USING COMMUNITY CIRLES IN THE SECONDARY CLASSROOM

[Music] hi guys welcome back to too cool for middle school I have officially been doing restorative circles for about a semester now so um our semester ended at Christmas break and I'm on Christmas break right now which is lovely so I thought I would sit down right now and just talk to you about how I do restorative circles a couple months ago I went to a restorative practices training this is one of the handbooks that I got the restorative practices handbook for teachers disciplinarians and administrators building a culture of community in schools and I really appreciated that training like it was two days that I had to be out of the classroom and I was not mad about it I did one video about the discipline window I think so that's up on my channel like a couple videos back and it was funny because a few teachers from Australia and New Zealand commented and they were like yeah we've been doing this for a long time like everyone in our district does this like this is new to you and our trainer had mentioned that this came from Australia and if I'm not mistaken it was kind of an idea from like the Aboriginal people and the educators and even like law enforcement they're noticed that their kids never reoffended like if they got in trouble they didn't reoffended to learn about like why how do you keep your kids like in check and their answer was that they have these community circles like they build community in circles and then they kind of deal with issues in circles and it's kind of an ancient idea you know we all sat around campfires and that's how we got to know each other and then if there was an issue that's how you would resolve it so it's kind of like bringing that idea into your classroom and one of the biggest questions that us educators asked during this training was like the specifics like okay how do you set up the chairs how long does this take where do you do this and so I thought I would just go over those types of things with you because our trainer didn't really answer those questions she was just kind of like well you just figure it out for yourself but we wanted like an bowling okay we will figure it out for ourselves but for example how would you do this stuff for example in my class every Wednesday we do restorative circles and again I've got sixth graders and so part of this whole like restorative practices thing is that you can be very high control as long as you are also high support and so I give them high support but I I keep control of this process so it's 20 minutes in the middle of the period which is one thing that our trainer suggested so that it's not like at the beginning and then kids can kind of like drag it out and then it's not at the end where they can kind of like drag their feet and make it less time like you have control over it and you you know you do instruction for the beginning of the period and then you do your restorative circle then you go back to instruction so it just kind of works its way into your instruction it's not even really like this special time it's just something that we do this is part of our class and they're very excited when they come in on Wednesdays like are we doing restorative circles today and they're so excited and so I'm like yeah but first you know we got to do this worksheet or whatever so when the time comes I have control of the process I make everybody put everything away they put everything on their table and we do not go on to the next step until every single person has done that like their Chromebooks need to be closed their backpacks need to be on the tables everything's got to be taken care of then our next step is everyone picks up their chair and there's one correct way to pick up your chair needs to be right in front of you not behind not over your head not like with the leg sticking out there's one way to do it and so I have them pick up their chairs in the correct way move the chairs out of the way so they put them to the sides then we push the tables to the sides and like you know this group does their table and then they all have to get out of the way before the next group can go and if this sounds like really strict and really high control but otherwise it's chaos and like for me I wouldn't want to do restorative circles if it was going to like just stress me the heck out and like make my day horrible so now they're pretty good at it it took several weeks and I have one classic my read 180 class where the kids are just less mature they are and so actually I don't let them do this process anymore the class that comes before them we actually you know I did have to adjust it eventually so they actually do there were a sort of circle at the end of the period so that they can leave it set up for my next group because that was just you know they proved themselves over and over that they weren't mature enough to handle it so you kind of have to adjust those things for yourself so anyway they push the tables all the way then once that is done they're allowed to go grab their chair and move it into the middle and we make a circle this doesn't really work with like desks that are attached to a chair because they're gonna need to like get up out of their chairs pretty often so some teachers at our school since like their classroom is just not going to work for this and they they're not really willing to disrupt their whole classroom setup once a week they go to the library and do it in the library and some people just do it once a month some people just do it when we have minimum days but I just wanted to try doing it the way that we were taught and doing it once a week for 20 minutes so once we're in our circle we always start off with a little game and either we play the wind blows or I'm like people who so if I feel like I need a little more control of the group that day then I'll sit in a chair and I'll say something like the wind blows if you're wearing black shoes and then everybody's wearing black shoes gets up and they have to find it a new chair so this helps kind of break up the little cliques in your class and it helps people see like who they have things in common with so it's a game but it's also like part of that restorative practice of you know helping kids see what they have in common maybe I'll say something like the wind blows if you're the oldest in your family the wind blows if you have seen Moana the wind blows if science is your favorite subject so if you're kind of having a rough day and you're not ready to like think of all those things then you could switch and I get rid of one chair and I stand middle and I do I'm like people who and so then the kids have to like think of the question so I would say something like I'm like people who have sisters and then anybody that does would get up and we all find a new seat and then there's a new person in the center and then they usually say something like I'm like people who play video games for four hours a night or whatever and then people get up and they switch seats or I'm like people who are getting hot lunch today or whatever and so then people can see what they have in common and also kind of just gets them moving kind of gets their Wiggles out and the good thing about that the wind blows when you have a little more control over it is that like you know there are people that shouldn't be sitting next to each other during this process and so if you see that they are you can say okay like this kid is wearing a red shirt and be like the wind blows if you're wearing a red shirt and even if you're not just stand up and go fill that kid's seat so that you know that those two kids aren't sitting next to each other so without like calling them out and being like oh no you two should not be sitting next to each other you can kind of take care of that in a fun way so we always start with that then you know I never really tell them like this is the last round I just either like put the chair back in or I just don't do anymore wind blows I'm like okay now we're gonna start our questions and we usually have time for about three questions and so you can do a thing where you just kind of like like popcorn you don't like people just give responses out of order but I like to do it in order in our circle so that everybody gets a chance to talk and that everybody has a chance to listen one thing we also did before we started restorative circles was we established class norms and like the procedures that we wanted to have like the expectations for the circle I don't let kids do this at the beginning of the year I don't let kids set the classroom rules I know people say that there's like more buy-in and stuff but no this is my classroom and I will tell you the rules but the circle is not mine the circle is the whole classes so they came up with thinking you know like no side conversations we have this thing called the date so that I always talk about like you know when you're when we're doing a little like turn and talk stuff like look at your friend with a date face and like and we practice like one day you'll be on a date with somebody and they might be talking about something really boring but you like them so you're gonna be like oh yes that is so interesting the tires you got for your truck okay anyway so we practice our date face and so we just try and be respectful of the people who are talking and you know we are meeting the common core standards with our speaking and listening skills by doing restorative circles so if parents ask or administrators asks can also say this is a great way to incorporate the speaking and listening skills that are sometimes hard to work into your lessons so you need to have a talking piece I have a little Leonardo like ninja turtle it's just like this round thing like a little beanie baby what are those beanie babies that are like circles I know it's that so I just had it my classroom I don't even know where it came from so we passed that around and you can only talk if you have Leonardo and they're very protective of Leonardo if anyone drops him then I go and they may pick him up okay so they like Leonardo I would suggest not having anything too small in our staff meetings actually we've been doing restorative circles too and we started with this like little teeny beanbag thing and it was just like too small and annoying and then if you do ever want to like throw it to different people a small thing just doesn't work so you need to be like like this big is pretty good so I always come up with my questions ahead of time so that it's not like oh sometimes they are about our curriculum and so we have been doing bud not buddy and like words to live by and so you know once last week I think we did I'm like what are your words to live by and actually like they were getting ready to do a little speech like later on in the week or the following week maybe and so this was like a little practice run like give us a preview like just like a ten-second preview what is your speech going to be about and then that kind of like just help to loosen them up a little bit for their presentations later with some questions I'll give them like partner time to like turn and talk think about their answer and anytime I do that I take the 45 seconds and I go around say you to a partner's you to our partners you to our partners you to our partners because otherwise somebody gets left out it ends up a little crazy so you just tell them who their partners are and they have a little turn and talk time and I just kind of ask things like you know what what are you gonna do over Christmas break and everybody gets to I don't say that it's nice to have sentient starters especially with my read 180 class kids who are a lot of them are LD threes and they're still learning English and they appreciate the sentence starters and so you you can tell them like you're going to start your answer like this over Christmas break I plan to and whatever you can get kind of creative with your questions once I ask them are you more like your mom or your dad and that was a really like eye opening question and a lot of them gave me gave me some insight into their family life and you know someone say like well I'm organized like my mom but I'm grumpy like my dad or something like that so that was kind of an interesting one another thing that I did was I just set up a Google question like on our Google classroom and they could offer suggestions for questions in our restorative circles and so some of them were like you know we want to go around and say our favorite youtubers or favorite video game or our like morning routine I thought us funny or like what we do after school or like if you could be any animal what would you want to be and so I usually take one from their suggestions and then like the person that suggested that feels really cool and then I have one that's you know to give me a little more insight into them and then one that is kind of related to our curriculum another thing that went really well last week was um so my students after we read but not buddy and a speech by Obama and a speech by Steve Jobs that all kind of had to do with like advice like words to live by they came up with their own words to live by and did a one-minute speech and so that took like three days to go through their speeches but then on the last day it was a Wednesday and we were going to do the sort of circles so after everybody had gone I had them go up and they loved writing on the whiteboard you know like any chance to write on the whiteboard they are really excited and so they wrote their little quote and their name next to it so that we could remember what everybody's quote was and then we did our restorative circle and I said besides your own which quote was the most inspiring to you and why and that just made kids feel so good because every single answer somebody was choosing you know to like highlight what somebody else had said and so the kids whose quotes got chosen like we're just just felt so good another good question that we did once was what is something you really don't like when people say to you and so we got to go around you know some kids like I don't like people sands fat alright don't like it when people say I'm stupid or I don't like when people joke around about whatever and so that it takes a little while to like work up to a question like that but then the next round we did what is something that you love hearing like what's a compliment that you really like to get and you know some kids said like I really like when people say that I'm kind or people say that I'm funny or I like when people say I'm a good basketball player or whatever and so then you kind of do have to guide them a little bit like at the end of that I told them you just got some power from your classmates they just gave you power when they told you what makes them like what hurts their feelings and then what makes them feel really good and your words can be powerful so use that information wisely and I hope that you choose to build other people up and tell them things that make them feel good and that you don't use the things that you know can hurt them so it really does like build your class culture and help kids to build relationships with each other it helps you to get to know them my students are a little more reserved like just culturally they don't like lay it all out on the table so I learn a lot from restorative circles about them and about home lives and like what they're into and just stuff I wouldn't always get and it's only twenty minutes a week you know like that I think it helps me avoid like other issues and other behavior problems too because I'm genuinely interested in what they have to say so then when we do have like a behavior issue there's a little bit of trust there and the last thing that I would say is that well two more things okay so when you first start restorative circles they're gonna be like super excited about it they think it's really cool it's so novel after you do it for a little while they're gonna start like kind of thinking it's lame and then it's gonna like become normal in your classroom and it kind of goes back up so there's gonna be a little dip a couple weeks maybe a month or two into it where they're kind of like oh we're doing what sort of cycles again but fight through that and it's it'll become a little more normalized the other thing that kind of goes with that is that especially you know I have sixth graders and some of them are not gonna take it seriously and they're gonna joke no matter what and so the cool thing about restorative circles we always say like no one can respond because if you have the Leonardo you're the only one talking nobody can respond to what you say so you can say something kind of stupid you can say something really deep and no one is allowed to respond to you so there's gonna be kids that say something really stupid like I like when people say I flirt good hmm and then everyone just kind of looks at them like and you go to the next person and there's no reaction I'm just like and you go to on to the next and like maybe there one friend that you split up across the circle kind of like laughs but they end up feeling kind of stupid when they give stupid answers because we don't feed into it like you just let them say dumb stuff and then like there's no reward really and then there are still gonna be a few kids that like I have probably two boys in every class that still say something stupid every time and probably two girls in every class that refuse to speak up like they are so quiet you can hardly hear what they're saying and every time I just keep asking them here you we want to hear your response can you say that again and you just keep asking them to speak up and then with the with the kids that aren't taking it seriously they get one shot and then if they say something really dumb we only link to flirt I'm just like all right go ahead and scoot your chair back and so they scoot their chair back from the circle they can watch but they can't participate and then if they still are like distracting people back there then they leave the room you might have to set that up with like another teacher or administrator or something like know that during this time I might send you somebody and you can pie tell them like and it's probably gonna be Mike or whatever they might have to leave and don't make a big deal out of it just say you know okay you're gonna be scooting back and then the next time like seems like this is not your day for her sort of circles I'm gonna have you go wait out the rest of this in so-and-so's classroom or whatever so again you just you don't feed the negative behavior you're just kind of like well you don't get to be in this because it's about respect and there are a few kids that I've just had to talk to like before we do the circle where I'll just say okay for the past couple weeks you haven't been all that respectful to the other people in your class and this whole process is about respect so if you can't give your respect then we're not gonna have you participate in this you know it's not really like a punishment consequence like you're not getting detention or anything I mean I don't really tell them this but you know it's not like a detention thing it's just you're not gonna participate because that's not what that's not what we do here so you won't do it and that's like really in line with the way that I like to do discipline anyway so it works well for me and then if somebody says something kind of like deep and like you know I'll ask them like on a scale of one to five how's your day going and then you can tell us why if you choose and somebody might say like well my new because you know my parents are getting a divorce and it's really rough on me still no one responds me like ok and they move on but you can go to that kid afterward and kind of check in with them but in the middle of the circle it's just it's it's kind of nice to just be able to say whatever you want without a ton of reaction so I think the kids like that the last thing is that they can pass but you come back to them so if you know say what is the best book that you've read lately and you know we're going around and then some kid just kind of freezes and they can't think of the name of their book they can say pass but they have to remember by the time we come to the end of the circle then we'll go back to the people who passed and you know they can always just like repeat a book that somebody else said or whatever but they need to participate and like with the games and with the responses like there's really no rules like it's whatever you want so you know my kids are very like wait am i doing it right they kind of question everything so I say like okay if you're wearing red the wind blows and they're like well does it count if it's like the letters under something like what it's it's for you whatever you think whatever you think like I don't let them ask questions anymore because that was kind of like a downfall like that ruins the spontaneity of it and so now like before we even start it's just like there are no questions just if you think you would stand up for this stand up and go so it's been a cool thing in my class this year I hope that was kind of helpful for you if you have done restorative circles in the past and you have some good ideas for maybe like questions for the games at the beginning or questions for going around the circle or any other techniques that you do I know a lot of you educators from New Zealand and Australia are like experts in this and I'm quite a newbie so definitely leave any suggestions that you have below and if you try this out in your classroom let me know how it goes I'd be interested to see how it works with like different age levels I'm sixth grade I think is a pretty sweet spot for this like they are getting a little bit self-conscious but they're still kind of open enough to participate without getting too closed off and they're like mature enough to kind of take it seriously so I feel like it this is a pretty good age but let me know if you do this with like younger kids or high school-aged kids and how that works for you so anyway hope having a great day and I will see you in my next video bye [Music]

Channel: too cool for middle school

Views: 25,105

Rating: 4.909091 out of 5

Keywords: restorative circles, restorative practices, classroom management, education, middle school, classroom culture, school, teacher, teaching, too cool for school, new teachers, teaching tips, sixth graders, english, english teacher, literature circles

Id: nWQSX97tgwk

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2017