What Happens in Schools That Matter with Steve Van Bockern
The second part of the conversation with Steve Van Bockern, as we dive deeper and discuss some examples of what happens in schools that focus on restorative practice and resilience development in schools. There are many things that educators can do to implement positive change in schools.
Additional Notes
Background on Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and service learning mentioned in episode
In the episode we discussed the restorative justice center that replaced detention. There is a published paper on this project, see: Ashworth, J., Van Bockern, S., Ailts, J., Donnelly, J., Erickson, K. & Woltermann, J. (2008). The restorative justice center: An alternative to school detention. Reclaiming Youth at Risk 17(3), 22-26.
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:17
Greetings friends and colleagues. Welcome to the thoughtful Teacher Podcast. The professional educators thought partner, a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Dr. Steve Van Backern, a professor emeritus of education at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Before becoming a professor, Steve was also a teacher and a principal, along with colleagues, Larry Brendtro, who joined us in the 2022 season, and Martin Brokenleg, Steve is co author of the book Reclaiming Youth At-risk Futures of Promise. He is also a co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Reclaiming Youth International, which hosts professional development activities for educators, and youth care professionals. His research interests include resiliency, alternative education, restorative practice, and well being in school settings. He is also the author of the book, Schools That Matter, Teaching the Mind and Reaching the Heart. In this episode, we pick up discussing examples of what you would likely see and feel in a school that matters.
One thing that I wanted to make sure and ask very specifically, is about the term independence. And I was talking with a group of teachers, they had seen the Circle of Courage model, and their criticism was about independence. But the word independence was misinterpreted. We touched on that a little bit, but can you talk a little bit more about what independence and power and autonomy really means and how that would look in a school or in a school setting.
Steve Van Bockern 2:25
Martin and Larry and I had this very conversation and debate as we were putting the third edition of our book together, whether or not we should turn change the word independence to responsibility. And the word responsibility probably reflects in a better way, our concepts behind the term independence than the word independence itself represents. Independence has the sense of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, taking care of yourself, being focused on kind of your own needs, wants and desires. And that's not where we wanted this to head at all. We understand, for example, that you're never truly independent, free unless you experience some dependency. It's a kind of a strange combination that works together, but never independent without having experienced some dependency. So getting back to the word responsibility, I think it conveys a better sense of, of what we're trying to suggest here is that with power, which is associated with this idea of independence, comes this responsibility that you should have the right to make choices, but then to be responsible for the outcomes of those choices. And you know, the old idea that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, is probably true. But power is something that we think it's absolutely essential for all human beings to feel. And not only feel, but to experience. And in a school setting, it can be as simple as kids having the opportunity to make choices about how they approach an assignment. How they might do an alternative assignment that would meet the needs of the curriculum or the teacher. Autonomy has to do or or this sense of independence or responsibility has to do with as kids get older, making decisions about the courses they wish to take, how they spend their time, maybe during their free periods, are they allowed to go off campus? All questions that, you know, take conversation aren't necessarily easily answered. And what we would always suggest is that you always think about giving responsibility, independence and power in developmentally appropriate ways. You wouldn't hand your car keys to a seven or eight year old and tell him to go down and get the groceries, we know better than that. They're just not ready for that. But all of that begins. The sense of owning your power, and using it appropriately, appropriately begins early in a child's life. So I've been in kindergarten classrooms, for example, where teachers have multiple jobs that are exchanged among the kids. So there's someone that's the line leader, someone that takes the responsibility of the caboose, or someone when an adult or another person enters the room, we'd go and greet that person. Kids assigned to help him clean up at the end of the day, to begin to help those kids understand that I've got a role to play here. And it's my responsibility to do that. Certainly, responsibility translates into mutual respect, and how we talk to one another, how we help one another. How we include one another, all of those things can be shared and talked about in a classroom setting. I like to think to that even as a simple thing, like classroom meetings, where you're promoting sort of this idea of democracy, of shared thinking, shared ideas, coming to some sort of a vote or consensus that can begin at an early age. And all of that helps teach young people about the importance of using power appropriately.
Scott Lee 7:17
I've had a conversation about recently also with a teacher and using the word democracy and, you know, the crux of the conversation was real democracy is more than voting. It's about taking that next step about building consensus and figuring out, even if you don't agree with the other person, or whatever, you know, how we're gonna solve this problem, even if the problem is simple, is as simple as, how do we get from the classroom to the restroom and back without anybody pushing and shoving each other?
Steve Van Bockern 7:57
Right, right. So I like that thinking. And, you know, democracy tries to, I think, in many ways in the classroom, eliminate this idea of, of rank ism, which is the, in a sense, the mother or father of all of our isms, sexism, and racism, and so on this idea that I'm better than you because of some characteristic that I have. And I think, in a classroom that's promoting democracy, we even let go of this idea of what some have referred to as adult ism. I'm the adult here, you're the kid, I'm better than you. Now. No question. You outrank children, because of your years of experience, your age. You know, all of that does give you legitimate power. And I understand that. But adult ism, puts in the adults mind that I can do anything I want. Because I am the big person here. I am the adult. And so democracy I think, promotes this idea of getting rid of any form of rank ism, that we're all in this together. We all have something to share ideas to lift us all up. Yeah, that's a I like that thought about democracy is more than just majority vote.
Scott Lee 9:31
It leads to a lot of interesting conversation. I also want to have you just share a little bit about generosity, and the value of generosity and what that looks like in a school. Because I think that it is easy for people to conceptualize belonging in a school. It's easy for people to conceptualize mastery in a school even if it's an not competitive, strictly academic mastery. I think that's, that's easy, easy to conceptualize, even if it's hard to practice potentially. And the same thing about independence and responsibility. I think most everybody who has taught or worked in a school understands that, even if you don't do a good job of it, that when you see responsibility and independence shared with kids, that you get results, I think everybody can conceptualize that. I'm not so sure. You know, I know, as a matter of fact, that that a lot of people have a lot more difficulty, conceptualizing what generosity looks like, except for possibly service learning situations. So could you share a little bit more, or a little bit about what generosity looks like? And maybe even talk a little bit about the difference between what you'd see in generosity and say, elementary or secondary contexts?
Steve Van Bockern 11:04
Sure. Well, yeah, you're right. And it is appropriate. At one level to think about generosity as service learning, I think was Kathleen Townson Kennedy, one of Bobby Kennedy's kids, serving as an attorney general with some East Coast state that got into a legal argument about whether or not schools could assign service learning as a high school graduation requirement requirement. And the Supreme Court, whether it was Maryland, or New Jersey, I can't really remember or some other state agreed with the schools that just like we can require math, or language arts or sciences as a prerequisite to graduation, if it's believed that learning how to serve others, to give back to the community is a prerequisite to being a competent graduate, that it's okay for schools to assign that. Now, I'm not seeing that happen in all schools, but it is happening quite a bit more where kids are working in food banks or creating gardens, raising food that they share with the community, raising money, you know, pennies, sometimes that can be used to purchase things or send overseas to support others. That service learning when done well, and oftentimes demands that kids are the ones that come up with the projects, rather than just being assigned to rake someone's yard. They come up with the project, and it's meaningful to them. And they have opportunities to talk and engage with real human beings involved in the project, and then talk to one another afterwards to process what happened, what they experienced, that those things can be life changing experiences for our students. You know, I don't think you can learn to love anything without getting to know it. And so, learning about how a community feeds those that are impoverished or living on the streets, learning what it's like to be an elderly person with housing issues, or whatever, unless they experienced that they really don't learn how to care or become solutions down the road. So you're right. I mean, that's, that's one level of generosity. But another level of generosity, if you remember, just the phrase that I help. That can be translated in all sorts of different ways, including kindergarten kids, being responsible for little adjustment, little jobs in the classroom or in the school. That can be helpful. It can translate into homework assignments where kids are actually asked to somehow contribute to the family's well being in jobs that they do or projects that they complete, that helps Mom and Dad come back to report that that would be you know, my sense that at the elementary level, how kids can can be helpful. At the high school level, I see more of the service learning experience happening for the older kids where they're given opportunities, for example, to matter in other schools or in a classroom. With with young kids Kids, I know, it's often the case for a lot of young people that decide to go into teaching. One of the first experiences they had was babysitting, working at a swimming pool in the summertime, or reading to kids in a classroom setting where they really enjoyed the company of young people. And it helped them determine that I like being with young people. And I like this feeling that I get when I'm, when I'm helpful, I think to, you know, at all levels, the teacher should think more about cooperative learning, or just even sharing and helping one another with classroom assignments. Finding ways once in a while to even take test together, compare answers and support one another. And in finding the best answer. It doesn't have to be big, shiny programs, you know, it can be just little ways that the kids find that can be helpful to one another.
Scott Lee 16:11
One other thing that, that I want to make sure that we talk about is something that I have been thinking about for years and years, for a variety of reasons, both as a teacher and administrator when, when that was my primary role, that is about punishment, and those kinds of issues in your book, and schools that matter. And this is on page 44, you write "traditional methods like detention, suspension," or "traditional methods, like detention suspension, are used carefully and judiciously, if at all." I've studied this and I understand now a lot more about this than I used to, because I used to be a strong advocate for in my early years of teaching this kid needs, needs a day of ISS, or whatever. But I also know from my own work and my own research, and classroom settings, and not that this doesn't really work. So why do you think enter interventions like this continue, in the first place to be very common? And what are some alternatives?
Steve Van Bockern 17:36
Yeah. Oh, my. So much to address here. I mean, I grew up at a time when schools certainly were using punishment. Now I was a good kid. So I only remember my ears getting pinched once by one of my teachers. And another one kicked the underside of my desk when I was talking too much. But it was also a time where I saw kids had pounded up against you know, chalkboards, and one kid in particular. I can still hear the thump, thump, thump in my head and still see the grease spot from his Brylcreem, or whatever it was he had in his hair remain on that chalkboard for a long period of time. Yeah, I've seen kids beat down flights of stairs. And these were in, you know, small rural communities where people knew one another. But teachers were really given the permission to do whatever they felt like they needed to do to manage and control kids. We even had a governor in the state at one time that talked about how if he ever heard a kid use the wrong word, a swear word in the classroom. Well, he just might happen to turn so quickly that his elbow would catch him in the mouth. And then he picked him off the floor and say, you know, "clean up the blood, but that's going to happen if you use words like that," and it surprises people like me. And he was speaking at a Rotary Club, and the whole audience exploded in applause. So we have this mentality, and Martin explains it as a "cultural tail" that we drag behind us, that's 1000 years long. That tells us it's okay. To hurt people, in order to make them better. To fix things. And yeah, it's I think it's within our psyche. It's, it's within the way things have been done. And a lot of people that have been spanked or hurt by parents, they explain well, I turned out okay, so it must be an okay thing and just not realize saying that there's all sorts of other alternatives. Just leave out the hitting, you know, the hurting. And you'll, you'll get things accomplished. So one story I tell is my first year as a principal, I think it was in my first couple of days, the teacher came in with this kid and said he needed to be spanked. And I didn't want to lose face with my teachers right away. She said, "Yeah, it's a school policy, you can spank the kid, if it's requested by the teacher." So this kid told me that usually this happened down in the boiler room, I didn't know where that was. So he took me by the hand and walked me down to the boiler. And I said, "Now what?" I knew I wasn't going to hit him, but I didn't know what to do. So over time, he said, "Well, usually, they'd look around for something to hit me with." And he starts looking and finds a piece of school chair that has been broken down, you know, to stave from the back of the chair, hands This to me and says, you can probably use this. So I tell him to turn around, I said, "you let me know when you've had enough." And as soon as he turned around, he started crying. He said, "I've got enough I've had enough." "Did you learn your lesson?" Yes, you know, crying eyes, and Oh, the poor kid. And I knew I was going to have to talk to the superintendent, because I didn't know what I was signing up for this. But when I talked to the superintendent, I told him, "I couldn't do this." And he said, "Well, that's okay, I'll do it for you." But then he smiled, and he said, "We need to have a conversation, don't we?" And we did and got a group of parents together. And teachers were not happy with me. You know, for a lot of teachers taking away a hand or a paddle is taking away one of their best discipline tools and in their thinking, discipline for us is all about teaching. So you ask about alternatives. And so much of it comes through modeling that teaches kids how to act, much of it comes through talk. And I know, a lot of teachers will say, Well, I don't have the time to talk to kids. But teachers need to make a decision about how they're going to spend time with with kids. Either upfront, trying to make sense, and helping them understand how to do things differently, or always responding to negative behavior. So group influence, you know, helping getting all kids working in support of a child to act better. That's another alternative. Lots of conversations. And I, one of the things that we we teach, and I'll just give you a shortened version, is when a child does get into trouble that you just don't go into the mode of "Well, now we have to apply the punishment, or the consequence," instead, the first thing you do is care for this child. Figure out how to connect to them to be supportive, and so on. And then you clarify, what what what is this child thinking about what happened? You get that child's perspective. And oftentimes, just listening to the story, getting more information can change the teacher's perspective about what went on. After you clarify, then you try with the student to create solutions. Because a kid needs to buy into how do I fix things? How do I make amends? How do I apologize? How do I fix the window that was broken? What do I do to make to make things better. And if you can get the child to buy into the solution, you've got a much better chance of moving that child to a different place. We don't think it's smart to think that hurting people that are already hurting is really going to change them from the inside. Now, that transformational piece can take take a while, lots of conversations, lots of energy and time, but it will have the most lasting effect. There are times when you have to use kind of management techniques to control the environment because, you know, putting 25 kids in a little space is really unnatural. That's not the way we're supposed to be as human beings and and so you have to do things like going up close to the child and talking to them getting down to their level and letting them know that they can't continue with that, you might have to restrict them for a while. Put them in a safe place, even, even if it's in the back of the room. But even then, it's the teacher's responsibility to create a culture that isn't demeaning. That child isn't scolding that child, but just recognizing that we have these emotions that at times can get out of control, and we just need a safe place to go to get help to get support. And it's one of the dramatic changes that I've seen in schools that I really like is that in school suspension, for example, they've been turned into places where kids actually get help. Or they have adults that can talk to them, kind of get the sense of what was going on. Either they're in the school or what they're bringing in from home or whatever, and help them think about solutions. And even if the kid has to experience the consequence developed by the school, they're more likely to accept that.
Scott Lee 26:13
Yeah, and I'm thinking I'm thinking about something that you wrote about several years ago, I believe, leave this was your work the restorative justice center, as part of an in school suspension or an after school detention program? Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Steve Van Bockern 26:31
Glad you brought that up. Yeah. You know, restorative justice, I got real interested in that, simply because I spend time and have spent time in a regular courtroom setting on behalf of kids that have gotten into significant trouble. And I mean, kids that have hurt other kids, they're responsible for that. And oftentimes do have to pay something to society to make it better. But in those kinds of settings, I see these families cross paths at the end of, you know, the session of the court hearings, and so on, and, and nothing has been fixed. There's still pain and all of this hurt. And so restorative justice is a different way of providing justice. It, it pays attention to the victims needs, of course, because they're the ones that have been heard. But the restorative justice understands and less. That victim receives something in compensation. And that compensation can be a genuine act of contrition. And apology. Sometimes, you know, at the adult level, there are payments that need to be made and so on. But some schools have taken that concept of restorative justice and planted into the school itself. And that was my experience with a number of teachers at a school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The school was Hawthorne Elementary. And I have been over there visiting one of my student teachers at the end of the day, and income, you know, a number of kids, and they put their heads down on their desks. And that's where they were to sit for the next 45 minutes. And I talked to my student teacher, I said, What's this about? And I knew what it was about. He said, Well, this is after school punishment. You know, they have to put their heads down and think about what they've done. And
Scott Lee 28:43
For 45 minutes?
Steve Van Bockern 28:45
Yeah, yeah, for 45 minutes. And these are young elementary kids. So the student teacher who had a very competent and capable principal and teacher that he was working under, they got together and had a conversation about that and said, Well, what else do we do? And I said, Well, I've been reading about this restorative justice process. And there were a couple of other teachers that were interested in it. And we ended up putting together a program where kids who had gotten into trouble came to the restorative justice at the end of the day. And in the next 45 minutes. They went through a little opening ritual about you know, what happens in here stays in here. Various teachers volunteer, to listen to the kids a story, figure out what had happened. And then eventually getting to the place where they said, Well, how how do we make things better for the school or for the kid that that you heard? And so they would do the kind of collaborative work on coming up with a solution might have been a poster. One kid I remember He had held the door closed when kids were trying to get in from recess, and it was cold outside. And he thought that was funny. And he decided that well, what I'll do is hold the door open for them for the next few days, okay. That worked. And yeah, what was interesting about all of this is that over time on, by the way, some of the kids yeah, and coming up with their plan of action would do artwork, sometimes creating posters that they could put up with the rules that were a part of the school and all of them were connected to the Circle of Courage. But what they found is that there were kids that were showing up after school that weren't in trouble. [Scott laughs] Because he's also listening to them, they are getting to do fun and interesting things or being able to create stuff. Now, at some point, the restorative justice center actually went away. And I think it was a combination of some of the teachers, principal leaving, but I think there was a period of time where teachers started catching on to the fact that, hey, I can deal with some of the stuff right in my classroom. I don't have to give them detention, or send them to this place, I can visit with them, and help them come up with a solution. So the whole concept of restorative justice, which was an adult thing, has been translated into some schools. And I really liked seeing that perspective play out in our schools.
Scott Lee 31:44
Well, thank you so much for joining us today on The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, Steve.
Steve Van Bockern 31:49
Well, it was my pleasure. And, you know, sometimes, I feel like I ramble on, and it's only because I feel these topics so much that I don't couch my words and craft them carefully. But I'm trying to share things that are important to me, and hopefully, your listeners will find that they're of some value. So thanks for the opportunity.
Scott Lee 32:20
The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you'd like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations, embed social emotional learning within their cultures, and implement strength based restorative interventions, please visit our website, www.oncoursesolutions.com. This has been episode three of the 2023 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it, either in person or using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the podcast app you use. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee, and is a copyright of Oncourse Education Solutions, LLC. We encourage diverse opinions. However, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners, or underwriters. Guests are never compensated for appearance, nor do guests pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com, where you can also sign up to receive notices when we release new episodes. Theme music is composed and recorded by Audio Coffee. Please follow me on social media my handle on both Instagram and Twitter is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com
