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Regulate, connect, and put on your detective hat with your students! Dive into the mysteries of their actions and uncover tricks to avoid any future fireworks.

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Joining in on acts of kindness is like opening a treasure trove of magic!

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How to Use Token Economy to Manage Behavior

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Investigating the what, when, where, and why behind behaviors.

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Using Data to Proactively Manage Student Behavior

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Schools can identify trends and patterns in student behavior in order to help correct issues and prevent them from recurring.

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I do, you do, we do.

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SCHOOL DAYS | MODELING BEHAVIOR | TEACHERS

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Different behaviors need different approaches.

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Abstract: The paper presents a method for matching target behaviors with solutions for achieving those behaviors. Called the Behavior Wizard, this method first classifies behavior change targets into one of 15 types. Later stages focus on triggers for the target behaviors and on relevant theories and techniques.

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Give them a big smile and a happy hello as they walk in.

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Positive greetings at the door of classroom increased students' academic engagement by 20% and decreased disruptive classroom behavior by 9%, according to a study published in the Journal of Positive Behavior earlier this year, and potentially adds an extra hour of learning per day, Edutopia reports.

The study suggests that teachers should greet students individually by name, as well as use a non-verbal greeting, and make positive and pre-corrective statements encouraging good behavior or suggesting how the student should begin the day.

The approach promotes a sense of belonging in the classroom, builds a sense of community, and reduces students' and teachers' stress levels as they begin the day.

Dive Insight:

Greeting students at the door is another way to build a positive school culture. By starting the day on a bright note and with a warm greeting, students feel happier about coming to school and approach learning with a more optimistic mindset. The act also helps build relationships between students and teachers, which is an important part of making connections for learning for the rest of the day.

The act also builds a sense of community in a classroom. Students who may not always feel welcome in their home environments need to be able to feel that school is a safe refuge for them - a place where they are loved and wanted. By supporting these feelings, teachers are encouraging students to engage more fully in the learning process.

In an article on STEDI.org, author Jessica Smith also recommends a strategy for substitute teachers:

"Greeting students at the door serves two purposes. First, when substitute teachers stand in the doorway and are welcoming and inviting, it gives an immediate first impression of professionalism; this gesture lets students know in a very non-threatening way that it will not be a wasted day. Second, by greeting students at the door it gives you the chance to direct students to the starter activity. Students who are on task are less likely to behave inappropriately. It's important as a substitute teacher to get students on task immediately," she said.

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New study suggests that greeting students with a positive message yields benefits

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Starting with a friendly note can mitigate student issues for the rest of the day.

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In the natural course of life, we encounter a range of emotions and need to take time to contemplate before moving forward.

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De-Escalation Spaces: Helping Students Manage Emotions

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Effective communication between home and school is essential.

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When students have a good rapport with a staff person, you may send a positive note or phone call to that staff person about the student's accomplishment. The staff person you contact can then help to praise and encourage the student, creating good momentum.

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Repair the relationship and empower students to make safe and respectful choices.

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Restorative Practices are ALL THE RAGE and while I'm typically critical of the latest trends in education, I love restorative practices and encourage everyone to jump in. The truth is that most school counselors will find themselves really connecting with all of the ideas. The tricky work is in figuring out how to help your school begin to adopt them. A piece of this is understanding some of the main beliefs and strategies in order to better explain them to others. Another piece is fitting them into the elementary school tier, since the majority of the books and trainings out there are secondary-based.

Hold onto your hats, y'all. This is a long post! I tried to be comprehensive and provide information for teachers and counselors alike as you start or continue in your journey to use restorative practices at your school. And if you're looking for an easy way to share this information and more with your faculty, I created a Restorative Practices Faculty Training Presentation.

What are restorative practices?

Restorative practices are a mindset, a set of beliefs about why people choose positive behavior and the power of relationships. Restorative practices are also a set of strategies schools can use. They are rooted in repairing harm and building and repairing relationships. And restorative practices value student empowerment. This student empowerment also serves to develop intrinsic motivation, something I know we're all seeking to do.

International Institute for Restorative Practices developed what is called the "social discipline window". It shows different types of discipline based on the amount of CONTROL and the amount of SUPPORT involved. When there's very little control or support, it is neglectful, essentially it's not there at all. When our control is high but our support is low, discipline is something we are doing TO the students and it's punitive. In the reverse, when our support is high but our control is low, it's a permissive style. Our goal is high control and high support. An environment and style of discipline that holds our students accountable to high expectations while providing them the support they need to achieve it. That is restorative practices.

Restorative practices are NOT an "instead of". They work hand in hand with trauma-informed practices, with social emotional learning, and even with PBIS. Restorative practices are also not about letting students "get away" with things. Student accountability and responsibility and consequences are still present, but shame and punitive punishment are not.

In traditional discipline, the focus was on asking "what rule was broken?", "who did it?", and "how should they be punished?". Restorative practices asks about who was harmed, how they were harmed, and what needs to happen to fix it. Traditional discipline says: "I found this pair of headphones that were broken! Someone snapped them. Who did it? They are going to have some consequences for this!" Restorative practices says: "This pair of headphones was broken. Now not as many people can use our listening center. I need to talk to the person who did it so we can try to make this better."

Building Relationships and Repairing Harm

There are lots of ways to build relationships between faculty or staff and students and this probably comes naturally to you and is important to you as well. Building relationships between students is just as important! Here are some ideas for doing that:

Intentionally finding and naming commonalities. You can do low-pressure activities where students share information about their interests and disinterests. Ask students to find classmates they have things in common with. You can point out positive or neutral things you see as similar between students.

Having shared fun experiences also promotes relationship development. When you do a messy science project together, when you do a silly brain break, when you do a lesson outside...doing things together as a class that make students smile and laugh, you're helping them to connect.

Facilitating discussions and activities with your class where they create goals, class expectations, or future visions together, you're building class relationships. When people are working together towards a common goal, there's something called "positive interdependence" that occurs.

Even upper elementary students are not too old for show and tell. It's a way to share about parts of themselves that they may not ordinarily get a chance to.

Changing up the seating plan also serves to build relationships between students because they have the chance to connect with more of one another.

When a student has engaged in inappropriate behavior or not followed the agreed upon expectations, the focus turns to identifying and repairing the harm. Asking WHO or WHAT was harmed or wronged, and then taking action. Harm can be repaired through: apologies, cleaning up, providing help, giving positive/kind words, or redoing the action/behavior correctly.

Social Emotional Skills

Restorative practices absolutely serve to help students develop important social emotional skills. And at the same time, especially in an elementary school, students need some social emotional skills in order to really engage with restorative practices. Most books and articles and videos on restorative practices are focused on the secondary level and just assume that students already have some basic social skills mastered. The truth is, elementary kiddos don't. Using the practices will help develop them, but it may also be the case that your class needs some lessons or practice with these skills explicitly in order to really engage with and understand them.

These are some of the skills that are part of restorative practices. On the one hand, this sounds like extra work for you as already super busy teachers. On the other hand, these skills will make your students better learners and better citizens, so they're incredibly helpful outside of restorative practices, too.

Identifying Feelings in Self and Others

Expressing and Regulating Feelings

Responsibilities in the Classroom and School

Taking Responsibility For My Own Actions

Choices and Consequences

Peaceful Conflict Resolution

Apologies and Forgiveness

Perspective Taking and Empathy

Knowing the importance of circles (read below!) and thinking about how educators can help embed these SEL skills even further into their day, I created a set of questions/prompts for elementary educators to use in community circles, morning meetings, etc.

I-Statements

One of the social emotional skills really embedded in restorative practices are I-statements/I-messages, which are called "affective statements" in the RP world. This is how adults and students alike can share their feelings and needs, while those around are developing empathy. I've written about teaching students how to use I-statements a few times before, here and here. I-statements are incredibly helpful in both developing AND repairing relationships.

The Power of Circles

Circles are incredibly powerful. When people sit or stand in a circle, there is an increased sense of equality, shared responsibility, ownership, safety and trust, and connections. And the best part, is that circles can be used in so many situations. Proactively, responsively, for academics, for social-emotional skills...all the things. Any time you have the kiddos sitting on the rug facing you, sit in a circle. Small change, big impact. They are a huge component of restorative practices.

There are three main models of having a discussion in a circle. In the sequential model, you go around the circle and each person has the chance to participate by answering a question or adding a comment. This model is great for getting a somewhat equal amount of participation and is best used when the prompt is something that allows for short answers. In the non-sequential model, people participate just by raising their hand and getting the talking piece. This works great when not everyone needs to share an idea, or when responses might be longer. And finally, fishbowl is another circle discussion model. In this model, a few students (maybe 3-4) sit in the center of a circle and have a discussion while those on the outside listen and observe.

Informal Conferencing

Informal conferencing is something you are probably already doing, but there is a specific language to use for them to be restorative (see in the picture below!) It can also be hard to remember these questions in the moment, so I made classroom posters for my teachers to hang as well as reminder cards for their lanyards.

This type of conferencing is great for minor misbehaviors that don't respond to your usual tricks of the trade: redirection, proximity, etc. It's having a quick, private chat with the wrongdoer. You can tell them to meet you at the doorway, or you can bend down at their desk, or invite them to your desk. I also encourage putting just as much emphasis on the person harmed to model the importance of the repair. If we see someone push someone else in line waiting for the bathroom, it is most of our first instincts to address the pusher first. Using a restorative mindset, our concern is first and foremost with the person being pushed. We check in with them first to make sure they're alright, and to demonstrate concern and empathy.

With as important as informal conferencing is, it can be challenging to consistently do this for two reasons:

1. Some students, knowing that they've done something wrong, shut down a little, and struggle to verbally process what happened.

2. Time! If you're in the middle of providing direct instruction to students, you can't always stop and conference.

Something I did, first to tackle problem #1 and then to tackle problem #2, was create restorative question "think sheets" to use when a student has engaged in an inappropriate behavior. It gives them a chance to process independently with less pressure. They're also helpful for teachers to give students when they can't conference with them right away, but they want the student to start thinking about things while it's still fresh on their mind.

I hope this rundown of restorative practices in elementary schools was helpful for you! Where is your school at on the journey towards using restorative practices?

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Restorative Practices in Elementary Schools - The Responsive Counselor

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Restorative practices in elementary schools are incredible, but they look a little different than in the secondary levels.

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The Perry Admirals strive to be safe, responsible and respectful.