How restorative practices are changing some Nashville classrooms

Classroom management is a major challenge for new teachers, and even veteran educators.

The conventional methods of management and discipline rely heavily on removing struggling students from the classroom — putting them even further behind. And this discipline disproportionately affects students of color.

But educators and researchers have been developing ways to avoid the school-to-prison pipeline — a lot of these fall under the umbrella of “restorative practices.” So what are these restorative practices? And how is the attempt to implement them in MNPS going?

This episode was produced by Magnolia McKay.

Guests:

• Laura Fittz, Ph.D. Candidate, Vanderbilt University
• Daren Dickson, Chief Culture Officer, Valor Collegiate Academies
• Mary-Owen Holmes, Teacher at Glencliff High School; Facilitator, The Peace Team

Further Reading and Listening

• For additional information about the use of restorative justice, you can listen to past This is Nashville episodes including “Restorative practices in the legal system” and our profile on Dr. Rich Milner, the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University.