Proactive: At the beginning of class, the teacher reviewed the classroom agreement to be supportive and inclusive before sending students into breakout rooms. The teacher also emphasized the importance of phrasing in peer-to-peer feedback and the students were provided with a clear task.

Immediate: Upon bringing an incident of bullying to the teacher’s attention, the teacher actively listened to Jules's experience and asked open-ended questions like “Can you tell me more about that?” and “What do you think needs to happen to make this right?”. The teacher then provided Jules with additional resources and assured them that the issue would be addressed directly. At the first opportunity to speak with Gretchen, the teacher asked open-ended questions and actively listened to Gretchen's experience before jumping to conclusions. The teacher then asked Gretchen to reflect on the incident and her interpretation of the shared classroom agreement. The teacher then focused on Gretchen’s general well-being and offered additional support services by having the school counselor join the breakout room. 

Follow-up: Moving forward, the teacher will check-in with both students to ensure they are positively contributing to an inclusive digital classroom. If any student continues to make disparaging comments during class, restorative justice practices will be implemented to bolster behavioral accountability and support the student in better understanding and adherence to a mutual understanding of the classroom agreement.

This cycle of classroom management focuses on the socio-emotional support for the whole child. Asking open-ended questions to better understand the student experience allows for the teacher to assess the needs of the student. This trauma-informed approach is more likely to screen for illness, neglect and abuse as the teacher can ask additional follow-up questions if the student brings up a “red flag”. During this sketch it was clear that hurtful words are not tolerated in the classroom and that students are encouraged to seek support services, such as counseling, which support a holistic framework of student needs. Supporting students with restorative, rather than punitive, classroom management helps break the School-to-Prison Pipeline and allows students to develop authentic relationships in their educational journey and beyond.

Immediate: After realizing that there is a perceived lack of participation on the part of one of her students, the teacher asks other teachers for advice, does some online research, and looks at the districts database to find any helpful information about why the student may not be speaking up, and what she could do to better incorporate that student into the classroom. The teacher comes up with a number of ideas including speaking slower, creating a low risk learning environment, working in small groups, incorporating the students culture and first language, and meeting with the students parents.

Follow-up: After finding out more about the student’s cultural norms and home life, the teacher now has a better understanding of how to make the classroom a more positive space for them. Going forward, the teacher will incorporate less stressful activities and social interactions that allow the student to participate more confidently. Additionally, discussing with the family draws them into the conversation and helps them feel heard. 

Proactive: The teachers discussed strategies that Mr. Pibb could use in his classroom to try to avoid this situation in the future. Some of the ideas the teachers suggested were establishing classroom norms and reviewing them frequently as well as getting to know your students through community building.

Immediate: Using a warm tone helps let students know you are on their side as well as reducing the negative feelings as a result of your feedback. We also discuss the strategy of praising good behavior and ignoring some bad behavior. This is a positive way to address behavior because it reinforces the good behavior instead of focusing on the negative. It creates a more rewarding classroom for students. Non-verbal feedback can also be used to address students disruptive behavior without affecting the flow of the lesson. Incident documentation is discussed as a way to address specific incidents instead of a general pattern of behavior. Cool down time is also a way for students, and the teacher, to address their emotions and come back and discuss when Initial, emotional responses don’t interfere with productive discussion. These strategies help break the school to prison pipeline by reforming the relationship the student has with authority and reduces the amount of punitive punishments that set the student back. 

Follow-up: Revisiting classroom norms and coming back to conversations helps create a classroom with accountability. We discussed as teachers in our dialog how we would address student behavior and revisit these conversations. Following up with students after a break facilitates conversations and emotional regulation. Addressing behaviors after a class helps create less disruptions of class and eliminates an audience. Eliminating an audience creates a low risk environment. 

These methods are important to creating student centered practice. Understanding strategies to help address undesirable behaviors helps dismantle the cycle of punitive measures that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. Incorporating trauma informed practice gives the teachers a lens to separate student behavior from student identity. The students are not bad students, but students that have bad behavior. 

Proactive: A teacher using the teacher-centered approach is experiencing some classroom management issues. They try to fix them on their own, but after experiencing frustration, they approach a colleague during passing time to get advice.

Immediate: The colleague (who uses a student-centered approach) provides some strategies including changing the classroom layout to be more interactive, establishing a set of classroom rules and expectations, assigning collaborative work with specific group roles, giving students responsibility and the chance to succeed/fail, making the content relevant to student’s cultural identity and lived experiences, and engaging in conflict resolution via mediation or restorative justice practices.The teachers then ask a passing student their opinion of the two different styles. Soon after, the vice principal approaches and offers additional student-centered support to the student.

Follow-up: A simple conversation between colleagues begins to shift the instructor’s thinking. After talking with their colleague, the teacher plans to incorporate the suggested student-centered strategies that will engage the students through reflection, meaningful curriculum, social interactions, and hopefully remedy classroom management issues.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/Hdi3VnOTug8 
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