Preparing to Teach
While facilitating “Build the Nest” with a group of adult learners in a restorative practices course, a fruitful conversation was sparked by a mock case scenario involving a physical fight between two male Latinx students and two male Caucasian students at their high school. As we moved into the Sub-System and System levels of conflict, participants began sharing more personal points of view. A Latinx member of the group chose to voice his own experience in the Sub-System Conflict realm. He explained that in elementary school, a teacher repeatedly called him and another Latinx student “trouble-makers” in front of the class and regularly sent them to detention for the same behaviors white students exhibited without consequence. He explained that it felt like she expected him to misbehave just because of his race and didn’t make an effort to actually get to know him. The hurt, confusion, and anger of being labeled based on his teacher’s assumptions around his racial and cultural identity still lingered years later.
I watched and listened as this participant’s sharing led the group into a courageous discussion about their own experiences related to structural violence and bias. The conversation was possible because the game had elicited the personal experiences of participants. The scenario and exercise opened up a brave space for this student to want to voice his painful experience and for it to become a learning opportunity for everyone, including me.
—Kathleen McGoey
This chapter offers holistic guidance on how to facilitate a restorative learning experience. Facilitating a learning experience that welcomes risk, elicits challenging discussion, and supports transformation requires great responsibility. Undertaking the recommendations put forth in this book with fidelity to restorative values asks that you reflect deeply on who you are, who your learners are, and how you will maintain awareness of the complex dynamics of the learning process.
As a teacher of restorative practices, you must go beyond thinking about what you are teaching and deeply reflect on how you teach and how you relate to learners. When leading a group of learners to the edge of their comfort zone in an effort to facilitate new perspectives and understanding, be prepared to participate authentically in the experience of transformation yourself by practicing vulnerability and transparency. You will often find yourself at the edge of your comfort zone as well! This chapter sheds light on your responsibility to be conscious of your choices and their impacts, and how to integrate the essential values of love, humility, humor, and empathy in creating an environment that invites everyone present to learn and grow.
The Need to Know Yourself
The need for the teacher to engage in an ongoing process of self-reflection cannot be overstated. Teachers of restorative practices must constantly think about how to see beyond specific topics to the relational components affecting learning and reflect critically on what they are bringing to the learning community. Ask yourself, how are you sharing power with learners? How are you checking your own biases and assumptions? How are you contributing to a cooperative learning experience that creates a brave space for you and learners to engage in conflict dialogue? When those conversations are uncomfortable for you, what tools do you use to stay present and non-reactive? Realize that at times, you may feel stuck by fear, doubt, and failure. Be prepared for trial and error.
Teachers must reflect on their own role in the web of connectivity that ties them to students and others. Because violent patterns exist in relationships, it is also within relationships that one finds the ability to transcend violence. Where might you be perpetuating patterns of violence or dominance yourself, however inadvertently? Where might values like exclusion, revenge, or retribution appear in your thoughts and actions? Acknowledge your own non-binary existence as someone who has at times been harmed and also caused harm to others. How do your own experiences (with family, education, the criminal justice system, community, etc.) affect how you relate to teaching restoratively?
Authenticity and Congruence
In order to bring your full, real, honest self to the web of relationships in the learning setting, strive for congruence. Carl Rogers names congruence as a necessary condition in effective patient-therapist relationships,1 and it is also essential in the teaching context. Congruence in the restorative learning community means that teachers, like learners, choose to represent themselves accurately through deep awareness of self. Teachers must confront their own biases courageously and revise their own beliefs based on their emerging learning with students. Acknowledging your own doubts, lack of experience, and challenges increases a sense of mutual respect, raises the bar for learners, and ultimately creates a richer experience for you as well.
It is impossible to be in a state of congruence at all times, but committing to a mindfulness practice or other method aimed at increasing self-awareness will make a difference. While teaching, often this mindfulness appears in the moment in the form of a pause that allows you to observe before reacting. In that pause, you may reflect on what might be upsetting about the present moment. The pause is a form of respect that creates space for compassion. Within the pause, you may also realize the need to let go, to loosen the reigns of control as participants direct their own experience. Or, you may recognize that you have moved outside your own window of tolerance and need to employ a self-regulation method and return to a place where you can be most effective. Consider being transparent with learners when you utilize a pause or other approach for bringing self-awareness to the present. Such modeling is invaluable in demonstrating congruence because it allows learners to see what is real for you in the moment.
Meditative practices are often thought of as the most effective way to cultivate mindfulness, but they are not the only option. Some choose to increase self-awareness through writing, dance, music, exercise, self-talk, or a therapeutic modality. The next section offers a summary of two useful tools you can apply immediately to guide processes of self-evaluation and reflection. Develop an ongoing practice that helps you come into greater congruence with your authentic self. This congruence should carry with it feelings of clarity, centeredness, serenity, and trust. Ongoing critical self-reflection is a requirement of teaching restorative practices, so if one method doesn’t work for you, continue exploring.
Two Tools for Mindfulness, Self-Evaluation, and Self-Reflection
The following tools are complementary and may be used before, during, and after teaching a class or training. The first provides a step-by-step strategy for self-observation of intent and action while teaching, with the goal of integrating a respectful and restorative approach. The second outlines questions to clearly establish a teacher’s identity, teaching statement, and evaluation process in relationship to a particular topic or class. The value and impact of these tools increase when they are implemented with consistency and transparency.
In her article guiding educators to utilize mindfulness-based restorative practices, Annie O’Shaughnessy emphasizes the importance of taking a mindful pause. She notes that this pause helps a teacher or facilitator bring more awareness and an open mind and heart to their learners. The mindful pause interrupts reactions based on patterned judgments or assumptions and, instead, cultivates compassionate curiosity, from which a more empathetic and restorative response may arise. O’Shaughnessy provides the acronym P.A.²I.R. to prompt this mindful approach:
• Pause: As you approach the behavior, take a deep, even breath—in through your nose and out through your mouth. Intentionally drop assumptions you hold. Allow at least three seconds to pass.
• Assess: Bring awareness to your own experience. For example, “Am I escalated?” Check your understanding of what you know to be observably true. Notice your intention as you approach (Barron and Grimm, 2006). For example, do you simply want to make the student feel bad?
• Acknowledge: Begin the interaction with the student by acknowledging what you notice, what is observable and true. “I am noticing . . .” “It seems . . .” “I see that . . .”
• Inquire: Ask restorative questions to learn more, to intentionally dismantle your assumptions and encourage self-reflection. “What’s happening for you?” “What need were you trying to meet?” (Remember, if they are escalated they might not be able to really know.)
• Restore/Repair: Collaborate with the student to come up with ways to restore themselves to the class or in relationship with you, or simply to self-regulate.2
O’Shaughnessy points out that it is necessary for the facilitator to recognize if either they or the student do not have the capacity for a meaningful restorative dialogue in the moment and to delay the conversation until all participants have self-regulated.
Toews writes that restorative justice pedagogy asks an instructor to engage in critical reflection of themselves, their course material, and their teaching strategies. She describes identity memos, teaching statements, and self/course evaluations as three tools that help guide the reflection and evaluation process.3 These tools are particularly effective when used together, as the identity memo and teaching statement help establish standards for evaluating the course and one’s own teaching.
Applied in a teaching context, the identity memo sheds light on assumptions, biases, and experiences that a teacher brings to their role and how those things influence the class, the learners, class evaluation, and outcomes. Toews advises sharing the memo with others for feedback to surface biases and assumptions that were not previously identified. She gives the following prompts to help formulate an identity memo prior to teaching a restorative justice course:
1. Personal and professional experiences with victimization and offending.
2. Experiences and perspectives on privilege, power, racism, poverty, and structural injustice.
3. How those experiences and perspectives:
a. Relate to your interest in restorative justice
b. Inform your understanding of what restorative justice is and is not, its goals, and promise and pitfalls.
4. Ability to actively listen to and respect the experiences and perspectives of others and transform your own thinking.
5. Assumptions about victims, incarcerated individuals, each of their respective advocates or service providers, and correctional staff and administration.4
In a teaching statement, the teacher identifies their motivations, beliefs, goals, and strategies related to the specific topic and context of their teaching. The teaching statement may be shared with learners to stimulate dialogue that will clarify expectations and improve the teaching approach according to learners’ needs. In this way, the teaching statement gives students a voice in the design and delivery of the learning experience. Toews offers these questions to outline a teaching statement:
1. What is motivating you to teach restorative justice?
2. What is your goal for the educational effort(s)?
3. What values support your teaching efforts and to what degree do those values resonate with restorative justice and/or transformative education?
4. What teaching practice will you do or have you done to achieve your stated goals using your values set?
5. How will you give life to the values of restorative justice pedagogy?5
We, the authors, would add to this list:
6. What are the unique needs of my learners, and how will I create a dynamic learning environment that is responsive to those needs?
7. How will I create brave spaces so that all voices are heard?
8. What tools will I use to self-regulate in the moment when I am challenged and uncomfortable as a facilitator?
9. How will I remain present and support a culture of playfulness and resilience?
Toews provides a third table with questions to guide course and self-evaluation. The evaluative process is circular and ongoing, beginning at the point of course preparation, continuing throughout the duration of the course, and informing subsequent course material and teaching methods. To be done effectively, the evaluation is collaborative and incorporates feedback from the teacher, learners, and others involved in class design and delivery.
1. To what degree did your teaching practices:
a. Promote or hinder student expression of personal experiences and perspectives?
b. Connect to the real-world experiences of the students?
c. Communicate respect for students?
d. Engage students in collaborative problem-solving?
e. Uncover new understandings of restorative justice and its practices?
f. Create opportunities for the students to be the teachers?
2. How did the class influence you in terms of:
a. Challenging your assumptions about crime and justice?
b. Raising awareness about your experiences with power, privilege, racism, and other forms of structural and institutional violence?
c. Expanding or modifying your understanding of restorative justice and its promise and problems?6
Cultivating Empathy
To create an environment where learners can participate courageously and authentically, be prepared to hold space for their raw emotions and perceptions. A teacher hoping to facilitate a transformative learning experience needs to help others feel heard, loved, and accepted. Just as a facilitator in a restorative justice process understands that a person must not be defined by one decision or behavior, a restorative practices teacher does not demonstrate an approving or disapproving attitude based on what a learner thinks or says. Instead, practice relating to learners with empathy, characterized by a genuine willingness to accept the learner wholly, without condition. When a learner is given full permission to express their perspective truthfully, an empathetic teacher can both validate what is shared and offer reflection that introduces new meaning that will deepen a learner’s understanding of self.
It is the teacher’s responsibility to create a foundation of trust that invites the discomfort and risk-taking necessary for honest and authentic participation by students and teachers alike. Prepare to integrate and uphold the guiding norms of the “brave space” in order to invite courageous contributions from both learners and teachers. The “brave space” is distinguished from the “safe space” in that it acknowledges that a learning process that involves the letting go of formerly held perspectives to make way for new understanding and transformation inherently demands discomfort and risk. Instead of proposing a learning experience that is free from harm or difficulty, the brave space emphasizes the need for courage through five basic ground rules: (1) explore controversy with civility, (2) own your intentions and your impact, (3) challenge by choice, (4) respect self and others, and (5) no attacks or violence, which requires a clarifying conversation to distinguish the difference between a personal attack and challenging an individual’s statement or belief.7 Actively engage with these norms before, during, and after the class.
Consider how you relate to the norms and how learners from dominant and marginalized communities will have differing needs for courageous participation to take place. These norms can become a compass for managing brave spaces that empower the voices of students during difficult conversations about individual and systemic issues.
Keep in mind that you never know fully what is happening, or has happened, in the lives of others. In moments of frustration or exasperation, mindfulness can play a role in regaining perspective and replacing judgment with curiosity. Expect to encounter some learners who seem completely shut off and do not ignore them. Demonstrate the same unconditional attitude of welcome and engagement, and trust that they will eventually respond, even if you don’t see change immediately. Remember that a student may also shut off because of something you have done or said. Reflect on the scenario and allow it to drive inquiry and growth. Make it clear through your words and actions how students can speak up if they have an issue with something you are doing. Be proactive and check in with a student if something seems wrong.
When you choose to implement these recommendations, teaching will be both fulfilling and demanding. Practice empathy with yourself. Respect students by listening to their needs and feedback; respect yourself by being patient as you face your own mistakes, biases, and judgments. Seek to be an eternal learner. If at any point you find yourself becoming passive in your relationship with learners or with the material, take a break, ask for help, and replenish. Reach out to people who are not part of your learning community and ask for their perspective. They may be able to provide fresh insight and bolster your confidence when you are feeling depleted. The authors engage in this self-exploration on an ongoing basis. By working in collaborative communities, they access energy and resources to work with joy, love, and hope, while holding each other accountable in this profound process of transformation.
The Need to Know Your Learners
Pay careful attention to who your learners are, and where the class and activities might take them. How will you practice seeing and treating students as individuals and encourage them to actively voice their opinions and stories? On the other hand, how will you know when students have been pushed beyond their comfort zone and are unable to participate constructively in the moment? How will you reestablish safety and trust in the class if this occurs?
Because restorative pedagogy values a high level of engagement and participation by learners, teachers must be conscious of the inner conflicts that students may be confronting, especially those related to class, race, gender, ethnicity, legal status, and other aspects of identity. hooks’ experience addressing race with university students provides a clear example of why a teacher’s level of awareness is so important. In her efforts to bring students into honest communication about race and anti-racism, hooks noticed that when their inner conflicts were not acknowledged, students were likely to hold on even more tightly to what was familiar, and refused to engage with difficult conversations about diversity, to the extent that they sometimes shut down altogether.9
Learning restorative practices often catalyzes a process of change in fundamental beliefs and behaviors. To be done well, restorative practices are implemented holistically, driven by a restorative mindset at the individual and community level, which requires a significant paradigm shift. Educators who are hoping to elicit this shift must find ways of operating that are more about being restorative than doing restorative. This asks the teacher to approach learners and their lives with patience, compassion, empathy, and curiosity.
Risks and Choice
Pay attention as you guide your group of learners towards the edge of their comfort zones, using the same skills you use as a restorative justice facilitator to track the needs of each individual and the group as a whole. Managing that delicate space, watching for signs of fear and insecurity, and continuing to make activities challenging, but not too challenging, are the artful tasks asked of teachers in a restorative learning environment. Learners are asked to let go of their preexisting concrete notions in order to engage in meaningful inquiry that allows for complexity. This is the ripe place from which a group of learners may go deep and step fully into the brave spaces that transform perspectives. This process requires openness and critical thinking, which reinforces self-determination and the recognition in learners that they are responsible for their futures.
Choosing to step into the unknown is crucial if learners are to candidly address structures of dominance and make more conscious choices to change such structures. Support them in developing their capacity to speak and listen with respect, to state clearly their own thoughts and beliefs, even when this may spark difficult conversation. Returning to the example of discussing race and confronting racism, hooks notes the need to close the gap between theory and practice. She observes that while most US citizens are opposed to overt acts of racist terror or violence and state they wish to see an end to racial discrimination, it has been easier to engage with written critiques of racism than it has been to find constructive ways to talk about it, and from there develop constructive actions.10 A fear of conflict or concern they will say the wrong thing is often at the heart of people’s resistance to sharing their perspectives. Frequently, it is the most privileged individuals (including the teacher) who struggle most with owning and speaking about racial biases. When working with white students on unlearning racism, hooks prioritizes the value of embodying risk to help students come to terms with the fact that circumstances in which conflict is present are not actually negative and should be approached with tools to cope with conflict instead of avoiding it and distancing ourselves from those circumstances.11
Creating consciousness around racism leads to the realization that racism is not innate; it is always about choice. The first step then is for people to become aware of their own beliefs and assumptions that consciously or unconsciously perpetuate violence through racism and other forms of discrimination. Ideally, through that awareness, there emerges the responsibility of choice and the understanding that every person has the opportunity to decolonize their minds and change their beliefs and assumptions, which in turn changes thoughts and behavior. This process of discovery and choice is just as critical for a teacher as it is for a student.
The Art of Facilitating Risk-Taking
As a teacher facilitating learning experiences that involve risk-taking, you will need to be prepared to respond to a range of reactions from learners. While it is appropriate for learners to feel some degree of challenge and discomfort within the brave space that is essential for transformation and change, it is also necessary to note when you or your learners may be moving outside the zone where optimal learning can occur. Daniel Siegel’s “window of tolerance” provides a helpful tool with signs that can indicate if your learners have moved outside of this optimal learning zone into a hyperarousal state (fight or flight), which involves feeling emotionally reactive, defensive, insecure, or enraged. In the other direction, you may note signs of hypoarousal (immobilization) in learners, which involves feelings of absence, inability to think, shame, passivity, numbness, or shutting down.12
Ideally, when people are operating within their window of tolerance, they are feeling safe, curious, open, empathetic, and holding a clear sense of their own and others’ boundaries. Moving people beyond this window by forcing them to participate in activities, not taking time to build trust and relationship, or allowing conversations to devolve into shaming-blaming sessions is detrimental to the individual growth experience and damaging to the trust you seek to build in your learning community. Consider how the dynamic of your and your students’ identities may affect their ability to take risks. Intentionally assembling a teaching team that reflects the diversity of your students is integral in making risk-taking safer for students. Know that you will make mistakes and do your best to stay conscious and curious about what comes up for you and learners as you take on risk and conflict dialogue. Refer to restorative values and draw on restorative processes when trust is lost or damaged.
Love, Humor, and Humility: Values to Help with Hard Conversations
While it is important to reverently hold space for the discomfort and intensity of difficult conversations about topics like race, it also falls on the teacher to find ways to help learners feel a sense of joy in learning, so that they can feel they have enough internal resources to return to those hard conversations. Integrating humor, love, and humility will help establish a foundation of trust so that your community of learners will be willing to take risks and choose to move towards productive conflict dialogue.
Bringing this understanding of love into the learning setting supports learners in thinking about their opinions and critically examining the beliefs and perceptions informing those opinions.
Humor is essential in helping both teachers and learners laugh at themselves and avoid a defeating sense of hatred for self and others when discovering uncomfortable truths. This may be particularly relevant for learners from privileged groups as they uncover feelings of despair or self-hatred brought about by knowledge of the impacts of their heritage. Humor should not minimize the gravity of the revelation, but instead encourage a sense of faith and hope that this knowledge is the seed of change. Humility helps us remember that everyone is imperfect, and in that imperfection, each person has the opportunity to derive meaning from their experiences, uncertainties, and processes of change. Keep the spirit of love, humility, and humor alive as you design new activities and prepare the learning experience.