The following is posted with permission from YES! Magazine. Click here to go to website.
To Keep Kids Out of Trouble—And Prison—Teach Them to Understand Their Emotions
After teaching students to understand and talk through their conflicts, schools in Denver and Los Angeles have seen major reductions in disciplinary action
by Katherine Gustafson June, 2, 2013
After the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre famously suggested that we arm police officers in elementary schools to help “good guy[s] with guns” defeat “bad guy[s] with guns.” While the idea of turning our schools into the backdrop for a war-zone video game is alarming enough, the call for militarization of classrooms threatens to entrench an even deeper dysfunction in our school system, one that threatens students’ wellbeing from inside the school walls.
Suspensions fell 40 percent in Denver Public Schools after the district started using restorative justice practices.
For decades, many of our nation’s schools have instituted zero-tolerance disciplinary policies that criminalize what used to be considered minor infractions and send scores of young people—especially young men of color—into an involvement with the criminal justice system that in many cases will continue throughout their lives.
The “good guys with guns” in these schools are on-duty police officers, otherwise known as School Resource Officers. Their presence ups the disciplinary ante, increasing the likelihood of suspensions, citations, and sometimes even arrest. Instead of studying, our students are increasingly spending time in suspension or in prison cells.
A concerned group of educators, citizens, and philanthropists is raising the alarm about this epidemic of criminalization, which these advocates of change call the “school-to-prison pipeline.” They are calling for an alternative to these punitive practices, namely the institution of mediation methods that help students learn to deal with their emotions, talk about their problems, and confront the consequences of misbehavior in a supportive environment.
Strong evidence is piling up that their approach improves behavior while reducing the need for punishment.
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