Restorative Justice: Breaking Tradition

Introduction

Engaging in traditions provides individuals with a mechanism for bonding to a group. Through participation in shared activities or through a collective ideology, involvement in traditions is an overt expression of loyalty and belonging to a culture. Traditions typically persist because they are symbolic of a group’s collective history, and they represent devotion to perpetuating the beliefs of the shared community. The public school system is richly steeped in traditions; those activities woven through the fabric of shared school experiences. Most can recall annual school activities such as homecoming parades, pep rallies, proms, and school cheers, to name a few. Quite simply, traditions are a significant part of matriculation, but occasionally, an unwavering or unquestioned adherence to tradition establishes a barrier to much-needed change. This may be the case with how schools enact discipline. With so many students presenting behaviors associated with adverse childhood experiences, retributive discipline practices erect a barrier to effectively build relationships by decreasing exposure to positive affects (Tomkins, 1992). In this manner, conflict cannot successfully be addressed and healing does not occur.

Often overlooked is the health of the learning community when trauma-affected children are a part of the community. While there may be modifications to the practices and procedures to accommodate a trauma-affected child, sometimes ignored is the attention that is also required for the group as a whole. Restorative justice can provide a mechanism not only to address those behaviors, but also as a way to build relationships through trust and shared accountability to the learning community. When the principles of restorative justice are coupled with revised discipline practices, the impact on the learning community can be dramatic which serves both the needs of trauma-affected students as well as for their peers.

Traditions typically evolve over time, and the usefulness of traditions may be exhausted. In short, traditions have a lifespan, and in the case of school disciplinary practices, the use of exclusionary, retributive discipline may be reaching the end of its usefulness. Strong, positive, supportive relationships serve as a mechanism to mitigate negative behaviors for all students, not just those who present challenging behaviors due to trauma exposure. Most people can offer an account of what happens when a student gets into trouble at school. The student is sent to the principal who dispenses some form of punishment, often exclusionary in its nature, then the student serves the penalty, and eventually returns to the classroom. For some students, this process is repeated over and over. Discipline practices in public schools have remained steadfastly tied to structures of punishment and control. Unchanged for decades, discipline has been used to shame students who break rules and to ensure students receive fitting punishments for their infractions (Bube, 2018; Cooley, 2017; Hand, 2012; Morrison & Vaandering, 2012; Ryan & Ruddy, 2015; Song & Swearer, 2016); however, more recently schools’ reliance on tradition is being challenged by new philosophies of discipline that encourage healing, learning and collaboration during and after punishment (Mayworm et al., 2016; Mirsky, 2004; Olson, 2011; Pavelka, 2013; Song & Swearer, 2016). Restorative justice is one of those methods as it inherently provides a proactive and reactive application for building a learning community for all students.