While an article discussing the challenges to implementing RJ and buidling community is very important especially for schools in transition , the call for imposing consequences - article here - as opposed to being restorative and supportive , providing structure in a non- controlling way that supports student autonomy certainly won't help achieve the goal the writer ends the article - to raise children who will be compassionate, collaborative and successful in life. An aternative view from Alfie kohn's article unconditional teaching https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/unconditional-teaching/
In an illuminating passage from her recent book Learning to Trust (2003), Marilyn Watson explained that a teacher can make it clear to students that certain actions are unacceptable while still providing “a very deep kind of reassurance – the reassurance that she still care[s] about them and [is] not going to punish or desert them, even [if they do] something very bad.” This posture allows “their best motives to surface,” thus giving “space and support for them to reflect and to autonomously engage in the moral act of restitution” – that is, to figure out how to make things right after doing something wrong. “If we want our students to trust that we care for them,” she concludes, “then we need to display our affection without demanding that they behave or perform in certain ways in return. It’s not that we don’t want and expect certain behaviors; we do. But our concern or affection does not depend on it.”
This is the heart of unconditional teaching, and Watson points out that it’s easier to maintain this stance, even with kids who are frequently insulting or aggressive, if we keep in mind why they’re acting that way. The idea is for the teacher to think about what these students need (emotionally speaking) and probably haven’t received. That way, she can see “the vulnerable child behind the bothersome or menacing exterior.”
The popular view is that children who misbehave are just “testing limits” – a phrase often used as a justification for imposing more limits, or punishments. But perhaps such children are testing something else entirely: the unconditionality of our care for them. Perhaps they’re acting in unacceptable ways to see if we’ll stop accepting them.
Thus, one teacher (quoted in Watson, 2003) dealt with a particularly challenging child by sitting down with him and saying, “You know what[?] I really, really like you. You can keep doing all this stuff and it’s not going to change my mind. It seems to me that you are trying to get me to dislike you, but it’s not going to work. I’m not ever going to do that.” This teacher added: “It was soon after that, and I’m not saying immediately, that his disruptive behaviors started to decrease.” The moral here is that unconditional acceptance is not only something all children deserve; it’s also a powerfully effective way to help them become better people. It’s more useful, practically speaking, than any “behavior management” plan could ever be.
