Teaching and Learning

Many people who use, or have tried restorative justice in their school are entrenched in the conception that there are no consequences, or that people who do things get away with just having a conversation with someone. Recently I have trialled something more. Three boys had a fight in the classroom. One grabbed the second in a headlock, and the third kicked the first in the head. As restorative justice dictates, we met individually with the boys first. We talked about what had happened, who they had affected, and how they were going to make it right. These boys are pretty good at this kind of stuff now, they decided they would make it right with each other in different ways. Some apologising, some inviting others to join them in projects, and others making promises for the future. We then discussed who else they had affected, and discussed how they had affected The School. "We live by a set of values here, and by fighting in the classroom you have jeopardised those. You...

Life, as a journey of self discovery, has been a main discussion point for me of late with two students, in discussion around bullying and being bullied. Wikipidia explains a journey of self discovery as: "The term "journey of self-discovery" refers to a travel, pilgrimage, or series of events whereby a person attempts to determine how they feel, personally, about spiritual issues or priorities, rather than following the opinions of family, friends, neighborhood or peer pressure."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-discovery We talked about the need to understand yourself, the need to understand how you react to different stimuli and in different situations, and the need to understand why others have decided to react in a certain way. I don't know how much of this the students actually understood, but it's a step in the right direction and if we continue to have these discussions with them, they may see themselves and their lives in a different l...

As I walked around the group of students I was working with yesterday, I saw some students with devices out who were looking at ideas around projects they were working on. One was looking at a YouTube video of Basketball, one of Rugby League, and one of Fortnite. As I looked, I wondered to myself; who am I to say that any of these three students are learning less than the others? How can I prioritise one of these videos or experiences above another? Who am I to deny these students these opportunities, if it is going to help them in their future? And who are we to say what will help them in their future? As we move into the exponential explosion of technology, can we safely predict what will or will not benefit students? There is so much rhetoric now, for teachers to teach; - National qualifications (NCEA in New Zealand) - Social emotional learning - 21st Century literacies - Key Competencies - Restorative Justice/Practices Where do we start? How do we navigate this cr...