Bullying Prevention, Climate, & Restorative Justice

[00:01] SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by my guest, John Linney. John is an international speaker, trainer, and author focused on school climate and bullying prevention.

[00:27] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:29] SPEAKER_02:

John, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thanks, Justin. It's an honor to be on your show. It's a great program you have.

[00:35] SPEAKER_01:

Well, thanks very much. And I'm excited to talk with you today about this issue of school climate and of bullying because even if it feels like it's an issue that's under control in my school at this moment, even if it feels like we have a good handle on it, It's one of those things where there's always more going on beneath the surface that maybe doesn't come to our attention as administrators until it is a fairly big problem. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your approach to bullying prevention that you train schools on.

[01:04] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think you brought up a really important point, Justin, and that's that when we manage our school and if we've got – a climate that we want to create a safe, a welcoming, a safe emotionally, safe physically kind of climate, that in those kind of climates, it's almost as if we're tending a garden and that there's certain seasons which we kind of turn the soil and we plant new seeds and we got to balance the right amount of water and the right amount of sun. And certain times there's weeds that pop up. And a climate is not something you can set and forget. And it's just that We've got to be able to manage and kind of pull weeds once in a while. And as your principals and other school leaders or aspiring leaders know is that if you don't tend to that garden, if you think that everything is under control, usually there's a lot more going on beneath the surface than we recognize.

[01:58]

and usually you know the the research says adults miss ninety to ninety five percent of the mistreatment that goes on between students so even if we think we have our pulse on the situation we have a good sense of it usually if we don't and the research bears this out it's often students who say that they they don't perceive the school safety as as being safe as the adults do and almost every school climate survey i've seen that's what the data bears out and so really it's about then okay well how do we then dig in how do we tear this kind of apart that we say how do we get to the core and the truth so that we can really effectively manage those weeds before they as you say kind of explode or get out of hand right and and how do we how do we tend to that culture um

[02:44] SPEAKER_01:

But at the same time, it's tough because culture is kind of a nebulous thing, you know, and in some ways it feels like it's a different experience. It's a different culture depending on which person you talk to or which student you talk to. So what are some of the elements of a positive school climate that does work for all students? What are some of the things that we should look for and strive to create as school leaders?

[03:07] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think that one of the, just as you said, it's very simple in some ways. It's almost like the climate's the air that we breathe and we almost don't even notice it until we choke on it or we smell something that shouldn't be there. And as if you walk into a restaurant, you get a certain feel when you walk in that restaurant. Is it clean? Are there smiling faces? Are there people greeting people?

[03:30]

And I've worked at over 400 schools around the US and you know, internationally. And when I walk into a school, if I don't see an adult within the first five minutes or so, I start to get concerned. And on the other hand, I've also walked into many schools where the principal, assistant principal, counselor, there are different gates going into the school and they're shaking hands, high school, middle school, shaking hands with each and every student as they walk in the door. And I think that, you know, when we're talking about when we're talking about addressing bullying, most schools try to do it from an outside-in kind of approach. Like, they try to increase security. We add more rules.

[04:10]

We focus on more punishment. And it's always very... seems very adult-driven and punitive focused. And while those things are things like cameras or metal detectors in some of the more difficult schools or more strict rules, while those things have helped us over the last 10 years reduce the number of weapons on a campus, what they haven't done is they haven't stopped the desire of young people to want to hurt each other to begin with.

[04:41]

And so it doesn't address the social-emotional condition of the students. And it's really the sense of safety that matters. And so if I'm walking into a school, in fact, many schools, they found if they have metal detectors, kids feel less safe in those school environments. And so we're trying to then, instead of going outside in, we want to try and go inside out, which is improving the relationships, addressing the norms. Do kids think it's okay to call someone gay or make fun of them for their clothes or their race? And are we really putting relationships at the center and putting students in the center?

[05:16]

Are we trying to change bullying by doing a workshop just for staff? Are we just having an assembly once a year to check a box? Are we meaningfully doing stuff ongoingly to change that culture? And so I think when you ask what's some simple things we can do is to really start to flip our traditional approaches to addressing bullying or improving climate by looking at how we can equip students, how we can change the norms, and how we can maybe insert some restorative practices into that process so we can improve relationships. Because it's the norms, when the teacher or adult's not around, it's the norms that kick in.

[05:52] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I appreciate that inside-out perspective. And I wonder if there's an associated perspective that maybe we need to flip of being kind of reactionary and saying, okay, well, we had this incident, so now we're going to deal with it through punishment or we're going to have an assembly because obviously we have a problem. So it sounds like some of this is long-term work and not kind of a one-shot deal for staff to work with students to kind of change mindsets about bullying and about what kind of treatment is okay. And I think especially if you have moved from a school where, for the most part, students do treat each other with respect, there's not the kind of...

[06:30]

um, you know, disrespect or name calling or, or harassment, uh, and you move to a school where, where that's just not the case, uh, it can be a little bit disorienting and you can be a little bit of a loss as an educator as, as to what to do about that, because it is something that, um, you know, that students tend to, yes, pick up from each other, but also bring with them in many ways. And it is some of that, that kind of, uh, internal, uh, orientation toward, you know, how to treat other people. What are some things that schools can do to address those inner issues?

[07:00] SPEAKER_02:

well i think one thing is is clear thing is about relationships and we know about you know the reading writing arithmetic we got the three r's we know they're not enough we know we needed the fourth r which is relationships and one of those things is really making sure that you know your previous guests have talked about being visible on a campus and really making sure that they're connecting Not just with the adults, but with the students. And just to give you an example, in my daughter's school, when she was in middle school, I remember I was sitting with the students in the lunchroom and eating with my daughter. And I asked them, you know, how are things going? And the subject of their principal came up. And one of the students says, well, who's the principal? And this girl was in eighth grade.

[07:43]

And she'd been there for over two years. And one of the students says, I think it's that lady who stands with her arm crossed by the trophy case at the front of the school. Ouch. Yes, ouch. And really, as I notice that and I see their behavior, if the adults are monitoring the environment like they're patrolling a prison or some other kind of institution, if they're monitoring that environment in that way, they're not really building connections. And I know that as an adult.

[08:13]

As an administrator, I would want to make sure that we often have our title power, whether that's counselor, teacher, principal, whatever that title is, parent. And we often utilize our title power with students. We expect that to carry the day. So if we tell a student, don't do that or cut it out. It really creates this fight or flight response in young people, whether they either listen and walk away or even if they do listen, they might push back or they might push back in the moment and say, well, you know, heck with you. Right.

[08:47]

So we're not. And one thing, critical thing that every adult can do is connect with students before they try to correct them. And so if I can, if I'm going to see something happening in a hallway or I'm walking by students and I see things happening, you know, my first instinct may be to come down with the hammer. If it's more critical, I do that. That's fine. But I also might say if someone just uses the word gay or is putting someone down, I could be like, hey, you know, hey, guys, I understand you may just be joking.

[09:15]

To try and understand why they may be saying or doing that in the moment. But at the same time, then I got to give them some data and some expectation and say, you know, but we don't use those words around here next time. Can you try and use a different word next time? Appreciate that. And so really using my relationship power, not just my title power, is something that every adult can get better at.

[09:37] SPEAKER_01:

And I think that spills over through modeling as well. If kids can see that we're not just being confrontational with them, when they have a disagreement with someone else, they can have a little bit of guidance from our example on just kind of how to deal with that in a non-confrontational and non-punitive way.

[09:59] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think what you're saying, Justin, is something that's a saying that I heard from a colleague of mine, Rick Kerwin. He's been an educator for over 50 years, and he said, treat students the way you want them to treat each other. And I would also challenge principals to take that another level, and that is treat the staff the way you want your staff to treat your students. And I think that we have to, like you said, model that. If I'm walking down the hallway, if I see something that's spilled or something that's messy, I'm involved. I'm engaged in that process.

[10:33]

And I'm trying to be as democratically representing it, but also being democratically informed by my staff so that if there are problems, if there are challenges, I'm not just utilizing my title. I'm also being able to call my relationship power.

[10:49] SPEAKER_01:

Well, John, I think if we are modeling for our teachers the way we want our students to be treated, and if staff are modeling for students the way students should treat each other, how we deal with conflict seems like it's a pretty important topic, and especially when students wrong each other. If we can get away from some of the more punitive reactions that administrators are notorious for, and in some cases we don't have a ton of discretion to And, you know, just in terms of consequences and of dealing with safety situations. But there's a lot of talk these days about restorative justice. It's something that we hear about in innovative programs that are trying to, say, reduce suspensions and get students to, you know, to get along and to make things right when they do have an issue.

[11:39]

Tell us a little bit about the work that you do around restorative justice.

[11:42] SPEAKER_02:

Well, the work around restorative justice is really built up from, it's a long tradition of that. And there's a long tradition in many places and not just obviously in education. But this is something that is really taking more root because of the school to prison pipeline, which many of those who are school leaders know about how young people who are different young people of color, or if they have different gender orientations or LGBTQ issues, Those young people are more likely to be punished and to enter what we call the school-to-prison pipeline, meaning that if they get suspended or expelled or they miss some school, they're less likely to be able to catch up on their schoolwork. They're more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. And so what happens here is we're trying to not just we're trying to get away from just the immediate expelling of young people or getting to the punishment focus alone and looking at how can we engage young people and not just they won't just learn from the punishment.

[12:44]

In fact, what we know from a lot of research is that what punishment does is it often builds more resentfulness rather than reflectiveness. And so we want to move in a restorative culture of getting away from when somebody creates some kind of infraction, that it's not just a violation of the school's rules. It becomes a violation of the relationships with someone. And when we're setting out punishment or we're setting out consequences, perhaps, that oftentimes in schools it's an autocratic decision. I had dinner with a teacher last night. He was telling me, man, this kid acted up in my class and he's always being a problem.

[13:24]

And I sent him to the principal. And you know what? He came back in my classroom 10 minutes later. And what's that about? And so too many, I'm sure this is a common story, and that the frustration that stems from some of those that are teachers in the classroom, they may not know the true story of that child or what they're going through at home often. But at the same time, even if they are going through those things at home, there are certain boundaries that we can't expect them to violate.

[13:51]

And what happens is the adult, the teacher in the classroom, becomes disempowered in that dynamic. The student leaves the class. They go to the principal or the assistant principal, sets the punishment, and the student ends up in class. There has been no healing of the relationship between the student and the staff member, and yet somehow they're expected to carry on as if nothing happened. And so there has to be an opportunity for restoring the relationship once there's a violation that has occurred. So it's really shifting away from blame and more towards that responsibility and accountability dynamic.

[14:29]

So really, we want to have it so that the person who's affected, the people who have been impacted by the negative actions, have a voice in the process so that they can say about how they want things to go. And we want the student to know what they have a voice in that, too. We want them to hear from the victim in the process or whoever has been harmed. We want them to hear how it harmed them. And it may not just be the teacher. It may be the other students who were harmed in that process.

[15:01]

and so we want to have the student learn not kicking them out they're not going to learn going home suspended they're not going to learn they're not learning anything unless they're in some kind of relationship where they understand the impact of their actions And they have an opportunity to reflect. If a kid's caught smoking, we don't just kick that kid out of school. What are they going to learn from that? What if the student could talk instead about or do some research on how that smoke harms other people or how that affects people who have asthma or allergies? Those are the kinds of things that young people have to give. We have to give them the opportunity to do that.

[15:35]

Otherwise, they're not really learning from the punishments we're giving.

[15:38] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and as you talk about accountability, it's easy to think about accountability in purely punitive terms that we're holding you accountable for your behavior so you're suspended versus we're holding you accountable for what happened and that means you have to give an account and you have to hear accountability. an account of how that affected other people. I mean, that just sounds so powerful to have students have to sit face to face with each other, with people that they've had conflicts with, whether those are staff members or other students. And it seems harder. It seems like something that, you know, maybe we would rather run away from. I mean, maybe a suspension is easier for everybody in the moment.

[16:20]

But as you said, you know, the learning and the restored relationship comes from that accountability. And it really seems like it's a mutual sense of accountability. That's right.

[16:30] SPEAKER_02:

Because when we're talking about blame, that's one of the main things we're expecting is that kids will learn somehow from blame. They're going to get some kind of shame out of that. And that's going to teach them a lesson. Many young people don't operate in that way. And so you want to move them to that sense of accountability and that sense of responsibility because the shortest way to being a leader and to get some results is being a dictator. But dictators don't have real followers.

[16:58]

and those dictators mistake fear for respect and fear and respect are two very different things and so if the principal or the administrators the captain of that ship that they want to start utilizing that relationship power across all players involved to address discipline issues, not just the expectation that somehow they're going to learn something if we just punish, we can punish away the problem. And we just know that doesn't work with the lives that many young people have today. We can't reward them or punish them, reward them into behavior or punish them into submission. It's just, it does not work that way.

[17:35] SPEAKER_01:

Very well said.

[17:36] SPEAKER_02:

Well, John, you are a podcaster as well. Tell us about your podcast. Well, my podcast is called Edspiration, and it's inspiration and education. And so the Edspiration podcast is weekly, and I interview people from all around the discussing strategies that school teachers can use, educators can use, parents can use, because we know they're the first educators, and also things that leaders can do to address the climate or social emotional issues, or even things like technology and people who are technophobes in a school environment, for example, and how to overcome some of those challenges. So really just trying to, um, put together because I, as I said, I've visited so many schools, I see so many great practices and you've got some great, you've had some great education leaders on this show, Justin, and it's so exciting to see those in practice that many schools really are feel like they're castles or fortresses.

[18:35]

And we don't, we don't create enough opportunity to connect and to get beyond the walls to learn what other, what are some of the best practices? And I feel like, as you're doing through this show, is that podcasts are this free professional development tool and that we don't have to send teachers or educators to a four-hour workshop, which maybe half of them it may not be relevant for. But it's very personalized. And I think we're moving in so many ways with technology towards maybe more personalized and focused learning on things we need. And my hope is that the podcast fills some of that niche.

[19:12] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I can see we've spoken with some of the same people, Don Wettrick and Jim Sturdivant and lots of other brilliant authors and educators who have great messages to share. And certainly, I have podcasts that appeal to certain interests and there may be some that people follow along with and some that people skip, but it's tremendous to have so many great insights from brilliant people such as yourself. John, if people want to find out more about your podcast and your work on school climate and bullying prevention, where can they find you online?

[19:46] SPEAKER_02:

They can go to edspiration.org. And you can also find my website at schoolclimateinstitute.org. That's School Climate Institute. And I'm also happy to connect with people on Twitter.

[19:57]

I'm trying to become a a little bit more aware of all the professional development available on Twitter as well, which I think is a tremendous resource with all the Twitter chats. Learning so much that way, too. And that's going to be at School Climates. That's my Twitter address, which is at School Climates. That's with an S. Fabulous.

[20:14] SPEAKER_01:

Well, John, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure to speak with you on Principal Center Radio.

[20:17] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Jess. And look forward to hearing more of your shows in the future. It's just a pleasure to be here.

[20:22] SPEAKER_00:

And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.

[20:26] SPEAKER_01:

So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with John Linney? School climate and school culture and the way that students treat each other, I think have an enormous impact on learning. And of course, even apart from education. Academic learning, you know, the way students treat each other and the way they experience school and the the mini society that they're in, I think, is just tremendously important. And it seems like some of the factors that we talked about today are a little bit outside of our direct control as administrators. But there are things that we could do.

[21:01]

And it was so interesting to speak with John about what some of those key actions are and to learn that a lot of them aren't even fancy curriculum or special programs, but they're about adult behavior. They're about the kind of climate that we have among ourselves as adults and the way that we treat our students. And that has a huge impact on how students treat each other. And if this is a topic that you feel like you do need to do some work on, I want to invite you to check out John's website at schoolclimateinstitute.org and read more about the approaches that John teaches to schools around the world. And it's fun to kind of follow along on Twitter and see him checking in with schools in Ireland and elsewhere about what they're doing to get away from the punitive models.

[21:46]

And I think we often forget that we are modeling when we're being administrators and doing discipline. We are modeling for students how they should treat each other. So if you're interested in learning more about how to put systems in place in your school, how to bring about school change, how to build a culture and a climate of excellence and respect. I want to encourage you to also check out the High Performance Instructional Leadership Network, which is our year-long professional development program, not just for school leaders, but also for teacher leaders to help you figure out the systems that need to be in place and help you put them in place so that these are things not just that happen interpersonally, not just that happen occasionally, but that happen reliably individually. You can find out more about the High Performance Instructional Leadership Network at principalcenter.com slash leadership.

[22:36] Announcer:

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