Umbuntu provides learning for us

I believe this story provides learning for those of us who practice restorative practices in schools.

An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. 

When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are."

Please tell us about yourself and your interest in Restorative Justice in education

Let me start off the introductions. I look forward to getting to know each of you following this blog.

Dr. Tom Cavanagh

I reside in Fort Collins, Colorado, right next to the Rocky Mountains, where I spend time hiking in the summer and snowshoeing in the winter. I have degrees from four post-high school institutions, including graduate degrees in Organizational Leadership from Regis University in Denver and Educational Leadership from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. I began my interest in restorative justice while volunteering at the Denver Catholic Worker House in 1996. My personal and professional work has centered on restorative justice since that time. Following graduation with my PhD, I spent a year in New Zealand on a Fulbright Fellowship and four more years working for a research project called Te Kotahitanga at the University of Waikato. Since 2003 I have worked on developing and putting into practice a theory of a culture of care based on the principles of restorative justice in schools. You can learn more about my work at my website at www.restorativejustice.com.

My research interests focus on the areas of restorative justice and restorative practices in schools; exploring how we can create peaceful and caring relationships; exploring what young people want to learn about (a) peace, (b) legitimating the reality of their lives, which are filled with violence and war, and (c) discovering and encouraging their passion for living together in peace; how schools can use restorative practices to respond to student wrongdoing and conflict in conjunction with a culturally appropriate pedagogy of relations in classrooms, under the umbrella of a culture of care, to create safe schools. In particular, I am concerned about the school-to-prison pipeline for our ethnically diverse students and the political and educational policies that support this pipeline.

Latest Journal Article

With this post I want to share with you the latest journal article to be published about the work I am currently engaged in.

This article was co-authored with my colleagues Dr Patricia Vigil and Star Garcia. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with them. The reference for the article is:


Mestas Vigil, P., Cavanagh, T., & Garcia, E. (2013). Developing peacemakers in the classroom: An alternative discourse in a culture of war and violence. Peace Studies Journal, 6(1), 79-91

As the reference indicates, the article was part of a special issue of the Peace Studies Journal dedicated to this theme:

The Architecture of War: Framing an Anti-hegemonic Peace Education

Here is the link to the article:

http://peaceconsortium.org/peace-studies-journal/archives/psj-vol-6-issue-1-2013

I would appreciate any feedback you have to offer about the article. This article outlines the current work we are involved in. So we are interested in your ideas for where should our work go next. What do you suggest should be the next steps in this work?

Tom

Inviting Your Participation

With this posting I want to change the tone of this blog. I want to invite your participation in the work I am engaged in. In the past I have posted information without inviting your conversation. Now I want to invite you to join in the conversation about the work I am doing so that together we can co-construct this important work.
I realize that you as followers of this blog are a rich resource of passion for the work, expertise, skills, and experience. By bringing your background to the conversation together we can improve the work I am engaged in and together create the research. I am talking about the whole aspect of the work, starting with what to study, how to study the issue, who to do the study with, how to collect data and analyze it, and how to interpret the data and write those date up. By engaging in the work in this way, we can make a richer contribution to the current conversation about how to bring restorative justice principles into schools.
So what do you think about this idea?
Tom

New York Times article

Restorative justice is being discussed in the popular press. The article found at this link appeared in the January 14, 2013 issue of the New York Times.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/121498040/RJ-article-in-NYT

Being "Happy" in school

The movie Happy is receiving acclaim. After watching the movie I was reminded about the article I had published title Schooling for Happiness.
Cavanagh, T. (2008). Schooling for happiness: Rethinking the aims of education. Kairaranga, 9(1). 20-23.
If you would like to read this article, please email me at cavanagh.tom@gmail.com,

One response to the tragedy of last Friday is for educators to make certain every student has at least one adult in the school they would come to with a personal problem. First, I ask school leaders to make up a list of students and to circulate that list to every adult in the school, asking them to put a check mark next to the name of any student with whom they have a personal relationship such that the student would come to them with a personal problem. Then I ask school leaders to make up a list of all adults working in the school and pass it among the students, asking them to place a check mark next to the name of those people who they consider they have a relationship with such that they would come to them with a personal problem. Any students who do not have a check mark next to their name on the first list or who do not check in names on the second list I ask educators to pair them up with a volunteer adult in the school who will meet with them one on one once a week.