Managing a Restorative Classroom

Most people would agree that the three most important behaviors that need to be learned to be an effective teacher are the ability to deliver quality instruction, to manage a classroom and to build relationships with students. If one had to pick two of the three as most important, most would choose the ability to manage a classroom and build relationship with students. I ask this question at nearly all my trainings and this is always the consensus. So, if we understand that the ability to manage a classroom and build relationships with students are the two most important behaviors that a teacher needs to be effective, why do schools and districts spend upwards of 90% of their professional development solely focused on training teachers to deliver quality instruction? Most teachers who struggle do so because of their inability to manage their classroom and connect with their students. Too often, the blame is placed on these teachers, but this is more of an issue in how we have chosen as an industry to support teachers. If we want struggling teachers to become better classroom managers and build relationships with their students, we must teach them how to do those things. And we must learn the difference between telling someone to do something versus actually teaching them how to do it. This training gives participants practical experiences that will allow them to integrate Restorative Practices with their classroom management strategies. This should enable teachers to create structures to manage behavior and proactively build relationships with students in their classroom by understanding their diverse needs.

This training will provide participants with:

  • an understanding of how to use Respect Agreements to establish a climate of trust within their classroom

  • an understanding of the difference between primary and secondary behavior and how to Avoid Adverse Secondary Behaviors when addressing students by effectively utilizing Affective Statements

  • an understanding for why students in school today lack Emotional Awareness and strategies to assist them with expressing their emotions appropriately while developing their emotional intelligence

  • a process for creating Community Building Circles that will assist teachers in proactively building relationships with students

WHAT TO EXPECT

FOCUS #1: PREVENTATIVE STRATEGIES
Schools, particularly inside classrooms, are full of rules designed to maintain order and establish a safe environment optimal for learning. While rules are important, and necessary, they fail to acknowledge how the people in these environments want to be treated. Respect Agreements provide a process for establishing how everyone within a classroom, team or staff will agree to treat one another. This includes student to student, student to teacher, teacher to students as well as everyone to the physical state of the classroom.

Many students in schools today lack Emotional Awareness. For example, a student struggling to solve a math problem may express they are getting angry because they can’t solve the problem. What the student is attempting to communicate is that they are frustrated but they lack the emotional awareness to understand the differences between these similar emotions. Students need to develop their emotional awareness and be provided with a process to be able to learn and proactively communicate their current mood to their teachers and peers. This is why we must provide teachers with strategies that will empower them to proactively and nonverbally gauge their students’ current mood while also developing emotional awareness of their students.

FOCUS #2: DE-ESCALATION STRATEGIES
If a student is standing on a desk, the teacher’s number one objective is to get that student off the desk without being injured. How this happens does not matter as much as a successful outcome does. The student standing on the desk, the primary behavior, is not the reason that the student will be sent to the office. How the student responds, the secondary behavior, to the teacher’s request to get off of the desk will determine if the student gets in trouble. Affective Statements provide teachers with a strategy to avoid adverse secondary behaviors from students by responding appropriately to primary behaviors.

FOCUS #3: RELATIONSHIP BUILDING STRATEGIES
School culture and climate are key indicators of the academic success of a school. Therefore, the development of the relationships between the stakeholders in our school, particularly between students and teachers, is essential. Community Building Circles provides educators with a process to develop strong relationships with their students as well as all other stakeholders that make up the school community.