History Matters: Challenging an A-Historical Approach to Restorative Justice in Teacher Education

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing harm through cooperative processes, rather than top-down, punitive responses. Initially used within the justice system to reduce incarceration, RJ gained momentum in public schools as evidence mounted of racially disproportionate school discipline, and in 2016, was incorporated in the California State Teachers Performance Expectations (TPEs). Despite its growth, many teachers, administrators, and teacher educators have had little exposure to RJ. In this article, we review the history of RJ and articulate its transition into education, examine its institutionalization within California TPEs, and expose contradictions that emerge from a de-contextualized approach. Next, we share findings from qualitative questionnaires to expose how these contradictions are mirrored in teacher candidates’ understanding of restorative justice, revealing the need for historical framing and training resources as RJ is built into teacher education.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional Resources

1. Winn (2018). Building a “lifetime circle”: English education in the age of# BlackLivesMatter. Urban Education, 53, 248-264.

This article argues that, to prepare US-based teachers in the era of #BlackLivesMatter, there must be a radical reframing of teacher education so teachers can learn to disentangle their teaching from the culture of mass incarceration and the criminalization of Black and Brown people. Using a restorative justice paradigm, Winn seeks to understand in what ways, if any, training of English teachers can address issues of mass incarceration.

2. Philip, T.M., Souto-Manning,M., Anderson, L., Horn, L., Carter Andrews, D., Stillman, J., & Varghese,M.(in press).Making justice peripheral by constructing practice as “core”: How the increasing prominence of core practices challenges teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education.

In the vein of our warning regarding a-contextual and a-historical approaches to restorative justice in teacher education, this article argues that organizing teacher education around core practices carries the risk of rendering equity and justice peripheral. That is, as core practices movements and organizations advocate market-based solutions to education, teacher education becomes more corporate and prescriptive, and thus less contextually responsive. The authors consider how to reframe core practices so they might contribute to educational and social justice.

3. Gross,M., & Terra, L.(2018,May). What makes difficult history difficult? Kappan, 99, 51-56.

Disrupting notions of the need for students to have an idyllic perception of the steps and growth of the United States, this article encourages educators to take a truthful look at history. The authors believe that young people can engage with difficult histories while still developing a sense of social cohesion that embraces diversity across race, culture and religion.

4. Milner etal. (2019).“These Kids are Out of Control”: Why we must reimagine “classroom management” for equity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Milner and colleagues address the need for a teacher education tool that reimagines classroom management and centers justice in the development of equitable classrooms. The authors provide a framework to disrupt the cradle-to prison pipeline by offering new teachers practices centered on understanding the history of injustice for students of color and offering supports to becoming justice-oriented educators.

Notes

¹ This is a pseudonym used to ensure anonymity.