Restorative Justice Podcast Review

Educational Podcast: Cult of Pedagogy
4/26/18

Link to the podcast: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/restorative-justice-overview/

The listened to podcast called The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, which touched on what is called "restorative justice." The premise of restorative justice is a different system of justice than the one currently in place. Victor Small Jr. explained it as, "instead of giving you jail time or a fine, we focus on really the harm that was created to the person." The focus of restorative justice is to undo the harm done by the perpetrator towards the victim, as opposed to just punishing them.

Small explained some of the problems of zero tolerance before explaining the value in restorative justice. Suspension was an example he used. He says, "...when you tell a kid, when you send a kid home and you tell the kid that they can’t come to school, what you’re basically communicating to the kid is that we don’t want you around." He says this is harmful to the student, because not only does the student feel rejected, but they will also fall behind in their classes because of their suspension. After all, who would want to give their best effort towards the place that doesn't want you there?

Restorative justice is used to not only figure out why the student is misbehaving, but also teaching the student what they did wrong. Small states, "Your behavior affects people, and so in order to pay it forward or to deal with the consequences of that, you’re going to have to figure out how to make things right."

In order for restorative justice to work, however, you need to create a classroom culture where students respect each other. As Small says, it is a lot easier for students to apologize when they did something wrong if they're all getting along with one another. So the teacher needs to find ways to bring the classroom together as a way of building community.

As a teacher, I believe restorative justice is the right way to handle misbehavior in the classroom. If I send a student to the office, I feel like I would have failed to connect with the student, and our relationship would only get worse. I would like to create an atmosphere in the classroom where everyone respects each other, and are open to understanding why some behavior is not okay. I think a great way to do this is through journal writing. As an English teacher, writing is an important part of the curriculum, and I think a great way to bring students together is having students share what they are writing in their journals. The first thing to do is to create a classroom where students are open to sharing their lives with one another.

I found this podcast to be very informative on dealing with misbehavior problems. The biggest thing I came out of this is to start by creating a classroom culture where the behavior problems are much less likely to occur, and when they do they can be easily defused.