One of the students who in my SSU class on Restorative Justice called me today and mentioned that she had recently watched an episode of Masterpiece Theater in which Restorative Justice played a part. It is in the Inspector Lewis Series; the episode is called “The Point of Vanishing. Turns out you can watch it online for a very limited time—until this Sunday, November 1. So, if you read this in time and want to kick back with your computer, a high-speed connection, and some popcorn, go here. The episode runs an hour and 26 minutes.

Disclaimer: I haven’t watched the episode myself–yet. But I do so love Masterpiece theater. I hope I can find some popcorn and time before the deadline comes and goes! I’m guessing Netflix can help out if I don’t make it on time.

Should juvenile offenders be sentenced to life in prison without parole? The US Supreme Court will be looking at this issue soon. Here’s an opinion written by former Republican senator Alan Simpson, of Wyoming–also a former juvenile offender. What’s your opinion? Take the poll, and if you feel moved please add a comment about your opinion.

Hank Flannery, a longtime friend of our agency, forwarded me this article on cyberbullying, published months ago in the Press Democrat. It highlights the “Mean girls” phenomenon.

Lots of buzz lately about San Francisco School’s mandating expanded use of alternatives to suspension and expulsion at all district schools. Restorative Justice and related practices are included. I did a google search on “San Francisco Schools Restorative Justice” and quite a few articles were returned. Here’s one to get you started.

My dedicated readers will recall that awhile back I posted about the SF District Attorney’s support for restorative justice. Looks like our preeminent left coast city is seeing the light.

A brief article appeared in this weekend’s Parade Magazine. Read at their website here.

Interesting to see how well a journalist can write an effective elevator statement for restorative justice–which is what this article amounts to (you’ll read it in under a minute). Also interesting to see, yet again, the same success data appear that we hear from so many evaluations of restorative justice programs.

This article even gives a dollars-saved argument for restorative justice. But let’s remember: we don’t do this just because it saves money. We don’t do it just because it’s more effective than other approaches. We do it because it’s the right thing to do.

160,000. That’s the size of a small city. It’s a lot of kids skipping school because of the emotional and physical risks of bullying.

I got that figure from the video embedded here.  

This is one of a great many videos on bullying on Youtube. Did you know that YouTube is now the second-largest search engine (after Google, which owns YouTube). There’s a good reason. If you’re interested in the topic of bullying I suggest going to YouTube and searching under “cyber bullying”. Screen what you see before showing it to children (the one I linked above is certified kid-safe). Some of these would be great for showing at parent meetings.

Bullying takes many forms. This morning I had a call from a principal who is concerned because several fights among students in the past few school days have been provoked by text messages sent from their cell phones. They are using cyber-bullying, cyber name-calling, and cyber-gossip to create  a general atmosphere of intimidation. We’ll start working with that school this week…but, as I told the principal, don’t expect any quick fixes. This is likely going to take some time. I’m very interested to see how it goes.

Dominic Barter will be giving some trainings in Oakland in November, hosted by Bay Area Non-Violent Communications Network. It’s a great opportunity to be trained by one of today’s leading innovators in restorative justice. I’ve found Dominic’s model to be tremendously helpful.  More info here.

I’m a big fan of Harper’s magazine, and the Index one of the features I especially appreciate. I just noticed that entire archives of the Harpers Index are searchable by keyword. So I did a search on the keyword “Justice.” Try it here. Since justice is a cornerstone not just of our work here at Restorative Resources, but of civilization itself.  The index is a great contribution to the ongoing conversation about justice.

Speaking of which, I was a bit disheartened to see that “justice” does not qualify as one of the “special coverage” topics at alternet.org.  (If it did, it would merit a tab in the second row of the main menu). Perhaps the issue of justice is out of vogue in the progressive mainstream?

What if our approach to educating children and adolescents is all wrong? I mean, way out of the ballpark wrong.

That’s a rhetorical question.

Because of course we’re doing it all wrong. But we’ve been doing it all wrong for so long we no longer even have a sense of the right questions to ask.

Everywhere the discussion  about education revolves around two things: getting students to behave, and improving acheivement, mostly as defined by test scores.

I was recently in a workshop sponsored by a local nonprofit, where the discussion was along these lines. The facilitator gave an hour+ presentation on the theme of developing a shared vision for our community. The example he continually used was how to get more 4 years old ready for kindergarten. His model community had made tremendous and impressive strides toward this end. I think many people in the room were quite impressed.

But I found his presentation unsettling. I kept thinking, what exactly are we getting the kids ready for? To me, it seems like we’re preparing them for immersion in an essentially industrial process that derails their inner curriculum–the natural rhythms unique to each child that guide their emotional, social, and spiritual development.  We’re preparing them to perform. To achieve. To succeed… but to succeed in this toxic culture, and at tremendous cost to all that is soulful.

The question was wrong. Instead of “how do we prepare children for kindergarten,” I think a much better question would be “how do we revision our kindergartens so they are prepared for our children?” And since our schools are fundamentally about the people who interact as a community within them, perhaps the question is better framed, “How do we prepare ourselves to be members of a community that is truly ready to affirm the liveliness and kindergarteness and complexity of these children?”

A much better question, and one that might lead to a whole different way of thinking about education.

And perhaps a different way of assessing success that untethers us from the tyranny of test scores and No Child Left Behind.  There is a video series on YouTube (the first installment linked below) titled “Children Full of Life.” Imagine that! Children full of life, joy, sorrow, engaged, looking forward to school, loving and loved by their teachers. Imagine a teacher who helps the students understand that in his classroom, the most important thing is to be happy; and that of the lessons they will learn, the most important is…how to be happy. Imagine a teacher who assesses his success by…how happy the students are. And imagine a community that supports this approach, and also state and federal policies that do.

Ah, but the people will object: what about learning? As if learning happiness is not enough. OK, let’s suppose that it’s not. But consider this: when are students most likely to be engaged, enthusiastic, attentive, curious, inquiring? When they are happy, or when they are oppressed, bored, and bullied?

You do the math. I think the answer will be obvious.

I had a conversation this morning with a young man named Marcos who is on the board of one of our local non-profits. When he was in elementary school, Marcos was selected to be bussed to school in a neighboring town. It was, he said, part of an integration effort. He is Latino; his parents are legal immigrants from Mexico, so he’s second generation. Which, for a child an immigrant family, is a challenging generation.

Lots of bullies at his school, white kids who habitually hit and shoved the often much younger latino children. As a fourth grader, Marcos was one of the older boys. He soon found himself organizing the latino kids into a group that stuck together for mutual protection. “I fought a lot,” Marcos told me, “especially when one of the little kids had been hit. I just wouldn’t stand for it.”

Over time the situation grew increasingly tense. They playground became strictly segregated; Latinos were not allowed on the baseball diamond, and the white kids stayed off the soccer field. Tensions rose, along with fights and bullying.

One day Marcos decided that the Latino group had endured enough. So during recess he organized a group march from the soccer field to the baseball diamond. “I wanted to start a rumble,” he told me, “to settle it once and for all.” So, as his group’s leader, he issued a formal challenge to the other group. “After school, in the field out back,” he said, and they agreed.

But someone told the principal. And just after lunch Marcos found himself in a room with teachers, other students (both Latino and White) and the school’s administrators. “We all sat in a big circle,” he remembers. “And they had us all tell what was going on. We stayed there until we talked it out.”

I asked him if things were better after that. “Yes,” he told me. “We were able to play baseball and there were fewer fights.” Does he attribute these positive changes to the circle? “That, and a couple of the most racist kids moved on to other schools. But it really helped a lot.”

I very much doubt that they called their intervention a “restorative circle” or even a “circle.” But that’s what we would call it nowadays. It was an opportunity for eveyone to discuss a situation, to explore its impacts, and to come to agreements about how to make things right. And before it could happen, it took a student leader who was fed up enough to create a crisis. That, and administrators who were willing to work through the situation, instead of caving in to the temptation to use a police state approach.

Bullying students does not stop student bullying. Authentic efforts to understand what is going on and to make things right…that’s a path with some promise. Can we learn to appreciate student leaders whose misbehavior illustrates systemic injustices? I think so. I’ve seen it happen a couple of times this past year.