Better Than Carrots or Sticks: A Slow Twitter Chat Bookstudy

I am an Assistant Principal at an elementary school which means one of my many responsibilities is discipline. After 6 years of pretty much following the same procedure (discipline referral leads to consequence such as time out, detention, ISS (In School Suspension) or OSS (Out of School Suspension), I began to feel an unrest and knew that we could not continue to do what we have always done because we would continue to get what we always got. What we have gotten every year is an increasing number of ISS and OSS days. Neither of which options were making an impact in the lives of our students as most of them were going on to the middle and high school receiving the same consequences because there was no behavior change. I am not satisfied with the status quo.

Then one morning while at Starbucks I participated in the #LeadLAP twitter chat when the words "Restorative Practices/Discipline" caught my eye and caused many thoughts to start firing through my synapses.

What is Restorative Practices?

The restorative approach to discipline incorporates principles of the SWPBIS approach to focus on prevention through relationship building by drawing on the collective strengths of the community to help individuals in trouble regain their footing in a nurturing environment with consistent classroom practices and high expectations. Most of all, restorative practices draw their strength from communication tools: adults use language that builds agency and identity and facilitate class discussion in a way that encourages affiliation and resolves problems. Restorative practices represent a positive step forward in helping all students learn to resolve disagreements, take ownership of their behavior, and engage in acts of empathy and forgiveness (Better Than Carrots or Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management, Smith, Fisher, Frey). 

As I have decided to take the plunge this year I would like to learn from other experts around the world. Twitter is an amazing place in which to do this. So, I am going to facilitate a bookstudy on Better Than Carrots and Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management, by Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey. You can pick up your copy at amazon.com.

I will post the discussion questions on Twitter using the usual Q1, Q2, Q3 format. Participants will respond to the questions using the A1, A2, A3 format. I will post one question per day, Monday-Friday. This will hopefully give you plenty of time to read and thoughtfully respond to the questions as well as to others' posts. (Thanks to Mr. Hills' blog for providing me with a format).

I have created a hashtag for our bookstudy. Please use it when discussing anything related to the book.

#btcsbookstudy

Here is the schedule:
October 2-6, 2017 Chapter 1
October 9-13 Chapter 2
October 16-20 Chapter 3
October 23-27 Chapter 4
October 30-November 3 Chapter 5
November 6-10 Chapter 6
November 13-17 Wrap up discussions

I am just beginning to learn about Restorative Practices and how it can impact the students in my building. I am hopeful that if we can begin implementing some of the practices we can teach our students to "learn to resolve disagreements, take ownership of their behavior, and engage in acts of empathy and forgiveness."