Ever Heard of RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?

[SoCalTeach]

I just had a great day catching up with a woman from Australia that I had not seen in 20 years! She teaches grades 5-6 near Melbourne, and she told me about a conflict resolution program her school is learning about called "Restorative Justice". She is going to attend a seminar next month. She told me how the kids come up with examples of acts that range from 0-10, 10 being the worst. Example: a "1" would be "I lost my blue pencil, but I have another pencil in a different blue color", and a "10" would be losing someone close to you. These sayings are placed on a thermometer poster in the classroom, and if a child complains about something they think someone else did, the teacher asks what "number" he thinks he's on. The lower numbers represent things that are bothersome or frustrating, but not major things.

I was wondering if anyone has heard of the program or uses it in their classrooms.

 

[Tounces]

justice

I've heard of it because some community group used it in our school along with the responsive classroom we used already. I never sat in the group time because I didn't care for it at all. I don't think it was useful either. That was when I worked in Minneapolis.