With the matrix that we developed last year, we can have more intentional conversations about kindness at school. In addition, we’ve been thinking about how to build ownership over behaviour and heal harm once it’s done. This work falls under the umbrella of restorative justice practices, where students are asked to consider:

Who was affected by what you did?

What do you need to do to make this right?

What were you feeling when you did X? (Powerful, embarrassed, angry, frustrated)

What do you think the other person was feeling when you did X? (Sad, angry, embarrassed)

This work involves a fundamental belief that those who cause harm can restore relationships when they’ve been fractured. We want learners to know that how we respond in a situation is equally as important as the action. Accountability is part of restoring relationships and moving forward in a kind way. We want learners to know that moving forward requires us to go beyond ‘sorry’ and towards understanding what they were looking for in a situation and how they made someone else feel with their actions.

Our community knows this work takes time. Restorative practices ask us, as educators, to facilitate meaningful conversations between children. We work to move beyond beyond punishment and towards a better understanding of the motivation behind the behaviour. Ideally, students will lean into this work before escalation happens to solve conflict in a thoughtful way. We hope that students will learn to manage conflicts without the facilitation of adults. We know this is hard work, and it asks students to practice vulnerability and humility. Our current work is walking through the steps with both staff and students, so it becomes part of the fabric of our community. In September, we provided a few sample templates to staff to help them in having restorative conversations with students.

Our hunch is that if we continue to weave kindness in all we do, dive deeper with our understanding of kindness by learning about restorative practices, we will see a decrease in unfavourable student behaviour and an increase in our students’ ability to solve conflicts peacefully.