Schools

The IIRP Graduate School recently partnered with Microsoft Educator Center to create a free professional development resource for educators seeking to do effective anti-racism work in the classroom.

A series of courses for individualized, self-directed learning, the modules can also be worked through by an independent team of educators within a professional learning community.

The Anti-racism journey for educators with students includes a kit of resources grounded in social and emotional learning (SEL) and curated by experts in the fields of equity and inclusion, restorative practices and education technology.

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El jueves 05 y viernes 06 de marzo del 2020, IIRP Latinoamérica celebró el congreso internacional “Justicia y Educación con Visión Restaurativa” en la Ciudad de México. Más de 100 participantes de 11 países diferentes (Brasil, Chile, Perú, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, España y Estados Unidos) se reunieron para compartir experiencias y proyectos restaurativos que han venido estableciéndose en América Latina  con una rica variedad de perspectivas y abordajes. Este evento representa una oportunidad para contribuir con el sentido de comunidad entre personas que trabajan justicia restaurativa, la socialización de buenas prácticas y el propósito de incrementar un sentido de esperanza para nuestra región latinoamericana.

High school graduation is always a special, emotional event, but the graduation ceremony at Buxmont Academy Bethlehem was uniquely powerful. I didn't know any of the students personally. I had only briefly interacted with the three graduates after a tour of the school a few weeks before. But by the end of the ceremony, I felt my eyes well up.

I expected a speech from the school coordinator Karen Engle, but I didn’t expect the students to share such compelling stories of transformation and community.

There was a palpable sense of comradery throughout the day. “The ceremony is to celebrate the graduates, of course, but we are also celebrating all the other students as they return to their public schools or continue here,” Karen explained.

Almost every student received at least one award: most improved, most curious, most enthusiastic, most supportive... Every student also shared their proudest change. The student changes made a strong impression on me:

Thanks to the School District of University City, St. Louis, Missouri, and writer Nancy Cambria, Director of Communications, for allowing us to republish this story on how basketball coach Kelvin Lee is applying restorative practices. Lee and others at University City High School have learned from the IIRP.

Kelvin Lee didn’t have the easiest first year as head basketball coach at University City High School in 2017.

The team had a lot of raw athletic talent – perhaps even more so than in his days of coaching future N.B.A. stars at Chaminade College Prep in Creve Coeur.

But his new U. City players were not set in winning habits. They argued with

This short documentary film was made during the height of the protests in Oakland surrounding potential budget cuts, including cuts to restorative pratices in schools. Students took the bull by the horns, and insisted on being heard by school board reps. To do this, they invited the reps to come down from their elevated seats and join them in a restorative circle. A talking piece was used and students expressed to all present how valuable restorative practices was to them and how it helped them deal with their problems.

The IIRP provided restorative practices training to 500 middle- and high-school students in the Miami-Dade County, Florida, School District. Jen Williams, IIRP '16, a middle school counselor, shares her experience of developing and presenting this training:

I was blown away when IIRP Lecturer Mary Jo Hebling asked to me to share my work with the Miami-Dade School District. The students in the Restorative Training Program in my small rural school in Southeastern Pennsylvania are trail blazers to me, but I never expected to be asked to share our work with others.  

Freshman boys at a high school outside Detroit shocked their community by performing a hate-filled anti-Semitic rap song in the lunchroom. But bringing people together to repair the hurt they caused turned an ugly episode into an opportunity to build empathy and respect.

Harm spread throughout the school as a video of the incident circulated. “The most difficult part,” lamented a member of Bloomfield Township's Jewish community, “was that it was not a single individual, but a whole group of 10 or so who were laughing and cajoling, filming and encouraging him.”

More than half of the staff at Bloomfield Hills High School had received professional development in restorative practices. Margaret Schultz, the district’s Administrator for Social Emotional Learning & Educational Equity, also a licensed trainer for the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), got to work immediately, building understanding and accountability among those involved in the

The 21^st Century will redefine our entire concept of higher education and adult learning.

The IIRP Graduate School demonstrates the innovation that is possible when empowering learning strategies meet the best of new technologies.

For instance, our graduate programs teach many forms of participatory group engagement that K-12 teachers can use with students. One such practice is called a “restorative circle.”

Download our free 4-page guide of circle ideas to get your year started in a PROACTIVE way!

Topics include:

• Setting norms
• Circles to foster respect
• Fun and games

A one-time gang member in Los Angeles is taking his understanding of his community, his idealism and his knowledge of restorative practices back into neighborhoods to help gang members learn to change and be more positive community members.Carlos Alvarez, center, with two boys

“Lots of kids embedded in gangs, their emotional intelligence is very minimal,” he says. “We have to build capacity around affect regulation.”

Carlos Alvarez, an IIRP licensed trainer, says restorative practices builds emotional connections and allows children to develop healthy social skills. This involves allowing students to process their

(U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Alexxis Pons Abascal)Restorative concepts and practices are key to helping children with special needs improve their behavior, learning and interactions with others. These include "separating the deed from the doer” and utilizing exploratory questions, explains IIRP Graduate School Lecturer and University of Northampton, U.K., Ph.D. candidate Nicola Preston.

Preston's Ph.D. research is focused on developing restorative concepts as a narrative approach to assessment and diagnosis of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and other social and emotional issues that affect

It’s been less than a year since teachers and administrators at Charles W. Henry School (K-8) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, began incorporating circles and other restorative practices through the SaferSanerSchools™ program alongside the Second Step Program, which teaches students skills for developing emotional intelligence. CW Henry Principal Fatima Rogers with studentsBut already the culture of the school has shown marked improvement, with office referrals down and teachers helping students resolve conflicts in new ways.