Negotiating Virtual Learning During a Pandemic: The Promise of Restorative Practices

Background

Discipline is an old English term that means “to teach or train,” and has been used for ages to teach children the rules to live by and how to be social in their culture (Amstutz & Mullet, 2015). An early form of discipline is corporal punishment (Steele, 2018). According to Straus and Donnelly (2001), corporal punishment is the intention to correct or control a child’s behavior using physical force resulting in pain for the child. According to the state of Texas Education Code (2019), corporal punishment is described as “the deliberate infliction of physical pain by hitting, paddling, spanking, slapping, or any other physical force used as a means of discipline” (p. 6). While educators at secondary schools struggle with how to approach disciplinary challenges (Anfara et al., 2013), traditional discipline, such as corporal punishment and zero tolerance, have failed at creating environments where students can thrive and work cooperatively (Costello et al., 2009).

School educators have shifted over the last few decades with how they view student behavior (González et al., 2019). As a result of this shift, educators have implemented policies to help address methods that have been viewed as harsh and add to the social, economic, and health disparities that already exist with students. Today, about 14% of school districts report using corporal punishment, which suggests that 86% of school districts are using alternative methods to discipline children (Gershoff & Font, 2016). Replacing zero tolerance as a form of discipline approach, school personnel are adopting restorative practices as a nonpunitive way to address discipline problems and have found this method to show a positive effect in reducing school suspensions (Augustine et al., 2018).