A fractured finger, choking, punching and a bathroom stall door kicked in to get to a victim. The assaults are rife at an elite private girls school in Toronto.
Parents of a student there blame school officials for not enforcing what the school calls restorative justice practices and disciplinary policies after years of bullying and violence.
“There’s no real consequences that bullies face, and so the behaviour that they engage in just continues to escalate,” said the student’s parents, who Canadian Affairs agreed not to name for fear of retaliation against their family. “The policies in place basically prevent [the] identification of a particular child as a ‘bully.”
To handle conflict, the school’s approach is to use restorative practices, such as identifying how wrongdoers can “repair” the harm they caused.
But the parents say the school does not take a restorative justice approach in practice. Instead, the school has informed parents they’re not allowed to discuss harassment or violent experiences that occurred on campus with other families. In the midst of these incidents, the school continues to celebrate anti-bullying Pink Shirt Day.
Over the past decade, many schools across Canada have adopted restorative justice programs. Studies show this method, when done effectively, can lead to more conflict resolutions compared to traditional punishments, like detention.
But experts warn the practices only work when staff are properly trained and enough time is given to the process to work. When these elements are missing, it can lead to situations like the ones the anonymous parents witnessed.
“Bullying is a relational problem where a whole number of young people decide to ostracize or mock or exclude or harm one individual,” says Kathy Bickmore, a professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. “When schools try to engage in those conflicts, sometimes they do escalate the problem or at least they don’t help.”
‘Root of the problem’
Restorative justice circles bring victims, perpetrators and those who assist the perpetrator together to discuss the situation and create solutions together. It allows a victim to say how a bully caused suffering.
“Bullying is social and bullies often have social power. If those people are part of a circle… they will tend to learn about the consequences of their behaviour,” says Bickmore.
In contrast, traditional punitive systems isolate perpetrators for bad behaviour through suspension, detention or expulsion. Studies have shown this method does little to deter or change students with behavioural problems.
“Punishment doesn’t actually solve problems,” says Mikhail Lyubansky, teaching associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, who specializes in restorative justice.
“If these students were suspended, or had a detention, the most likely outcome of that is that when they came back, their behaviour would be unchanged.”
Restorative justice shouldn’t completely replace punishment, but it’s a tool children can participate in if they’re involved in conflict or have to be corrected.
“Restorative work [aims] to build inclusive, trusting relationships, to practice communication, to practice hearing and responding to and expressing divergent views,” says Bickmore.
It can be more effective in helping students solve issues because “it focuses on getting to the root of the problem,” says Lyubansky.
A 2018 report by the research institution RAND summarizes the findings of one of the first randomized controlled trials of the effectiveness of restorative practices in a Pittsburgh school district. The study found that restorative practices improved overall school climates, reduced suspension rates and reduced disparities in suspension rates between students based on race and income.
Limited training, limited results
In Ontario, restorative justice practices can include mediation sessions with students who are in conflict, or a restorative justice circle, where parents and friends are invited to participate, says Bickmore.
Both Bickmore and Lyubansky agree that limited training for school staff on how to mediate these sessions and a lack of time to implement restorative solutions can make it difficult for these practices to work as intended. These issues can be more acute in public schools, where resources are limited.
Punitive discipline is convenient for teachers because it’s quick and requires little to no training. Students are either sent home or made to stay quiet in a room for detention, which normally only requires one supervisor.
A staff member would ideally be trained for at least one week full-time on how to mediate a restorative justice session, says Lyubansky. In practice, most restorative justice training lasts between one afternoon to a couple days, leaving staff unprepared to take it on.
“Some people get very good at it very fast, and some people don’t,” says Lyubansky. In schools where students have been asked to evaluate their restorative justice experiences, many have said the effectiveness “depends on who the facilitator is.”
With success contingent on certain motivated individuals, resources are at risk of disappearing due to staff turnover. “We haven’t yet been able to institutionalize it in a way that can survive individuals leaving, like our punitive system is totally designed to survive,” Lyubansky says.
Implementing restorative justice resolutions can also take multiple sessions, which many schools’ rigid schedules aren’t designed to accommodate. “It’s not clear where to fit them in during the school day,” says Lyubansky.
Slow down
Bickmore says for restorative justice to succeed, staff need to allocate time to participate in sessions regularly, such as during staff meetings or at recess, so they get continual practice.
“It’s not easy, but it requires understanding restorative justice in education as education — not just as another control procedure.”
At the moment, Lyubansky says he wishes schools would slow down their efforts to implement restorative justice practices, “because I think they’re too messy, they don’t create conditions for success and wind up hurting the work as a result.”
But he also remains “hopeful that a new order in which we do things in more restorative ways can and will emerge.”
This is fascinating. As the article points out, and as is often the case with programs of any kind, success depends on having the right people with the right training and enough time and resources.
Restorative principals are also a (small) part of our criminal justice system. In his new book coming out this year, Ben Perrin argues that most crimes should be addressed through a restorative process, rather than the traditional punishment/deterrence/denunciation approach.