From willful defiance to fighting, Jamal was in the office daily. Yet of all his 8th grade classes, Jamal never got into trouble in mine because I decided that I would not lose him on my watch. I grew up with too many kids like Jamal and knew far too well what could happen. As a student, I watched kids being taken out of school in handcuffs in 7th and 8th grade, and I knew that Jamal belonged in class and not suspended. Keeping kids like Jamal out of handcuffs and in class meant having courageous conversations with my students, refining my classroom management, and using discipline as a means to exercise restorative justice. Focusing on these key teacher actions, I could do my part to help eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline.
A Voice for the Voiceless
We need to have very real, courageous conversations with others about the school-to-prison pipeline affecting 63 percent of Black and Latino students nationwide. The criminalization of Black and Latino students has become the norm. In courageous conversations, I have related my own traumatic experiences as a middle school student, forced to walk through school metal detectors every day. I have asked my administrator why our children of color were being disproportionately disciplined three times more than others? Although these conversations may be tough to have, we must be prepared to be a voice for the voiceless. In my experience, these conversations have led to the realization that some educators approach classroom management from a place of fear and misunderstanding about what different students need. From this awareness, we can move to action, shifting school policies, culture, and climate to be more equitable. A great resource for starting courageous conversations at your school is Lead Change.
Getting a Handle on Classroom Management
We have the ability to handle discipline within the confines of our classroom. When we send a student to the office for things such as willful defiance, we are essentially telling students that we cannot handle them in the classroom and we need someone else to take over. Once we relinquish that power to someone else, it is difficult to get it back. Many of our schools have school resource officers, so when we send students to the office, we are giving a police officer control over what will happen to them. We can eliminate the perceived need for police intervention in the management of our classrooms by taking achievable steps like allowing students to have preferential seating, building a sense of community, and clearly defining what behavior will be tolerated. In my classroom, I used positive behavior intervention strategies (PBIS), which allowed me to highlight and reward good behavior. Teacher Vision provides additional ideas for honing your classroom management skills.
A Holistic Approach to Discipline
Perhaps you have experienced a scenario like this in your own classroom: Jill hits Damien, and now I have a decision to make. Do I send Jill to the office under the zero-tolerance policy and subject her to a 10-day suspension, which (at this point in Jill's track record) would also result in automatic expulsion? I knew that hitting another student was wrong, but I also knew that there was something else going on with Jill that suspension or expulsion would not fix and that I needed to address. I decided in that moment, rather than sending Jill to the office, I would try restorative justice with her.
Restorative justice is a holistic approach to discipline that is focused on helping students uncover the root problem that caused them to act out in the first place. I started a conversation with Jill about what was upsetting her. I discovered that Jill was experiencing trauma from her family and home life, and we were able to connect her with a school counselor to help her deal with these issues. Then, she and Damien engaged in conflict mediation to resolve and repair their interpersonal issues, as well.
Justice for Jill and Jamal
I often wonder what would have happened if I had sent Jill to the office. Today, she is a soldier in the military. So many students get caught in a cycle of trauma with no means or support to cope. When they act out, they are doubly punished: first by the trauma of their circumstances, and second by the systems that seek to remove rather than restore our vulnerable youth. By pursuing restorative justice for Jill, her dreams were not jeopardized by one action, unlike so many other children caught in this insidious cycle.
In Jamal's case, I found out that his father was deployed, and he was experiencing anxiety and acting out as a result. When we take time to apply restorative justice, we find out that there is always an underlying issue. I created behavior contracts for Jamal and the rest of the students who were frequently getting into trouble that year and worked with them to brainstorm things they could do to keep out of trouble. I rewarded them quarterly and worked with their parents to determine what the reward should be. Student referrals and behavior issues at my school decreased by 85 percent simply by giving students a voice in the discipline process.
The unjust criminalization of Black and Latino children is pervasive in our society and does not stop at the schoolhouse door. Rather than accepting the status quo, we can become a part of the solution by having courageous conversations, managing our classrooms, and employing restorative justice. I challenge you to declare not on my watch will I allow another child to be criminalized in school—choose restoration over criminalization.
