How we learnt to use restorative language and practice to relate, think & learn together

Implications for leadership in any organisation from the

Rozelle Public School Restorative Journey

Lyn Doppler, National Mediation Conference 2012

11.9.12.

Reflect on your journeys for discussion

• Past - what has shaped & moulded your practice?

• Present - how you explain your existing practice.

• Future - what the ideal practice would look like.

Practice & Challenges

• What is one of the things you do well?

• What are some of your day-to-day challenges?

• What would you like to take from today?

Always begin with staff, Build people….your team

…not more “Programs’’!!!!

Some Questions for staff/team at start of year/term

• What’s school life been like for you?

• What are your hopes for this term?

• What are your expectations of each other?

• What contributions do you bring to the team?

• What questions do you have?

• What are your expectations of me?

• How can I best support you?

Restorative Training

Tri-level training

For all stakeholders, the whole community:

• All Staff

• All Students

• Parents

Staff Pre-restorative training

• Talented

• Diverse, some experienced, mostly early career

• Enthusiastic

• More inclined to want problems fixed by executive

• Less likely to lead initiatives for fear of mistakes

• Not solving problems at class level

Staff-Post Restorative Training

• Language changed to reflect our own conversations

• No longer looking for another tool for the toolbox or for every program under the sun

• Conversations were about our explicit practice and responsibilities

• Empowered to repair and rebuild with students at their own classroom level

• Keen to collaborate and lead initiatives

• High participation rate and satisfaction

Restorative Practice is NOT:

• An intervention to deal only with conflict & problems

• Less about behaviour

• Yet another program • A set of strategies, techniques

• Just for students

Restorative Practice IS about:

• Changing the conversation for people and thus creating new experiences for them

• Relationships and empowerment

• Promoting participation and shared accountability

• All stakeholders in a community

• Anyone and any organisation

• Enhancing emotion and empathy

• Enhancing collaboration

• Providing opportunity for new learning

Continuum of Restorative Practice

Affective Statements Proactive class circles around social & emotional learning

Whole class circle and restorative process

Formal Conference

Restorative Conversation: class, corridor, playground

Restorative Intervention Small, impromptu meeting

⏏ ⏏ ⏏ ⏏ ⏏

More of these

Less of these

13

FIR

M

LOW

HIGH

HIGH

Adapted from Social Discipline Window - Paul McCold and Ted Wachtel - 2000

TO WITH

NOT FOR

punitive restorative

neglectful permissive

authoritarian

stigmatising

authoritative

respectful

indifferent

passive

protective

easy/undemanding

14

PRACTICE DOMAINS

TO WITH

NOT FOR

Which

domain

do you

mostly

practice

within?

FIR

M Challenge

Limits

Expectations

Support - Encouragement - Nurturing

Restorative Questions I

• What happened?

• What were you thinking at the time?

• What have you thought about since?

• Who has been affected by what you did?

• In what way?

• What do you think you need to do to make

things right?

What do you notice about these questions for

the wrongdoer?

15

past

pre

sent

futu

re

• What did you think when you realised what had happened?

• What impact has this incident had on you and others?

• What has been the hardest thing for you?

• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

What do you notice about these questions for the person who’s been harmed?

16

Restorative Questions II

past

pre

sent

futu

re

Fair Process

The Central Idea...

17

‘….individuals are most likely to trust and co-

operate freely with systems - whether they

themselves win or lose by those systems -

when fair process is observed.’

Kim & Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review, July – August 1997

Restorative practice can transform

• The restorative process takes people from the past to the present and gives them hope for the future

Past Present Future Chance to Reflection time Reparation tell story Remorse Stronger Validation Relationships Ownership

Socratic & experiential nature of script

• Restorative Practice asks teachers to reflect on the traditional mode of teaching practice – which is a teach 'to’, ‘teacher-centred’ framework.

• Instead RP focuses on open ended Socratic questions and informs a teach 'with’ model with teachers as expert facilitators.

Knowing how to ask the right questions

• Engages and challenges people in Socratic ways.

• It builds on the premise that teachers (leaders) need to experience ‘being’ restorative, to be effective at using Restorative Practice with students and parents.

Having experienced restorative practice at a personal level influenced:

• Our daily practice in class and made it more explicit

• How we interacted with one another • How we interacted with students • How we interacted with parents

Explicit Practice & Engagement

• All too often, instructors gain knowledge of their particular field, but know very little of their learners and how learning takes place (Zellerer, 2003).

• They are often incapable of describing the explicit practice of what they do themselves.

Useful application of Socratic inquiry

learning involves several factors:

• a context for questions • a framework for questions • a focus for questions • different levels of questions • skill in formulating questions • time for reflection • developing habits of mind • self-initiating questions

Restorative Framework Quality Teaching Framework

Explicit framework for dialogue & reflection

Explicit framework for dialogue & reflection

Consistency of teacher judgment Consistency of teacher judgment

Scaffolding-visuals & a range of restorative interactions along a continuum

Scaffolding-visuals & patterns on which to hang learning

Values Values

Develop empathy Problematic understanding

Listening, explicit thought and deep understanding

Substantive conversations, oral language skills, deep understanding

Socratic questioning Higher order thinking

Maximises affect or emotion Why & how-empathy

Respectful challenge, risk-taking High expectations

Working ‘with’ Negotiated curriculum and assessment; student self-direction

Respectful relationships Social support; models respect for others

Goal oriented, personalized responses to learning

Purposeful activities, task orientation, motivation of the individual

Accountability & self governance Student self-direction

Background knowledge Significance

No blame approach, circles Risk-taking approach, cooperative

Scaffolds, participatory Quality learning environment

Empowerment Responsibility, engagement, leadership for all

Telling one’s story Narrative and the use of story

Knowledge integration & generalisation Transference, connectedness

Inclusivity Inclusivity

Be the change you want to see- ‘model, model, model’

A way of being and learning together

Respectful

relationships

Explicit practice

Socratic questions

Ongoing dialogue

Working ‘with’

The progress of culture change

Large conference

Class conference

Impromptu meetings

Circles for staff and students

Proactive and strength based processes

More of these

Fewer of these

1.Culture

Focus on building healthy relationships

in a climate of trust empowerment &

support

3.Teaching Practice

New beliefs & understandings

whilst reflecting on existing practice

5.Capacity

Building Individual & collective

commitment & responsibility for making decisions

4.Student Learning

Student centred learning with

focus on quality restorative

teaching

Enhanced student

Achievement

in a Restorative Practice

school culture

2.Visionary Leadership

Team Provides structured opportunities for staff dialogue

Adding Value

Learning on the Job

‘The problem is that there is almost no opportunity for teachers to engage in continuous and substantial learning about their practice in the setting in which they actually work, observing and being observed by their colleagues in their own classrooms and classrooms of other teachers in other schools confronting similar problems of practice’

Richard Elmore in Fullan’s ‘The Six Secrets of Change’ 2008

From here……

•What did you find helpful?

•What implications does today have for

some of your context’s practice?

Implications for Leadership:

• Be visionary and collegial • Provide time for regular, structured discussion • Gain skill in asking questions • Celebrate strengths and successes • Affirm each other • Acknowledge challenges, share challenges • Challenge each other • Listen and reflect • Be restorative by modelling respectful relationships • Be brave when things go wrong • Believe in the process, model, model, model • Build capacity

Experiencing Restorative Practice ourselves:

• Enables us to co-create the conditions necessary to enhance inclusive, inquiry based learning and engagement.

• Helps us see that it’s a process that works in any context leading to a change in culture and capacity building in an organisation that is responsible for its individual and collective decision-making.