with to sit right beside you, but as much as you don’t want to talk to them, you got to, and it actually usually makes things better.” Students described the postincident circle as a process of checking in with each other and cooling down. The school’s administrator was a lively and energetic white female who wanted to be in a school where all the teachers had restorative training. She felt proud as she said to me: We’re using it all the time here. I had a parent that said: “My partner and I were arguing, and my kid interrupted us and was like, ‘Stop. Just use restorative practices. Ask each other the questions.’” And the parent was like, “Wait, what is that?” The student explained, and their argument stopped.

The principal expressed a need for parents to be taught to use restorative justice at home, so it is in line with what they’re learning at school: I have one student who has sensory issues, and we’ve been using it with him here, and it’s great, and it’s really working for him, and I taught the parent to use it too, and they are just really liking it. It makes sense to have the approaches synchronized.

I asked the principal what she thought about students who described the office as a place where they “don’t get into trouble.” At first, she had a look of surprise, and I feared I offended her, but then she explained that she saw this reflection as a compliment: Well yeah, of course, because that’s what we want. We bring them down here, we want to know how they’re doing, and we want to help them feel better. We do that, and then we don’t usually see them again, or at least not as often. We have a really great group of teachers here, even though we’re not able to meet as a group [because of the ongoing labor action], but I go to them individually and connect with them like that. I just did a circle yesterday with a Grade 2 class. They’re having a really hard time with transitions, and we just talked about how to make it easier for all of them.

Administrators’ support and leadership impacted all the classrooms. I witnessed the commitment and courage of administrators who knew when to say, “This isn’t working for our school, and we need to do something about it.” As we saw in Ms. Harding’s first year of implementation, this

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backfired in some instances. However, in those schools where the administrators and teachers saw their role as someone who supported each student and embraced their engagement in conflict as an opportunity to deepen their connections and relationships, the schools usually ended up with precisely what Ms. Weaver’s and Ms. Fitzgerald’s principal observed— repeat occurrences of harm lessened. Those students that usually frequented an office when they got into trouble were ones that they didn’t see again. Ultimately, the five teachers across two schools profiled in this chapter illustrated how creating space for dialogue through a cooperative and constructive approach allowed for at least some students to be heard and seen. Some students expressed their resistance to the process, such as learning fractions or mixed-gender seating, but their perspectives would not have been heard otherwise. Restorative pedagogy facilitates just and equitable classrooms through active listening and intentional language that offers space for building relationship and healing and transformation after conflicts have occurred (Evans & Vaandering, 2016/2022). Circle pedagogy also prepares people to be better equipped to manage conflicts and communicate their needs. What may seem like a basic and simple process is quite revolutionary when young people develop skills and tools for both resilience and resistance to hegemonic and punitive systems. Key Takeaways • Experienced teachers of restorative justice in education also struggle with enacting restorative principles. • Restorative justice in classrooms is a pedagogical philosophy that uses circles and pedagogy that supports restorative dialogue and inclusion tenets, such as creating justice and equitable spaces through active listening and intentional speaking. • A restorative justice approach to facilitating math learning centers students’ experiences and concerns about their learning—encouraging students to work through difficult emotions as this relates to mathematical problems. • Teachers’ skills at mitigating conflict stemmed from restorative principles that could be used to facilitate inclusion or exclusion. • Teachers still struggle with creating inclusion because of their implicit (or explicit) desire to retain power and control dialogue. • Nurturing students’ resistance is part of the restorative process but relies on teachers’ commitment to creating a just and equitable space.

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Questions for Reflection • How can skilled teachers receive support and mentorship? • How can experience be centered across subject areas in ways that promote authentic learning? • How can student dissent, agentic initiative, and resistance to oppression be promoted while being attentive to who’s in and who’s out of the circle? • How can teachers receive explicit training in racial justice and equity, particularly when some restorative trained teachers lack those skills?

References Boaler, J. (2002). Experiencing school mathematics: Traditional and reform approaches to teaching and their impact on student learning. Routledge. Boaler, J. (2014). Research suggests that timed tests cause math anxiety. Teaching Children Mathematics, 20(8), 469–474. Boaler, J. (2015). Mathematical mindsets: Unleashing students’ potential through creative math, inspiring messages and innovative teaching. Wiley. Castelli, M. (2015). Dialogic skills for religious education. Ricerche di pedagogia e didattica/Journal of Theories and Research in Education, 10(1), 151–167. Chan, W. A., Mistry, H., Reid, E., Zaver, A., & Jafralie, S. (2020). Recognition of context and experience: A civic-based Canadian conception of religious literacy. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 41(3), 255–271. Clements, D.  H., & Sarama, J. (2020). Learning and teaching early math: The learning trajectories approach. Routledge. Evans, K., & Vaandering, D. (2016/2022). The little book of restorative justice in education: Fostering responsibility, healing, and hope in schools. Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 2016) Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106–116. Harper, N. W., & Daane, C. J. (1998). Causes and reduction of math anxiety in preservice elementary teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 19(4), 29–38. Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kohn, A. (2015, August). The “mindset” mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes. Salon. https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/mindset/ Ladson-Billings, G. (2014, Spring). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: AKA the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. Larsen, S., & McCormick, K. (2021). Fostering professional responsibility through high-quality professional learning opportunities. Teacher Development, 1–18.

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Martin, D. B. (2000). Mathematics success and failure among African-American youth: The roles of sociohistorical context, community forces, school influence, and individual agency. Routledge. Namkung, J. M., Peng, P., & Lin, X. (2019). The relation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance among school-aged students: A meta-­ analysis. Review of Educational Research, 89(3), 459–496. Parker, C. A. (2020). Who’s in and who’s out? Problematizing the peacemaking circle in diverse classrooms. In E. C. Valandra (Ed.), Colorizing restorative justice: Voicing our realities. Living Justice Press. Parker, C.  A., & Gill, R. (2021). Religious literacy and restorative justice with youth: The role of community service professionals in mediating social inclusion. Religion & Education, 48(2), 141–154. Robinson, D., Gholson, M., & Ball, D. L. (2021). When race matters in mathematics: Practicing three commitments for children learning mathematics while Black. In M. Winn & T. Winn (Eds.), Restorative justice in education. Harvard Education Press. Shalaby, C. (2017). Troublemakers: Lessons in freedom from young children at school. The New Press. Song, S.  Y., Eddy, J.  M., Thompson, H.  M., Adams, B., & Beskow, J. (2020). Restorative consultation in schools: A systematic review and call for restorative justice science to promote anti-racism and social justice. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 30(4), 462–476. Song, S. Y., & Swearer, S. M. (2016). The cart before the horse: The challenge and promise of restorative justice consultation in schools. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 313–324. Stoehr, K.  J. (2017). Mathematics anxiety: One size does not fit all. Journal of Teacher Education, 68(1), 69–84. Stuart McQueen, S. (2022). Toward a restorative math pedagogy: A theoretical overlay between two relational approaches to schooling and mathematics instruction. Northwest Journal of Teacher Education, 17(2), 3–11.

CHAPTER 8

Educating for Justice: Building Restorative Futures for Students to Thrive In

Illustration 8.1  Feather Talking Piece by PhDcartoon

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0_8

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When we love children, we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights—that we respect and uphold their rights. —bell hooks

RJE is not something we do “to” students. It creates space for conflict where students can open up. Sometimes they push back. Students, like Omar, give teachers direct feedback. A young person’s act of rebellion asks: “Can you deal with me now?” When students open up, and educators respect and honor their individuality and experiences, they grow. In monastic traditions, taking on a spiritual path brings up fears and conflicts that test a person’s course to spiritual success (Teasdale, 2003). There is no passing or failing these tests. They are simply a part of the process. Similarly, restorative educators move through an educative process as their implementation process ebbs and flows through conflict, in ways that allow for deeper growth and understanding. Lederach (2003/2014) shows how these educative parts of conflict are “an ecology that is relationally dynamic with ebb (conflict de-escalation to pursue constructive change) and flow (conflict escalation to pursue constructive change).” RJE’s commitment to sustaining and working through conflicts is what unlocks transformative learning and justice (Kovan & Dirkx, 2003). I came to study circles in my efforts to understand how to achieve greater equity and inclusion. George Sefa Dei (2016) said: “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists; it is making a new space, a better space for everyone” (p. 36). Circles create a space where people can build their resistance to oppression while also nurturing each other. People learn to respect each other’s humanity, without competition or ego, as they build a culture of care. This is the hallmark of resistance movements like restorative justice. In the African Ubuntu philosophy, inclusion means recognizing that “I am because we are.” Lak’ech, an affirmation from the Mayan tradition, means “you are my other me.” Both traditions observe that when harm is done to anyone in the community, everyone is harmed. Similarly, when a person succeeds, everyone in the community benefits. In the same way, when someone fails, everyone in the community is impacted. The Sanskrit mantra, lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu, calls for the entire world to be uplifted with love, where each person’s well-being is contingent on mutual respect. These ancestral and Indigenous philosophies are foundational for restorative justice. However, these principles are often misconstrued and

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misapplied in ways that continue to promote white liberal practices. Educators and participants need to acknowledge Indigenous or scriptural philosophical principles with criticality and awareness. Without a critical lens, many of these principles become shallow rhetoric that continues to perpetuate a capitalist and neoliberal platform. At times, even with a critical lens, it is challenging for teachers committed to stabilizing whiteness to break away from hegemonic conditions, implicit bias, and the structure/ institution/curriculum which works against liberation (Romano & Arms Almengor, 2021). Much of restorative justice’s application in schools is appropriated by a culture of individualism. White liberalists often articulate a rhetoric of love and inclusion but are quick to neutralize dissent in the name of order. Many educators and school systems contend that everyone is equal, making anti-racist training, for instance, a tool of derision. Facilitating inclusion means critically reflecting on who is in and who is out of the circle, and on the power dynamics that perpetuate the exclusion of some while welcoming others. Schooling is a collaborative endeavor, containing social and political conflicts (McAnulty & Garrett, 2022). As I have shown throughout this book, circles are founded on a peace that engages conflicts and dialogue. Entering discussion about conflict with purpose—both interpersonal and on a broader scale—is essential for democratic education. Such dialogue practices are integral to creating restorative, peaceful classrooms. And in embodying this way of learning and being at school, teachers and students alike commit to paying critical attention to ensuring that these interconnections promote love and well-­ being. Inclusive participation is essential for mediating social conflict and social hierarchy, where people come to see their shared humanity.

Talking About Circles Without Talking in Circles: Learning From Voices and Silences Restorative justice in education is not only about teaching practices. It can be a philosophical—and systemic—commitment to dismantling structural racism and other oppression. It is about students’ voices, which are heard differently during moments of negative peace (where direct conflict is absent) and positive peace (where there is ongoing, proactive relationship building; Galtung, 1969). When conflicts erupt, the voices of marginalized students need to be centered—not silenced. In the various cases

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across the eight elementary classrooms described in this book, most consistently, when teachers had strong relationships with their students, the potential for constructive conflict engagement (and building positive peace) increased. This engagement was evident in how these students presented themselves in classroom discussions and in relationships with peers and teachers. The students’ voices came through in differing ways—at times reinforcing hierarchy and at other times dismantling it. My research shows that much work is done by all circle participants when one person is speaking—they form thoughts, generate perspectives, and solidify relationships. Still, I did not see evidence of this in every circle I observed. Some students checked out, some chose to remain outside, some did not engage. Clearly, the tension between the theory and the actual practice persists. When a school board mandates restorative justice, they typically do so partially, using a system-level approach emphasizing postincident management of aggression. This approach does not always consider whether schools have the readiness and adequate preparation to embrace building a restorative culture (M. A. Brown, 2021; Gomez et al., 2021). My case studies show that schools are unlikely to have 100 percent of the staff on board. Even when schools train their staff, the implementation of restorative justice pedagogies and practices varies considerably based on incidents, capacity, and school culture. In any restorative school, a large enough team needs to be on hand—one that includes teachers and educational assistants, child and youth workers, administrative staff, custodians, and parents. Schools’ readiness also depends on showing school stakeholders that restorative justice is part of a movement. Most people need to understand the why for restorative justice. Because of this, people most often want to know about the numbers of suspensions and expulsions and recidivism rates. While these are important and necessary for evaluating the implications of implementation, my study of pedagogical practices illustrates that a restorative culture shift is more than the implementation of circles—it’s about how people relate and connect to each other. Of course, talking about restorative justice means talking about when things do not go well. To participate authentically in the process, teachers and students must allow themselves to be vulnerable. As these cases show, while vulnerability is a skill that many restorative practitioners and participants can develop, it is not possible to mandate vulnerability in circles (Gregory & Evans, 2020). It is difficult work that requires commitment.

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However, exploring what is happening when things are not going well allows participants to understand the potential of inclusion (Gregory et al., 2016). This potential needs to be held on to and understood, and sometimes this takes time and many failed attempts. Because it is emotional work, it is messy and hurtful at times for both students and teachers (Garrett & Alvey, 2021).

Building a Culture or a Career: The Need for Commitment Too often, administrators or leaders in school boards or teachers in schools take on the “restorative agenda” only to advance their careers or impress their superior, or because they are being mandated to participate. They seek to use it as their contribution to equity. However, in doing so they are not engaging in restorative justice in education. Such a power-driven approach threatens the long-term commitment that restorative justice requires. This is slow and often challenging work, built on relationships that center community and trust. The teachers profiled in this book were all committed to a restorative practice in ways that made sense to them. Their approaches varied, and their implementation, at times, deeply impacted students—often in ways that included them, but at times also excluded them. Some saw restorative justice in education as a program or technique. Restorative pedagogy or circles, however, are not merely teaching strategies, but part of what could be a justice movement. For some teachers, this meant reflecting on how they might have perpetuated harm. Some administrators worked to make restorative justice a way of life in their schools. These principals held staff meetings in a circle, offered ongoing professional development, put posters on walls, and created a school environment that demonstrated the collaborative effort across all school personnel. For those who are resistant to restorative justice, leaders committed to the process need to frame restorative justice as invitational, so that people do not feel coerced. Drawing on shared values and relationships supports this invitational process. When a school commits to living out its values together, people must understand that this is not an optional commitment. When a student or a teacher challenges someone’s authority or integrity, a strong culture, built on values of respect and inclusion, is

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needed to help people live out the conflict and grow from it. One way to think about this is imagining having your child or student on this side of the conflict, and then on the other—how would your responses and perspectives shift through this empathic approach? Ultimately, neither school boards, facilitators, nor teachers can make someone speak or participate. They may give people a talking piece, but it is impossible to mandate or require authentic and vulnerable participation. The teacher is not a laureate, delivering prescribed knowledge to students in a critical pedagogical approach. While there are variances among their training programs, qualifications, and experiences, teachers still need to learn how to attend to students’ social and emotional well-being if they want to create a safe and healthy classroom climate conducive to learning. The teacher’s role is critical for nurturing students’ emotional and intellectual engagement. To achieve equity and inclusion fully, teachers need to do more than just teach. Enough evidence illustrates that punishing a child into learning or being good does not work; such futile punishments disproportionally impact marginalized students (Bickmore, 2004; Kohn, 1993; Mallett, 2016; Peterson et  al., 2001; Rahimi & Karkami, 2015; Skiba & Peterson, 1999). To learn, students need to feel connected and safe. Restorative justice pedagogies allow students to thrive socially and academically in a culture of care. Such an approach to facilitating learning also prepares young people for active and informed democratic engagement. Not all teachers, like Ms. Weaver, have strong administrative support and a peer group committed to creating a restorative school culture; and even though she did, Ms. Weaver struggled to address challenging issues, such as racism and discrimination. Like Ms. Rossi, some might begin a practice and purposely stop, to protect themselves. “Sticking to the curriculum” has never been the purpose of schools, but it has been a way out of doing the necessary work of creating a safe classroom. The mandate of institutionalized schooling is to transmit values and culture. Restorative justice is a means of interrupting the structural inequities of this transmission by intercepting it to establish norms and values that include all students. Resistance is a justice-oriented exercise. Sometimes being silent is resistance; disengagement is resistance; conflict is resistance. The classroom vignettes in this book illustrate these realities and complexities of classroom talk. And more importantly, they name the fact that not all restorative circles are a success. The circles and classroom dialogue I observed were complicated, nuanced, and at times far from inclusive. However, they

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illustrate classroom circles’ key challenges and principles, which can better equip (and support) educators to implement restorative and dialogic pedagogies. They reflect how educators’ choices might facilitate more significant and authentic inclusion through a critical restorative lens.

Restoration Postcrisis: Deepening Connections Through Conflict Restorative justice in education addresses the causes and consequences of conflicts—not just the symptoms. In supporting young people to navigate internal or interpersonal conflicts, educators must identify their needs and feelings. Each person’s reactions to conflict are a response to unmet needs. These “big feelings” are beautiful—they are not negative responses. Instead, they give us insight into internal strife and its underlying causes. By meeting those needs instead of focusing on the behaviors, educators deal with the cause, not the symptom. The intensity of conflicts and imbalance around the world has created chaos. COVID-19 has shifted how educators, students, and society perceive schooling. While some people have chosen to exert pressure to return to “normal,” others have wanted to disengage from the system entirely. Schools can restore balance by tapping into the chaos, engaging with what it is and how it has come to be. Ignoring and avoiding the pressure will move young people away from restoration, continue the escalation, and go deeper without authentic engagement. Connecting authentically, restorative justice in schools will allow young people to heal and thrive. Skeptics of restorative justice in schools often have concerns about what exactly educators are restoring, particularly within the context of reconstituting oppressive systems. For this reason, many have preferred the term transformative justice to conceptualize the movement of reconfiguring how people engage in the world (Andrzejewski et  al., 2009; Lederach,  2003/2014; R.  Morris, 2000). Their intention has been to consider how many Indigenous and collectivist societies have resolved conflicts and engaged with each other in a spirit of reliance and cooperation (Sumida Huaman, 2011). This is the kind of ethos that restorative justice seeks to restore. Transformative justice deepens this process of restoration. Like peacebuilding, its intention is to reconstitute how schools

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respond to conflict, using proactive measures to plant new ways of interacting and being together (Bajaj, 2018; Cunningham, 2015). Building relationships post-COVID requires developing a kind of trust and connection that teachers might not have ever expected to have with their students. Even those resistant to restorative approaches agree that educators have been forced to handle the experience of shared trauma on the frontlines. Now is a time to reconnect and reflect, to be in relationship with each other—and to rely on shared experiences of this conflict to tend to the wounds of loss and forced disconnection. Conflicts provide productive openings for dissecting power. When conflicts raised by students or teachers question centralized power structures, they open space for deeper understanding. Conflicts—whether they are connected to Harriet Tubman’s struggle for freedom or to why a student placed a fallen blueberry back into her neighbor’s bowl—all teach about how power is established. Conflict is valuable because it highlights violations and the implications of harming another person. How educators deal with conflict in the classroom is critical for teaching students about resistance. As students practice the communication and necessary analytical skills to decipher the uptake of conflicts, they expose themselves and others to deficiencies in their arguments. The danger in not addressing conflict and presuming neutrality is obvious—it maintains hegemonic systems of control without reason or judgment.

Embracing Vulnerability, Bringing About Systemic Change Ms. Rossi felt the strong emotional toll of propelling a challenging process for herself and her students. She had completely stopped doing circles: “it was too hard for my students and myself emotionally.” After having experienced the suicide of one of her students and the backlash of other students who didn’t like circles, she felt isolated and decided that circle pedagogies were not suitable for her. However, she did think that she kept the principles of the restorative circle alive in other aspects of her classroom pedagogy. A huge proponent of classroom discussions, she still  brought students together to discuss issues and to reflect on their learning. For the most part, it seems that she did what Ms. Harding’s principal thought would be the answer to circles that “aired dirty

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laundry”—she attempted to use the process to stick to the curriculum mandates. Circles do not have to engage with students’ trauma. But when students do feel safe to express themselves, whether that is a reflection on the Black Lives Matter resistance movement when learning about Canada’s colonial history, or realizing that they have brown skin, are autistic, or have a physical disability that everyone in the class ignores, they may choose to name it. Naming experiences, whether directly connected to the mandated curriculum (content or the rule) or as “lived” or enacted curriculum (Aoki, 1993), is a vulnerable process. How educators offer support—through inclusion and exclusion—drives both students’ and teachers’ aptitude for further engagement or disengagement. Restorative justice in schools provides a platform to engage in critical dialogue and pedagogy—necessary processes to build a democratic society that promotes civic engagement. The thick description of my observations and interactions in these various classrooms and schools illustrates both the power and perils of the circle process. Teachers can never expect to just sit in a circle and assume that all is well. The circle process needs to be carefully implemented and interrogated. There needs to be consistent attention to who’s in and who’s out. Furthermore, facilitators need to consider their mindset and capacity to engage emotionally. Restorative justice in education is difficult work. It requires adequate training, mentorship, and support for teachers. And it involves teachers being willing to pursue this philosophical and cultural shift toward a more inclusive, anti-oppressive, and relational environment. However, many educators are not committed to doing the work that is required. Their harmful approach to managing conflict is detrimental to relationships, most deeply impacting students who must bear the brunt of a destructive restorative process that has landed on them without purpose or care. Being a savior for restorative justice is not restorative justice. As Audre Lorde (2007) put it: The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. (p. 27)

Lorde (2003) invited a kind of critical reflection that would inspire all practitioners to question their role in perpetuating injustice. The

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application of restorative justice in Western contexts has used Western constructs to reproduce colonial, hegemonic structures. Thus, it has demeaned the essence of a process intended to dismantle power structures, not support them. The realities of the cradle-to-school-to-prison pipeline, Black Lives Matter, the Standing Rock Water Protectors, and the truths of how the world system allocates power during a global pandemic all indicate the dire need to go beyond voicing injustices or simply talking about applying restorative practices. There needs to be a societal commitment to a fundamental shift in how we approach and respond to conflict in and beyond classrooms and schools. This study illustrated how teachers negotiate various risks in their circle practice. Some felt safer taking minimal risks. Ms. Weaver, for instance, still  felt much more confident navigating higher-risk questions, such as how to deal with anger toward a family member, even in a classroom where multiple cliques prevailed. However, the likelihood of her facilitating this kind of circle in her first year of implementation in such a context would likely have been rare. Below, I outline how these teachers across various schools and contexts approached creating connections with their students and building community.

Approaches to Creating Connection and Building Community Restorative justice in praxis is a dedication to a lifelong philosophical way of seeing the world and of seeing each other. Educators who are motivated to commit to this practice may come to it from a place of experiencing injustice themselves. In wanting to do something to make a change, they relentlessly pursue their need for inclusive and equitable justice. Efforts at seeking love and inclusion require the teachers to do deep work within themselves. The systemic change that this envisions relies on educators’ moral integrity; it involves confronting how their own (or others’) actions have contributed to the exclusion of others. Above all, this study has illustrated how restorative pedagogies and practicing peacemaking skills increase learning opportunities. I have documented the realities and complexities of classroom circles in various contexts to encourage educators to not only reflect on their own practice but to accept that not all circles will be perfect—and that that is OK. Despite the various applications and nuances in multiple classrooms, all students

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had more just and equitable access to learning because of their teachers’ approaches to restorative justice. I have identified five critical ingredients in these different approaches that nurture restorative justice in diverse classrooms: • Nurturing teachers’ and students’ confidence in the process • Knowing your students through critical relationality • Norming and facilitation processes to keep the rhythm of the circle • Sustaining conflict dialogue • Centering inclusive language Nurturing Teachers’ and Students’ Confidence in the Process Students appeared to take to circles much more easily in classes where the teacher demonstrated confidence in their ability to facilitate and implement them. Ms. Spence, new to teaching special education classes and new to circle processes, felt challenged by the idea of it all. Ms. Rossi, an extremely confident and capable teacher, led circles with ease and then stepped back from facilitating when her confidence wavered. Ms. Weaver came to circles quite optimistic about the intention of the process but not as confident in her skills. As the years progressed and her confidence increased, she navigated through a tough school year because of her faith in the circle process. Training and ongoing mentorship are necessary to encourage teachers’ confidence. Even more critical is committing to constant circle practice in the classroom. In most classrooms, this means starting with where teachers and administrators are comfortable—such as starting with safer topics before moving on to complex conflicts. As the classroom community gets stronger, students’ and teachers’ confidence in circles will further grow and bring people closer together. Most teachers demonstrated confidence in their pedagogical engagement where they worked in schools with a solid restorative school climate. Teachers who had one or two colleagues who understood and believed in restorative justice appeared more equipped to handle conflict  and, as a result, handled it constructively. Furthermore, strong relationships among and between staff and school personnel are critical to an effective anti-­ racist restorative process (Jain et al., 2014). Restorative pedagogies help teachers feel confident about choosing appropriate teaching strategies, thereby increasing the potential for student engagement.

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Knowing Your Students Through Critical Relationality Relationships are crucial to any restorative process (J.  J. Llewellyn & Morrison, 2018). When young people have strong relationships, even if with just one adult, their opportunities for social and academic success increase. Strong relationships can interrupt intergenerational trauma and promote healing. However, not everyone has equal access to strong relationships. Ms. Davis knew her students well enough to ask how they were doing; she inquired about what was happening in their lives, offered them breaks when she knew they were needed, and gave them leadership roles to empower their presence. Ms. Davis’s concerted efforts to build strong relationships while pursuing constructive conflicts in math contributed to her restorative classroom culture. Judith Kleinfeld’s (1975) study of classrooms for Indigenous children in Alaska in the early 1970s sought to identify characteristics of teachers who were able to build connections with students. For example, teachers who praised their students verbally and nonverbally (such as smiling or having a sparkle in their eyes) reinforced what Kleinfeld referred to as “desirable classroom behavior” and “effective teacher behavior” (p. 306). Teachers who demonstrated “personal warmth” while also holding high expectations for students led to successful teaching and student engagement. Kleinfeld (1975) also argued that the “villain” in Indigenous students’ education is “the ethnocentric teacher who is unselfconsciously trying to indoctrinate students into the ‘American way of life’” (p.  317). Such teachers attempt to rationalize their failure by further disseminating this indoctrination, even when students resist through silence or other means of resistance. Such disconnect deepens with hegemonic approaches to curriculum that are disconnected from students’ lives. A culturally centered teaching practice is critical for postpandemic pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2021; Paris, 2021). Restorative justice needs to be a central component for rebuilding schools and restoring relationships. The power of community building and relational connection is not new. Too many basic, innately human tendencies—functioning and thriving in a collectivist environment, relying on human relationships—have been overrun by capitalism and an individualist culture that seeks to dominate. It is possible to nurture success and also what Kleinfeld (1975) would call warmth.

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Teachers’ warmth is critical for building authentic student relationships. Authentically acknowledging and validating students’ academic and nonacademic talents means knowing and valuing their experiences (Toshalis, 2012). However, over-praising can create superficial relationships based on exaggeration and can thus be inauthentic. At times, circles ask people to share deeply about themselves. The process can quickly deteriorate when relationships are not built yet. In building relationships, critical race theory and trauma-informed practices are crucial for disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline (Brummer, 2020; Dutil, 2020; Evans et al., 2021). Punitive approaches to managing conflict are often retraumatizing for students experiencing destructive and aggressive conflict in their homes and communities. Most young people are not consciously aware of this retraumatization. Instead, they are likely to become further desensitized because of the punishments they receive. They equip themselves to push harder and prepare their bodies and minds to receive the often negative repercussions. Building warm and restorative relationships with students allows them to let down—even if only temporarily—the protective shield that punitive discipline has forced them to build. Neoliberal approaches to restorative justice allow those who uphold whiteness to be comforted as they argue for a sole focus on individual relationships that does not pay attention to power and privilege (O’Brien & Nygreen, 2020). A critical, anti-oppressive approach to restorative justice in education, in contrast, involves deep exploration of equity, race, and inclusion (Stewart & Ezell, 2022). Unfortunately, the large-scale interest in quick-fix implementation has allowed some schools to adopt this apparent panacea in ways that purposely target and exclude others. Norming and Facilitation Processes to Keep the Rhythm of the Circle Conflict in a restorative circle means that the process is working. When conflict arises, it usually means that people feel safe to share, explore, and explode. In any restorative process, norming and expectations for participation contribute to students feeling safe enough to share their deep feelings and experiences. Remaining calm and neutral when conflict arises is challenging! It is hard to stay on a restorative wavelength in these critical and conflictual moments.

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Teachers’ feelings and perceptions are bound to influence how conflicts unfold. Ms. Fitzgerald, the primary teacher, modeled how younger children rely on more rigid structures. Young children are more noticeably perplexed when the daily rhythm or schedule is out of sync. As students get older, changes in schedule and abrupt transitions are internalized more frequently, and stress is shown in different ways. Keeping the rhythm of the circle is an integral part of the process. When participants follow and respect the intended guidelines and sequencing, they contribute to a safer and more inclusive space. Each morning when the Grade 2 and Grade 3 students arrived at their desks, they knew their teacher would invite them to move to the carpet for their morning circle. They also knew that Ethan, who sat facing the window, would likely not join and would resist (see Chap. 7). This impacted the circle’s rhythm. Ms. Fitzgerald, at times, spoke to her overall goal of keeping their community centered, and continued with the process despite the erratic participation levels. Circles are often a transformative process, because they provide an opportunity to heal hurts. As young people work through conflicts, processing their pain, they cannot always be expected to hold it together. Instead, they may act out that pain in ways that might be perceived as vicious. Omar in Grade 8 (see Chap. 4) was not that different from Ethan in Grade 2—they both needed to be heard and included. In each of these cases, I showed how restorative principles impacted the various people in the room. Their desire for a place in the circle meant that they sat on the circle’s periphery to start. It is no wonder that Ethan’s teacher observed that when Ethan did choose to sit in the circle, he was constantly attending to the facilitation process, making sure that those holding the talking piece were the ones speaking and that those who passed had another chance to speak. Beliefs about marginalized groups stem from racist beliefs and ideas that have informed various presumptions and assumptions. For instance, when educators and researchers name something as being wrong about a particular racial group, they are also stating their belief that something is inferior about that racial group (Kendi, 2019, p. 11). This naming of marginalized groups is often done with the intent to invoke white-supremacist norms. For instance, Omar’s exclusion from the circle may have been treated differently had he not been from Syria and presumably associated with gang violence and war. At the same time, his inclusion in participating rendered his actions social and culturally appropriate for the classroom

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norms. The perception of his exclusion was steeped in racist beliefs and ideas that structure how teachers—and researchers—respond to students, particularly in high-conflict situations. It might be wise for teachers reflecting on their process to stop and think differently about the student sitting outside the circle. Is that student aware that there is always a seat for them in the circle? How can teachers pause to examine these issues introspectively to understand better how their actions have impacted others? And most importantly, how can they stop blaming the students for their disengagement? Having a restorative impulse involves normalizing constructive conflict, which gives students the freedom to ask questions and respond to each other. In this book, examples of resolving and sustaining conflict dialogue illustrate how to inhibit the reproduction of a harmful cycle of violence. While three teachers spoke about sharing the circle facilitator role with students, others maintained their teacher-facilitator position and executed their power as such. For example, in the classroom with six autistic children, four adults in the room maintained their position of power. Even though some of the students eventually engaged in the process, there was never any question about who oversaw the circle. Sustaining Conflict Dialogue and Taking a Stand Against the In-Group In those classrooms where restorative justice pedagogy was used, time constraints inhibited student empowerment and conflict dialogue. As such, while some conflicts were taken up constructively, the time teachers in many classrooms devoted to deep discussion was limited and reinforced by unequal privilege (Dull & Murrow, 2008). Not surprisingly, these teachers often struggled with whether to allow the content to dominate their lessons or pause to nurture a productive deliberation of divergent perspectives (Pace, 2015). Teachers play a critical role in shaping students’ understandings about social and political issues concerning racism and discrimination (P. Thomas, 2016). This study of restorative teachers has shown that teachers (and teacher educators) need to explicitly teach how to address conflicts in ways that challenge and identify inequities. Classroom dialogue can engage students equitably while also providing the kind of literacy young people need to analyze extremist ideologies, populism, and questionable “facts” that they have been exposed to through the media and their sociocultural

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environment. Oppressive, extremist, or hate-fueled ideologies can play out in varying ways in schools, often leading to bullying and conflict between students (Aronson, 2000; Walters, 2014). When young people are social outcasts, their propensity to engage in bullying or extremist behavior may increase. Youth who seek out extremist or white-supremacist groups are typically ostracized in their school, family, or community. Some say that this exclusion has contributed to homegrown terrorism, in which fringe fanatics form groups that draw young people in (Davies, 2014; P. Thomas, 2016). A restorative culture creates norms for interfaith dialogue, where young people wanting to engage in contentious conversations can explore their points of view or play with alternative perspectives (Parker & Gill, 2021). Lack of opportunities to have these critical dialogues with a trusted adult in the classroom could force young people to have them outside of school. This creates the risk that young people move their conversations underground, making it much harder for teachers to intervene (Novelli, 2017). Exclusion can lead some young people to feel so powerless that they remove themselves from school; disengaging, truancy, and suicide attempts are all too common for young people who experience identity-targeted bullying. Too often, those who are victims are often perpetrators, and perpetrators are also victims. Targeted attacks against social identity groups—whether they be Black, Muslim, Jewish, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+, or women—will continue as long as people join the in-crowd or else remain silent (Diazgranados, 2014; Woglom & Pennington, 2010). Restorative justice practitioners, educators, and researchers need to reflect on the principles that ground our practice. It is easy to continue being a bystander to structural violence—even as a restorative practitioner. That is what makes action so challenging. Joining the bystanders and doing nothing allow many people to feel safer in the dominant group. Naming exclusionary practices within restorative justice approaches involves action; it involves standing up to the principles of whiteness that have become embedded in restorative processes. It is even more challenging to do this from the dominant position. Part of the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum (Strom, 1994) introduces the story of Eve Shalen. Eve told her story about being bullied and joining in with the bullies themselves to make fun of another girl. From this in-group position, she perpetuated further hate; she could not end the bullying. In the Facing History curriculum, she told her story alongside the story of Elie Wiesel, a

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Holocaust survivor, thus illustrating the implications of not taking a stand to help others. To interrupt systemic racism, or to stop hate crimes or climate change, members of society need to acknowledge that there is a problem, take responsibility, and do something about it. Joining the in-­ crowd will not contribute to building an inclusive culture. Taking a stand against injustice is a critical point in this journey. Inclusive and Centering Language Choices about words matter, and they matter a lot. If a teacher threatens a child or asks them to leave before coming into the circle, they violate the process: the system of care and connection has been disrupted by harmful—and punitive—language. Understanding—and embracing—the link between restorative justice and anti-oppression work is critical for an inclusive and critical approach to restorative justice implementation in schools. People who are aware and knowledgeable about anti-bias work are not necessarily equipped with the conflict language to deeply engage with the controversial issues prevalent in this work. Correct language points to how and when to intervene, and how to create a just world. How it is used contributes to teaching students to understand justice when conflict arises. For ELLs, circles are a critical communicative community-building tool. ELLs are subject to more punitive disciplinary practices, perpetuating further marginalization and exclusion (Pentón Herrera & McNair, 2020). When learning a new language, much pedagogical emphasis centers on rote learning for literacy development, such as grammar and spelling. However, engaging in community-­building practices is also a necessary and beneficial component in their learning. Traumas potentially suffered by refugee students, for instance, need to be addressed, as well as the internalized oppression and exclusion of not having access to the dominant language (Parker, 2021). Such social and emotional burdens make language learning that much more complex for ELLs. In circles, students can reflect and engage with their own and others’ language and culture. Having access to the social and emotional support offered by restorative justice’s community-­ building practices can support all students and actively engage their literacy learning (Pentón Herrera & McNair, 2020). Literacy is an essential concept for helping people develop and make sense of their world. Literacy is more than being able to read, write, and communicate: it includes the tools needed to engage in active resistance

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(Freire, 1970/2007; hooks, 1994). For marginalized people, literacy can be one of the only ways to create critical consciousness. Participation in circles and other peacemaking and peacebuilding processes can deepen the emotional literacy that is needed for developing critical literacy. For instance, in Bickmore’s (2002) school mediation study, Grade 4 students whose administrators had barred them from participating in the mediation training and programming scored lower on their standardized literacy test than Grade 4s in equivalent schools where they had been allowed to participate in mediation activities. Teaching young people how to identify their own emotions and the emotions of others builds their capacity to understand and empathize with others. Learning practical communication skills—restorative dialogue—is foundational for literacy achievement; it forms the basis of academic learning. In a restorative process, young people are equipped with the tools and strategies to understand their needs, and to define what support they need for their social and emotional development. Restorative justice becomes infiltrated with whiteness when working within systems of whiteness (Mattis, 2020). It is critical that, in restorative training and early days of implementation, trainers and trainees are acutely aware of how their words and choices might perpetuate exclusion.

Moving Beyond Policy Changes: Transforming Consciousness to Address Structural Racism Making changes to policies is part of the essential psychological shift needed to contribute to a more restorative school culture. For example, administrators must carry the critical consciousness necessary for assessing how their actions or inactions effectively lead to the more significant punishment for students of color. Restorative justice is not only about circles. It is about teaching people—students and teachers alike—to interrogate implicit biases. These resistance strategies are tools for examining and dismantling hegemonic systems of control. Structural racism persists not only because of policies but because of how school personnel view students of color. When schools enact punishments that purposely work to target students of color, the impact on those students’ learning and engagement is compromised. Unfairly targeted and punished by schooling systems, administrators, or teachers, students are more likely to skip school,

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disengage academically, or drop out altogether. Rendered powerless, marginalized students are left with few tools or support to advocate for themselves. Such students often end up with less earning potential, and their potential for ending up in prison is exacerbated (C. Y. Kim et al., 2010). Schools’ use of exclusionary and punitive punishments causes many negative impacts—both psychological and physical. Speaking from his American context, Daniel Losen (2011) argued: Since children are not expendable, since many suspensions respond to behavior for which many other students are not suspended, and since Black students are disproportionately hit by these discretionary removals, we must be concerned about how disciplinary removal affects the removed students, not just those who remain in class. The notion that schools should “kick out the bad kids so the good kids can learn” violates a commitment to equal educational opportunity for all students. (p. 10)

The increase in the popularity of restorative justice is indicative of a shift in consciousness toward believing that exclusion does not equal justice. RJE speaks back to punitive white-supremacist frameworks (McCants-­ Turner, 2022). It presents an alternative platform to engage with young people, one that educators and administrators could use to reframe their misconceptions about student rebellion—seeing it instead as productive behavior (Velez et al., 2020). Students are not acting out: they are “hurting out” (Arms Almengor, 2020). Equipping teachers, administrators, and all school personnel with tools to understand racial justice, and what that looks like in the classroom and in disciplinary forums, is critical to enriching the lives of unfairly and unjustly targeted students. Ultimately, a neoliberal restorative approach is a celebratory process—it is akin to recalling heroes and holidays on multicultural days. In such an application, schools reduce restorative justice to an optional extracurricular. Creating conscious opportunities for reflection on complicity and action is one way that restorative justice in education facilitates inclusion and equity. This is not about scheduling one-time mix-it-up lunches or a so-called restorative intervention to convince people of how their commitment to whiteness has harmed others (Wadhwa, 2020). Instead, it acknowledges this as a starting point and consciously addresses these harms. Any restorative initiative must empower people by confronting social structures and barriers through a

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philosophical shift. By pushing these boundaries—through centering the restorative principles of inclusion and resistance—schooling will equip all students to participate in a more just and democratic society.

Sweetgrass Circle Complete, by Lorrie Gallant

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Index

A Achievement-based commitments, 208 Administrators critical consciousness of, 246 support of teachers, 171, 224 African heritage students, 141 Anti-racism, 221 Arab Spring, 10 Arusha Peace Agreement, 50 Attentive listening, 155 Authentic learning, 42 Autistic students, 144, 146, 147 B Best practice discussions, 158 Big feelings, 29, 235 Black Lives Matter, 237 Black students, 141 punishment of, 147, 247 relationships to mathematics, 208 Blaming-and-shaming questions, 142 Book of Awesome (Pasricha), 153 Brain parts of, 57

signals of, 58 Bullying, 8, 143–145, 244 C Canadian settler-colonialism, 22 Children conflict avoidance, 40 emotional capacity, 106 exploration of identity, 41 marginalized, 4 perceptions of “good” and “bad,” 52 reliance on rigid structures, 242 stress in, 121 Circle pedagogy, 8, 16, 30, 144, 225 Circles administrators’ perception of, 190–191 autistic students in, 147 benefits of, 67, 118, 153, 181, 186 best practice discussions, 158 case studies and role-play scenarios, 187 communication in, 56, 215

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 C. A. H. Parker-Shandal, Restorative Justice in the Classroom, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16590-0

283

284 

INDEX

Circles (cont.) as community-building exercises, 154 complexity of, 88, 187 confidentiality in, 174 conflict in, 29–30, 149, 186, 188, 241, 242 consistency of, 237 constrain of autonomy, 147 culture of silence and, 124 definition of, 193 equality in, 222 facilitator’s role in, 11, 58, 115–116, 132, 144, 149–150, 183, 192, 193 function of, 6 gender and, 150–153, 188 groupthink phenomenon in, 157 guidelines of, 87 implementation of, 11, 12, 138, 142, 237 Indigenous nature of, 58, 100 information sharing in, 134, 135 interpersonal dynamics in, 141 in judicial settings, 6 language arts curriculum and, 188 literacy education and, 9, 10, 149 logistics of, 186 management of intense feelings in, 189–190 modification of, 126 norms for interaction, 176 opening and closing, 58 outcome of, 132 participation in, 152 as part of justice movement, 233 pedagogical value of, 6, 8, 44, 56 personal experiences in, 191 physical element of, 177 politically driven ideas, 141 power relations and, 44, 237 purpose of, 184, 231

resistance to, 93, 119, 133, 234, 236 reticent speakers in, 140 rhythm of, 242 risk of, 42, 238 science curriculum and, 188–189 sexual identities in, 147–148 as space for conversations, 42 in special-needs class, 116 structured process of, 7, 8 students’ perspectives of, 13–14, 138–140, 152, 155–156, 158, 178, 234, 239 students’ trauma and, 237 students’ voices in, 127 studies of, 13 teachers’ attitude to, 93, 100, 239 time constrains, 243 topics for discussion, 9–10, 134, 136, 144, 157, 174, 175 as transformative process, 242 truth sharing in, 186 unplanned dialogue in, 142 Classroom community-building in, 13, 154 conflicts in, 173, 222 image of ideal, 43 restorative dialogue in, 8, 12–13, 53, 56, 131, 243–244 Classroom vignettes, 127, 131, 159, 234 Close relationships, 46, 47 Cognitive functioning, 57 Community-building circle practice, 7, 52, 89, 154, 155, 174 in the classroom, 13, 144, 154 power of, 240 Community of learners, 205 Confidence building, 28 Conflict avoidance of, 27, 40

 INDEX 

in the classroom, 82, 173, 222 educators and, 24 engagement in, 88 ethnic and cultural identities and, 171 gender and, 105, 171 ideologies and, 243 importance of discussion about, 231, 236 as learning opportunity, 17 as moral dilemmas, 48 normalization of, 243 power structures and, 236 reactions to, 41, 235 relationship building and, 156 restorative approaches to, 41, 42, 198 roots of, 58 types of, 171 See also Postincident conflicts Conflict dialogue perspectives on, 44, 48 relationships and, 45–46, 68 Conflict management, 52, 87, 89, 198, 241 Conflict resolution, 123, 173, 186, 188 Conflict talk approach, 131, 132, 141, 149 Controlled relationships, 46, 47 COVID-19 pandemic impact on schooling, 11, 30, 212, 235 systemic change after, 237 Critical literacy, 245 Culturally centered teaching practice, 240 Culture of inclusion, 30 Culture of individualism, 230 Culture of silence, 124 Curriculum building of, 54–55

285

conflict embedded into, 87 practice of ‘anesthetizing,’ 65 topics, 43 Cyberbullying, 184–185 D Dallaire, Roméo, 50 Desirable classroom behavior, 240 Dialogue, see Restorative dialogue Different opinions sharing of, 185, 186 students’ responses to, 185 Discrimination discussion of, 220–222 experiences of, 184 students’ perspectives about, 180, 181 Discussions ethical practices for, 179 personal attacks during, 178 E Education as process of "cultural preservation", 64 punitive systems of control in, 62, 67, 147, 234, 247 Educators, see Teachers Effective teacher behavior, 240 Elementary school classrooms administrative support, 123 implementation of restorative pedagogy in, 114, 115, 117 profile of, 114 rhythm keeping in, 120 special-needs class, 116 students’ diversity, 117 Emergent curriculum, 53, 54 Emotional literacy, 245 Empathy, 192

286 

INDEX

English language learners (ELLs), 47, 99, 139, 153, 245 Equitable pedagogies, 192 Experience-based commitments, 208–209 F Facing History and Ourselves curriculum, 244 Feminization of teaching, 85 First Nations schools, 60 Fly-in-and-fly-out method, 89 Futures Matter, 48–49 G Gay students, 219–220 Gender participation in circles and, 150–153, 157–159 Gender inequality cultural norms and, 179 disclosure of, 180 students’ concerns of, 180 Gender-neutral bathrooms controversy, 181–182 Gender-neutral language, 217 Grit ideology, 61 Groupthink phenomenon, 151, 157 H Health education curriculum, 175 High-performing students, 139 History Matters, 48 Homophobia conversations about, 219–220 hooks, bell (Gloria Jean Watkins), 5, 41, 230 Human flourishing, 30 Humanizing pedagogy, 4 Humanizing research, 14

I Inclusion, 230, 231 in Ubuntu philosophy, 230 Indian Act, 22 Indigenous justice, 59 Indigenous people education of, 240 laws of, 60 reconciliation efforts, 159 resource shortages, 60 restorative justice and, 58, 60, 230 Intense feelings, 189–190 Intentional heart-work, 140 Iqbal (novel), 149 Islamophobia, 136 J Justice authentic learning and, 42 vs. exclusion, 247 meaning of, 19, 21–22 as temporary space, 22 theory of, 19 Justice Matters, 48 K Knowledge transfer, 65 L Language gender-neutral, 216–217 Language Matters, 48 Liberatory education, 63–67 Limbic complex, 57 Literacy, 245 Love, 5 Love, Bettina, 41, 67 We Want To Do More Than Survive, 6

 INDEX 

M Marginalized students perception of circles, 218 potentials of, 246 resilience of, 63 voices of, 231 Markham, Edwin Outwitted, 4 Martin, Danny, 208 Maskwacis (Indigenous community), 60 Math classroom accountable talk in, 201 challenges of fractions, 202–203 community-building in, 207–208 conflict and, 199, 202, 203, 205, 207 equity and inclusion in, 209 experience-based commitments, 208–209 individual students’ needs in, 207, 208 mediation space, 206 mental breaks, 201 paired groupings in, 200 peer-based problem-solving in, 204 productive struggle, 200, 203 racial inequality and, 208 restorative method of teaching, 198–202, 206–207, 209, 225 students’ anxiety of, 200, 202–203 teacher-student relationships in, 203, 207 Mentorship, 126–127 Misimplementation models, 90–91 N Naming experiences, 237 Neoliberal restorative approach, 247 Neurodivergent students, 47 Neutral education, 64

287

Nonverbal communication, 56 Norming in restorative process, 241 O Office as punishing mechanism, 224 Open-ended learning experiences, 54 Othering process, 173 P Pasricha, Neil Book of Awesome, 153 Peacebuilding, 27, 49, 50 Peace circles, 6, 7, 9, 154 Peacekeeping, 49, 50 Peacemaking, 49, 50, 85–86 Pedagogical love, 5 Pedagogical stances map of, 48–49 Pedagogy, 41, 44, 138, 240 Peer relationships, 48, 153–155 Perspective taking approach, 45, 63, 175, 178 Physical disability restorative dialogue about, 183 Postincident circles, 154, 224 Postincident conflicts, 59, 168 Poverty, 62, 189 Power relations, 44, 59, 237 Power structures, 236 Prefrontal cortex, 57 Primary classrooms circle practice in, 211–212, 214–215 compliance in, 210, 211 conflict management in, 209, 211–214 food management issue, 212, 214 lighting in, 210 mindfulness exercises, 210 noise management in, 210, 211 relationship building in, 211–212

288 

INDEX

Professional development coaching for, 126 Punishments in education, 62, 67, 147, 234, 247 Q Queer students, 218 Question box technique, 217–219 R Race Matters, 48 Racialized students, 63, 221 Racism, 169, 176, 177, 246 incidents of, 222 restorative justice and, 5 students’ discussions of, 177, 220, 221 Relationality, 5, 16, 23, 198, 239–241 Relationships in restorative process, 240 studies of, 61 Religion hate and, 220 race and, 220 Researcher-classroom partnerships, 12 Resilience culture of, 63 Resistance as justice-oriented exercise, 234 Restorative approaches, 21, 102, 103, 247 community-building with, 171, 198 in conflict situations, 171, 198 for mediating juvenile justice, 6, 122 in peacebuilding, 50, 107 in pedagogy, 175, 178, 192, 202, 225 resistance to, 236 students’ engagement in, 13, 47 Restorative culture

building of, 67–68, 103, 168, 198, 209, 232 Restorative dialogue, 8, 12–13, 44, 53, 54, 56, 131–133, 183, 243–244 Restorative discipline, 21 Restorative justice advocacy of, 48 anti-oppression work and, 245 challenges of, 237 characteristics of, 233, 246 colonial structures and, 237 conflict and, 27, 42, 59, 66, 173, 235 connection to shalom, 59 continuity of, 170 critical approach to, 241 cultural differences and, 103–104 definition of, 4, 21, 22 elements of, 21 as form of peacebuilding, 50, 57 goal of, 21 harmful, 89 healing and, 235 Indigenous people and, 23–24, 59, 60, 230 institutional constraints, 66 measurement of, 63 moral development and, 45 neoliberal approaches to, 241 as optional extracurricular, 247 parents’ education in, 224 as philosophical approach, 90 popularity of, 247 as praxis, 238 pursuit of, 67 racism and, 5 relationships building and, 84, 171, 192 roots of, 40, 58 scholarship on, 40 spaces for, 26

 INDEX 

system-level approach to, 232 teachers’ view of, 103, 114, 170 theory of, 16, 40 three-tiered model of, 51, 59 tools of, 40 trauma-informed approach, 191 in Western context, 237 white liberal view of, 42, 63, 172, 246, 247 whole-school approach to, 84, 98, 106 workshops, 60 Restorative justice in education (RJE) anti-racist pedagogies and, 6, 216 career advancement and, 233 characteristics of, 67, 231 circle pedagogy and, 5, 6, 18, 30 coaches and mentors, 126–127 conflict engagement, 230, 231 dialogue in, 57, 193 educators and, 24, 30, 107 effect of, 68 implementation of, 64, 66, 87, 89 misimplementation of, 90 priorities of, 5 resistance to, 233, 235 from students’ perspectives, 223 students-teachers relationships, 13 study of, 11–14 three pillars of, 17, 18 Restorative peace circles discussion of homophobia, 219–220 discussion of racism, 221 disengaged students, 217 facilitator’s role in, 217–218 gender-neutral language, 216–217 question box technique, 217–219 seating arrangement, 216 students’ perception of, 218 Restorative pedagogy, see Circles Restorative practices, 21, 94

289

connection building using, 94 examples of, 52 impact on students, 102 implementation of, 53, 92, 117, 125, 159 multilevel approach to, 192 as process and philosophy, 94 training in, 83, 90, 99, 133, 146 Restorative research analysis of narratives, 16 challenges of, 15 data gathering, 16 researcher’s positionality, 16, 17 stages of, 17 Restorative school culture access to teaching resources, 168 administrative leadership, 168, 169 evaluation of, 86 levels of intervention, 170 local community and, 169 sustainability of, 168 Restorative teacher, 30, 211, 214, 243 Restorative training for adults and for children, 106 circle practice, 94, 96–97, 101 connection building, 93–94, 98 context of, 92 exercises and discussions, 93–94, 101 facilitators’ role in, 92, 98, 99, 101 outcome of, 101–102 participants, 92, 93 postincident response, 92–93 post-training reflection, 102–104 practice-oriented, 94 restorative questions, 98–99, 120 risk taking, 99–100 small-group reflection, 100–101 Rwanda peacekeeping mission in, 50

290 

INDEX

S Safe teaching, 54 Schools community building in, 27, 87 conflicts in, 17 creation of positive culture, 83 hierarchies in, 66 immigrants and refugees in, 153 implementation of restorative justice, 64, 83–84, 232–234 as instrument of social control, 65 mandate of, 234 punitive models, 89, 246 as site of injustice, 27 as spaces for whiteness, 41 staff training, 232 transfer of knowledge, 65 School-to-prison pipeline, 237, 241 Science curriculum circles and, 188–189 Self-care, 28, 179, 180 Self-coping skills, 28–29 Separation from family experience of, 149 Sex education, 173, 174 Sexism, 177 Sexual identities students’ perspectives about, 150–152, 182 Shalen, Eve, 244 Silos, 26 Skill building, 45, 232 Slavery teaching about, 215 Social discipline window, 95 Social hierarchies, 66 Social identity groups, 244 Special-needs students, 138 Spiritual path, 230 Standing Rock Water Protectors, 237 Structural ideology, 62 Students aggression of, 117 attentive listening, 155

attitude to racism, 221 circle process and, 89, 158, 177, 193 civic and political learning, 136, 243 class exercises, 176 clique groups, 217, 222 conflict engagement, 88, 103, 198 control of behavior of, 52 cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, 104, 169 development of grit, 61 dialogue process, 26, 137 discrimination and, 180, 181, 220 disengagement of, 184 emotions sharing, 223 ethnic and cultural diversity, 174 language proficiency, 116–120 learning space, 62 literacy, 116–120 marginalized groups, 43 math skills, 116–120 motivation to succeed, 132 needs and feelings, 235 nonverbal communication, 127 obedience of, 65 perspectives about sexual identities, 182 perspectives of circles, 138–140, 146, 152, 155, 172, 178, 223, 224, 236 public speaking exercise, 121 punitive system, 52, 62, 146, 223, 234 relationships building, 140, 154, 186–188, 191, 192, 241 religious literacy, 220 restorative process and, 103, 120, 124, 225 self-care strategies, 179 small-group interviews with, 218 supportive environment, 121 teachers and, 62, 117, 120, 133, 140 things sharing, 142

 INDEX 

training of, 82 with special needs, 116, 144, 146 Students-teacher relationships, 141, 174, 198, 203, 207, 216, 223, 240, 241 Student talk gender and, 157–159 opportunities for critical reflection, 157 Student-to-student relationships, 141, 198 T Talking-piece circle pedagogy, 7–8, 140, 153, 180, 181, 216, 222 facilitation of, 153 implementation of, 144–146 resistance to using, 168 Teachers abuse of, 122 administrative support of, 125, 142, 171, 224, 234 anxiety of, 126 approach to students, 55, 62, 117, 120, 126, 137, 138, 178, 222, 234 avoidance of controversial issues, 43 behavioral challenges, 174 biases of, 22, 63 circle implementation, 114, 118, 123, 126, 133–150 coaching of, 115 comfort levels, 55 communication skills, 171 confidence of, 239 conflict mitigation and resolution, 24, 102, 103, 105–106, 124, 132, 133, 149, 171, 222, 225, 243 control of class, 119

291

creation of inclusion, 200, 211, 217, 225 educational methods, 55, 104, 143, 171 exclusion of Black female, 85 facilitation of circles, 136, 153, 180, 193 as frontline workers, 236 implementation of restorative practices, 53, 82, 88, 170 in Indigenous communities, 122 mentorship, 239 perception of circles, 236 perspectives on restorative justice, 104, 106, 114, 172, 238–239 professional development, 44, 53, 63, 83, 106–107 responsibilities of, 61 risk negotiations, 42, 238 rotating strikes, 212 sharing personal experience, 223 survey of, 170 training of, 53, 91–93, 105, 106, 175, 221, 239 transformative leadership, 63 Teachers’ implementation of circles attention to conflict, 158 challenges of, 159 methods of, 158, 171 pedagogical approaches to, 159 purpose of, 160, 168 Te Whare Tapa Whā framework, 58 Training in restorative justice corporate-driven model of, 86 school boards requirements for, 83 for teachers, 82–83, 86–87, 118–122, 125 Transformative justice, 22, 235 Transitional justice, 50 Truth sharing, 186

292 

INDEX

Tubman, Harriet, 213, 215, 236 2SLGBTQIA+ community, 187, 220, 244 U Ubuntu philosophy, 59, 230 V Violence gender-based, 175 glorification of, 146 teachers’ reaction to, 173 Vocational awe, 5 Vulnerability, 232, 237 W White liberalism, 42, 244, 247

Whiteness conflict and, 41, 42 conversations about, 87 internalization of, 41 in pedagogy, 24, 42, 44 in restorative processes, 244, 246, 247 Women in education, 85 Y Young people communication skills, 246 exclusion of, 244 fear of surveillance society, 14 identification of emotions of, 246 radicalization of, 137–138, 243–244 response to training, 106 traumatic experiences, 93