Summer Learning
This summer I attended a session at the 2019 PBLWorks Conference about restorative circles that has impacted my teaching practices. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the word “restorative”. Restore means to bring something back to its original state or reestablish it. Restorative means to restore health, a sense of well-being or strength. As I sat in the restorative circle session, I struggled with the name of the practice and the why or purpose of these circles. What were we trying to bring back or restore? I even found myself frustrated and agitated because of the confusion in my mind. Eventually, I was able to ask enough clarifying questions I was able to synthesize the “big idea”. The reason for the practice in these circles on a somewhat frequent basis is that that we – both us and our students learn how to share, be heard and hear others in a respectful way. We do this by practicing with simple conversations. Each time we meet, we share deeper and more reflective thoughts. The circles are not meant to have a discussion per say, more like a collaborative story of thoughts – almost like a poem that is created in the circle and stays in the circle. You have heard the phrase what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas? The discussions in the circle stay in the circle. The idea of the circle is not to solve someone else’s problems, but to share and affirm or appreciate the thoughts of others. Circle participants practice active listening which means you are not trying to think of a response to what someone says, just be still and attentive. An unexpected outcome is a general sense of calm after the circle session. Instead of adding a burden to one’s shoulders, it is a place of trust and respect to be reflective and leave those thoughts in the circle.Setting the Stage for a Team
In the Story of King Arthur, he met with his knights at a round table. The idea was that the table gave everyone a seat of equality and setting up a team structure. The inclusive design for restoration circles is the same. Everyone is in a circle, facing where they can see each other’s eyes with no hierarchy and provides for everyone to have a voice through the use of a talking piece. Circles build capacity for students in our classroom to have just about any conversation, then when we need to have those important and emotional conversations, ( i.e. restorative) we have already established and practiced what respectful and purposeful conversations look like. Hence, the circle becomes restorative – helping bring the classroom/students back to its original state for health, well-being and strength for learning.Instructional Strategies
Think about all the circles in education where students are grouped to construct meaning and share thoughts – Fish Bowls, Round Robin, Socrative Seminars, Gallery Walks, Think-Pair-Share, etc. For each of these activities, students are arranged and prepared in a certain way with or without additional props or resources to learn or practice concepts. The same thing goes for restorative circles. Once I made this academic connection, it was much easier to process this as an instructional strategy to help empower my students and build a culture of acceptance.Hunger Challenge
This will be my 4th year to participate in one of the amazing Students Rebuild Challenges. Each year anticipation builds while waiting on the next theme and unique opportunity for students to use their artistic creativity to make works of art that can literally change the world. Students become change makers with their philanthropic efforts to make a difference. This year, the theme is The Hunger Challenge to fight hunger and malnutrition. Hunger can be a sensitive topic. People can be hungry for a lot of reasons. They skip meals, are dieting, or just are too busy working to make time to eat. For others, there is no food available. They could be homeless, live in a food dessert, not enough money to buy food and pay expenses or not know how to prepare a meal with the food that is available. I teach in an inner city school where there is a lot of hunger. We have a food pantry so students can take food home for the weekend, but there is a lot of food not taken because students don’t know how to prepare it or what it is. There are also young people that are hungry who go without because of shame. They don’t want anyone to know they are hungry. Because of the inspirational and sensitive topic this year, I feel that introducing restorative circles to the classroom learning environment is a particularly powerful strategy to build highly effective, collaborative teams able to have difficult conversations. They can literally take a bite out of hunger with their artful recipes to solve hunger.Circle Basics – Case Study
There are lots of resources available to learn more about restorative circles. Here I share my first experience and some thoughts about how it went.Before you have your first circle you will need to get some things together.
- A piece of cloth or blanket to put in the middle of the circle as a focal point – think about it like an ocean for the conversation to land in.
- A basket to put in the center on the cloth.
- Items that can be used as talking pieces for participants to select from. Only one talking piece is used per circle. Whoever has the talking piece is the only one who can talk. The talking piece is passed around the circle providing everyone an opportunity to speak.
- Something to make a poster with for agreements or guidelines for the circle.
- Note** Here are some tips for talking:
- Everyone answers succinctly. Practice making thoughtful responses short, sweet and to the point.
- Participants must possess the talking piece to speak.
- Speak to the center of the circle to strengthen authenticity of voice.
- An activity to begin the circle session. Ring a bell, read a poem etc. For our first circle, I had everyone, including myself write down one word that described ourselves on our best day on a piece of paper. Then the talking piece was passed around the circle and each person said their word and then added it to the blanket in the middle of the circle. This activity helped provide a common experience to start the circle session.
- I asked what types of agreements did everyone want while in circle sessions. These are the responses from my students:
- What is said in the circle stays in the circle
- No judgement
- Everyone is allowed to feel how they feel
- Be trustworthy
- For the topic of our first circle I used the activity 5.3 Dealing with Inside and Outside Hurts from Circle Forward: Building a Restorative School Community by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Prani.
- Note:** My first session was with a small group so we were able to do two topics. With larger groups there would probably only be time for one. For the second topic of our first circle I explained that there are different types of hunger that might be experienced more than once in our life. There can be a hunger for food, friendship, love, purpose in life or something else.
- Question 1: What kinds of hunger have you experienced?
- Question 2: Choose one of the kinds of hunger you have experienced. What helped you overcome to meet the need for that kind of hunger?
- Question 3: What could you do to help someone else experiencing this kind of hunger
- Note** During our second session it was especially interesting that I was hungrier for relationships and purpose, while my students answered that they were hungry for knowledge, freedom, peace and happy environment. This makes me think that age has everything to do with perspective and answers in circles.
- While holding the talking piece - Thank everyone for sharing their thoughts and ideas about hurts and hunger.
- Close the circle by asking if anyone has any final thoughts about the circle experience for the session and pass the talking piece to anyone who wants to share.
- Lastly - Close the circle by sharing gratitude for their part in the circle
