Restorative Justice: Speaking Affirmation into Troubled Students' Lives | ep. 106

TD Flenaugh and Lauren Moseley discuss the importance of service learning and restorative justice in education. They highlight a Netflix documentary about inmates in a Missouri prison who learn to quilt and make weighted vests for children with autism, emphasizing the transformative power of giving back. They relate this to service learning projects in schools, where students engage in community service, often required before graduation. The conversation also explores the importance of natural consequences and restorative justice, emphasizing that students should understand the impact of their actions and learn to repair harm. They stress the importance of a supportive community in fostering positive behavior and personal growth.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:00

TD learning while you give back. Today's episode is going to focus on service learning and social justice. You don't want to miss this. It is special things that we're going to do to make learning real. Make it real life, give students natural consequences when necessary, and how they could learn how to give back and become better citizens. Make their community better. Tune in for more. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the following for learning podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. It's summer. Yes. What can I say? Summer mode,

Lauren Moseley: 0:59

sleeping in

TD Flenaugh: 1:01

Yes. Lauren is like, three weeks into her summer, and I'm like one week. So I haven't totally, like, refreshed yet, but Lauren is looking refreshed and reset, and I'm feeling a little jelly, not a lot, but little.

Lauren Moseley: 1:18

You'll get there. You'll get there. People, it took me? About, it took me about 12 days before I could, like, because I was still waking up early. The first week I was still having, like, I need to be productive, and now I'm just like, sleeping in, staying up watching TV.

TD Flenaugh: 1:41

She's always all the way settled in. Okay, yeah. So I'm still, like, recovering, I would say, you know, just getting it together. But we have been Netflix and chilling, and Lauren told me about a Netflix show that she watched. And yeah, Netflix and chill. In this case, it's just like you by yourself, Netflix thing, you know, not, not at the date or anyone else like that. Yeah, yeah. So it's

Lauren Moseley: 2:13

our version of it, which is literally in my PJs with my popcorn

TD Flenaugh: 2:21

and my dog Yes, and no one else

Lauren Moseley: 2:23

in watching a show that I Okay, minding my own business in hydrated

TD Flenaugh: 2:28

Yes. And Lauren sent me this, you know, not even regular text message, like a voice text message, just full of emotion. And, you know, tell us about what you watch like what was so moving?

Lauren Moseley: 2:42

Oh, wow. Okay, so this is a documentary. It is about a maximum security prison system in Missouri, where the men there are learning to quilt as a way to give back to foster children. And the beauty of it is how this community of men have come together to do this very I mean, when you think of quilting, I mean the lady across the street from my my parents, she was a quilter. You know, I remember her with all her little needles and her thread and all her little patches of cloth, and she'd come up with these beautiful quilts. But I always thought that was something, you know, little retired old women did. But here are these men who are serving long prison sentences that are doing this very out of the box kind of thing for them, and they are making the most beautiful quilts you've ever seen. And the passion that that is going into them, thinking about the design and thinking about the color scheme and how they want this to be, in the hours and hours and hours that they spend focused on making these quilts, and not only quilts, but weighted vests for children who are that

TD Flenaugh: 4:08

was really touching to me, know that students, a lot of kids have, there's a population of students being identified with autism, and these prisoners were making weighted vest for right, children with autism. And so one of the things you know, they were saying, and they were, like, knowledgeable about it, because they were like, Okay, this is six pounds, right? And this is going to be for a kid that's up to 60 pounds. And so, you know, at first, when I'm thinking about this, I'm like, Well, how are they doing this? Because you have to cut, you have to have needles and all of that. And they did show us that, like, they have a kit that they have to check out. They have to, you know, all of those things that are in there, what they have, they have to have a. Certain level of, you know, compliance, or, like, not any, like, write ups or anything like that, for them to be able to be in that isolated area to do this crafting.

Lauren Moseley: 5:14

Yeah, yeah, because they're, they're tools that in prison. You wouldn't, you would not want to give people access to sharp objects and cutting tools, and, you know, things that could be used in a bad way. But because these men have have shown themselves to be responsible, and I guess it's rehabilitative in nature, and these men have qualified for this program, and just the care that goes into making sure that everyone is on board and doing the right thing is pretty remarkable, you know, because I think many of those these men are serving, maybe, you know, life sentences, not they're not doing short stints. It's, it's, you know, pretty serious offenses that they're in jail for, but to see their work and their passion was so inspiring,

TD Flenaugh: 6:07

yeah, and that really made, you know, you know, and, and we're talking about long sentences, like one guy was saying how he was in for 20, you know, since he was 20, I think he was 20, and then he was So and he did, you know, he did commit a murder, you know. And he was like, There's nothing he can do about that. And he's, like, learned a lot over the years, and, you know, they're still doing their time, and this is what they're doing. So we're, you know, of course, we're filing for learning podcast. So we think about things. We think, you know, we're both teachers. We think about like, how does this relate to our kids? And I was thinking about service learning, right? Something that kids can do, and a lot of high schoolers are required to do this before they graduate, is give back to the community. Somehow they need to do volunteer time they and even I know Middle School, some middle schools also require this. You need to do some type of volunteer work. You know, before you graduate or culminate from middle school depends where you are, like what they want to call it culminate or graduate, or whatever. And so this made me think about, you know, what can we have our kids do that they are making and giving to someone in the community who needs it? And, you know, we and so that's, you know, where I talked about I was really thinking about it. What was your perspective on what the prisoners were doing and relating it to what you do every day.

Lauren Moseley: 7:41

Think I've always believed in education that has some real world application. I mean, that's the whole point of education. And I think there are times when you know, as teachers, I know I've done it before, we don't really help kids see that real world application, and knowing that they're doing something that is going to benefit them, but not giving them the real scenario, not giving them that actual platform where they're actually doing the thing for the Community and learning, it can be a disservice. So

TD Flenaugh: 8:25

the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing hate and into loving. To write, get your book set today. You

Lauren Moseley: 9:06

Oh, yeah. So I really love that idea of having something that's a product, that the whole the whole process is to serve someone else. And I just looked at how the these inmates were learning so much about quilting, which I know was not something that they would have normally enjoyed as a pastime, probably not. I mean, I don't know, but the amount of intentionality and the seriousness in which they approach these quilts was because it was for the service of someone else. So I think about my students, and I think about ways that, you know, in our school community, they can serve others. And you know, I have first graders, but we made posters and wrote letters to the fifth graders for. For the STAR test to tell them good luck on the STAR test. We hope you do great. We know you're ready. We know how hard you've studied, and that was so important for them to be able to write, and they were so intentional about making sure that they were doing it in the correct letter writing format, and they were checking their spelling and their writing was so neat because they knew the audience was an actual, real fifth grader that was going to really read this and really have some joy and hopefully some encouragement to do well on their star test. So yeah, what about what did you think? What do you think? What do you think? And have you done anything in your classroom that relates to the whole service learning?

TD Flenaugh: 10:49

Yeah, we actually, I actually have, when I had middle schoolers, they wrote letters. You know, it wasn't a two way communication, just to be clear, but they did write letters to kids who were incarcerated, just like Christmas cards. They make Christmas cards to them, so it wasn't a two way communication. They just wrote their first name. They didn't even say the school that they went to and but they just gave them a Christmas card someone was thinking about them during the holidays. So that's an example of service learning that they've done for others. The school where I was teaching, I didn't lead a lot of service projects, but I know that that school did collect money for kids and books like donated books to other schools, like elementary schools and things like that. So there's a lot of schools that participate in service learning and but, you know, I've done things here and there, but this really made me think about it. And what I really want to highlight is, when you were talking about the audience, the audience, right? Because a lot of times our kids just do stuff for us, right? And that's the audience, but, but not even for us. They just feel like it's a piece of schoolwork. So it's not even really for Miss Mosley or for me, right, as their teacher, it is, you know, just something that they're doing right, that intentionality, once they know the audience, like this is for your parents. Kids like if educators out there want to know how to motivate kids, yes, it's whatever assignment that you give them, whatever project you give them, give them a clear audience. And once you do that and an audience they care about, obviously, but it'll, it'll bring so much depth to what they do, right? Because if you're like, you're writing this to the principal, you're writing this to the parents, you're writing this to the Congress person, or or whatever, they will tailor that message for those people, if they're writing it for their peers, like you're going to do this as a graduation speech or a culmination speech, whatever they're going to put in those pop culture references and things like that that relate to them, they'll know about it. But if, of course, if it's for the principal or something, they'll be more formal with their language. It will bring a level of quality to it and specificity to it that you wouldn't get by just saying we're gonna write a report on dolphins, you know, right? Like that generic report is not gonna give, you know, like you're gonna write a children's book. So this is what I did in elementary when I was in middle school, we wrote, we studied polar bears, and we wrote children's books. And I feel like I talked about this before on the podcast. I don't know, but we wrote children's books about this, and then we put it on we read it to our first, like first grade kids. So I could have been an elementary school, upper elementary Maybe, and maybe not, maybe not, right? I don't remember, really, but I know we did that, and we specifically wrote it for the kids. So we had to really make sure we made it interesting. We designed the books, we illustrated the books. We made sure the language was there. It was a science fiction book, not science fiction, non fiction book that they we wrote for the kids to give them information about polar bears. And it was, you know, I love that project, and I love going read it to the kids like we made books. We designed the books, the covers, everything. So that's an example of service learning. It. You know, sometimes we think of service learning like these. People need this right? As far as you know, they need a weighted jacket if they're autistic, or they need a quilt because they're kids who are sick or. Their, you know, foster kids or something like that. But sometimes service learning is just reading to a younger crowd, right? So, right?

Lauren Moseley: 15:09

Yeah, I had fourth grade one year, and we decided the end, you know, the end of the school year, when you're done with testing and they're still learning to do, but you want to make it so that the kids are really highly engaged, because they're all ready for summer. So we did, we turned some folk tales into plays. And, you know, I didn't want to do costuming, and I wanted, I didn't want to do a big set, yeah, so it was really important for the kids to get in character, so we did this little folk tale and and I told them, I said, we're gonna do this for the first graders. And well, the up the the younger grades, first, second, third graders. And so you guys have to, you know, you gotta really be into it, because they're little kids, and anything you do, they're gonna enjoy. But you gotta really be into character, and to see these upper grade kids getting beat chickens and geese and cows and mooing on stage and doing all this funny stuff. And when they performed for these first graders, they never forgot it. I mean, after that, they were like celebrities of the school, you know, and they would see them down the hall and be like, Oh, I remember you in that little play we did. And just, you know, because, you know, fourth and fifth graders are, they're kind of too cool for school, but to know that they were going to do this for the little kids, just gave them this new, you know, level of, okay, we're going to ham it up and make it really fun. If I would have said they're just going to do it for each other, they probably like, This is dumb. We're not doing this. But yeah, the fact that they had a little audience that they knew or would really appreciate it, yes, yeah, makes a

TD Flenaugh: 16:50

difference if you have not tried it, not tried it. Try it out, right? Try it out. I really want us to make the switch, because part of what I thought about this too, was the social justice aspect. Now, these, these men were in prison, and obviously part of them giving back was making some type of restitution for what they had, you know, crimes they had committed, right? And obviously our kids, you know, we hope you know they're learning now small lessons so they don't, you know, they're not getting to, like, really big crimes or anything like that, obviously, in the future. But I think restorative justice, the concept of that is so important, because really just, you know, I have a principal who who has said, like, if I were teaching, like, when I started teaching, like, I would be fired for some of the stuff, because we really, our hands are really tied. I don't know what it's like in Texas, but in California, like, there are really, like, zero consequences, right? Like, it's, you know, as far as suspending kids, you can't put this on corner. You can't have them write standards like, I will not run in the class, or whatever. You cannot have them do like, there's so many things that you're not allowed to do anymore, which I know, like, you know, a lot of us who grew up in school, like we had to all these consequences that meet we may have suffered, like, not happening nowadays. So just so you know, if you don't know not happening. So that's what made me think about restorative justice, because sometimes our kids do things to other people, and then we would need to think about like, Okay, well, you tore up someone's homework. You got upset with them, like, what can you do to restore that? And so that also made me think about that, and first to really talk about it on the podcast, natural consequences and restorative consequences to help our students learn their lessons. Because one thing we know for sure is that zero consequences are very harmful for kids. It is very harmful for them. They keep pushing limits. Like, that's what we do as humans. Like, we'll push the limit. You know, kids definitely do that until they learn lessons. So we don't want to be harmful to them. We want to make sure that we think about what they can do to restore someone that they've harmed, or something that they've harmed, right, right?

Lauren Moseley: 19:25

Yeah, I had an incident this year, even, where I had a kid who threw a fit of rage and just, you know, broke the screen on his Chromebook. And you know, he was, he was mad, and so, you know, we had extra Chromebooks. So he could have very easily, you know, we could have just said, Hey, we're going to give you another Chromebook. But we said, You know what, we're going to have to take the Chromebook, take it to the Chromebook doctors so they can fix it, and then you're going to have to wait for it to come back and all. That period of time he was very upset he didn't have his Chromebook. But we kept reminding him, yeah, you don't have a Chromebook because, well, when you got angry, you broke it, remember? So that's why you don't have one, and we just got to wait for it to get fixed. And so every day, he's like, is it fixed yet? I'm like, Oh no, it was really broken. So we're going to have to go through a lot. We ended up having to replace it, obviously, but just that whole idea that he had to wait for such a long time before we could give him a new one. You know, at one point he was saying, Man, I shouldn't have, I should not have broken my Chromebook. So the natural consequences of him not having a Chromebook for so long started to kind of click. You know, I didn't have to do anything extraneous. He just didn't have a Chromebook. That was like, a very natural consequence for him. And when he did finally get another Chromebook back, which was weeks and weeks and weeks later, he was like, so careful. And when he got angry, he had we got him a little squishy that he could squish. So he would definitely think about throwing his Chromebook and then go get his squishy. So I just think of, you know, things that are natural consequences are very important too. And when we think about restorative justice, I don't know, have you ever heard of this, this tradition. I want to say it's an African tradition where when someone in a community has done something wrong, they gather around the individual, and everyone in the community tells them something about who they they speak word. They speak very affirming words into the person. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but they literally tell the person the things that they want them to believe about themselves, like, okay, you know, you are you, you are kind, you are non violent, you are you know, speaking words of affirming. You know, words of affirmation, and I've done that in my classroom as well. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. I don't even know. I think I saw it on a commencement speech. Someone was telling the story of this tradition, and I thought, oh my gosh, I love that idea.

TD Flenaugh: 22:15

That is great, because I know one of the things about when someone does something wrong, is a lot of times they also have and this, they talked about this in the Netflix show as well, like forgiving yourself, right, right, and then also believing that that's who you are, right? I am a person who does this kind of thing. I'm a thief, I'm a murderer, whatever it is, right? And not getting better or not doing different things like these are the choices that I make, and I'm going to continue to make these choices. And so that's really stands out to me. I haven't heard of this practice that you're talking about, but it really helped to heal that person, and then for them to, you know, to take on the positives about themselves and to continue to do positive things, instead of take on the persona of, I did this bad thing. I am a bad person, and going to continue to kind of make those type of choices, so, right? It's a way of undoing the harm that they've done to themselves, because that is another thing we don't think about often. We think about the harm they did to others. We don't think about the harm they did to themselves, right, right?

Lauren Moseley: 23:41

And I think making that clear distinction between you did a bad thing, but you're not a bad person. You just did a thing that was not good and it had negative consequences, but you are not a bad person, and you can make different choices. So I love and especially laying that out for kids and and practicing it, I think, creates a very tolerant community. Because I think with my kids, I need my whole class community to help me with students who have problematic behavior. It can't just be me.

TD Flenaugh: 24:15

Yeah, that's a good point. Whole community apart, yes, they could tear apart classroom, stop the learning, right? And we don't have very much recourse as teachers, right? Yeah, right.

Lauren Moseley: 24:28

So when they're in those interactions, or having those moments where the kids know how, because you you can create an environment where all the kids know who the bad kid is, yes, right? Absolutely, and you don't want that to be a part of your classroom community. You want the kids all to have to rally around kids who have problematic behavior and help support them. And I think that's one of the things I've seen, like this one kid that I'm telling you about through his Chromebook. Like, by the end of the year, he had so much support. He had so. Much consideration. And I think it started to mirror. He started to mirror what he was seeing. So there was lots of forgiveness for him, and there was lots of mercy for him. And so he started to respond and and carry himself in a way where, you know, his his incidences that happened throughout the day. We're getting, you know, less, you know, just fewer and fewer incidences each day, to the point where I had very little to report to the to the counselor on a regular basis, and just to see, you know, that restored that, that idea of speaking affirming words into into students and to help them see that your behavior is not who you are. Is so, so important. I

TD Flenaugh: 25:47

love that, you know, I I'm definitely gonna, like, steal that idea and then, you know, because you're right when I've, you know, I've definitely had years where they're students who had, like, really, you know, severe behavior problems and and it just escalates, right? You know, especially as a new teacher, you don't know what to do. You're basically doing the wrong thing. But you're saying, like, bringing in the whole community to help say positive things and give them support, and all of that is a way to undo that and give them a supportive environment, because it does turn into the other kids are like, hmm, yeah, Joshua's bad. He's a bad kid, and running to you to tell you, like, oh, Joshua did something again. Or, you know, I don't want to play with Joshua, you know, I've even seen kids like, I'm not taking that student to the rest, you know, we have the buddies going to the restaurant, like, not too many problems in the bathroom I'm not taking, you know. Like, he's like, I gotta go to the restroom. Was like, several kids are like, I'm not taking them. Like, yikes, you know. So, yeah, ending that on and again,

Lauren Moseley: 26:59

right? Yes. And I think also the the natural consequences of things, even when you tell kids, hey, the natural consequences of you, you know, throwing things at other kids, is that they are not going to want to sit near you because you are causing chaos. So that's a natural consequence, and not that they're doing that because they don't like you, because you're a bad person, but because they don't want to be a victim, and so they're going to remove themselves. That's a natural consequence, and it's and they understand that, and then they're like, Okay, so if I want friends and all kids do, all kids want be accepted and have relationships. You know, it helps them think, you know, slow down a little bit and start using those tools that we're trying to, you know, give them to make different choices.

TD Flenaugh: 27:51

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. That's yeah that I just feel like that's such a gem that you just shared with us. So take it down, guys building, you know, just speaking positive. Yeah, a lot of people have that practice where they have, like, a restorative circle, or something like that, and trying to, you know, build that child up. Because a lot of it does, you know, we always hear, I don't, you know, hurt people. Hurt people, right? I'm hurt, I'm angry. I'm feeling a certain way. So I could come in and make you feel bad by saying something negative to you, you know, pushing you, because I feel, you know, so it's, it's a way of acting out, because I'm already hurt inside. So I'm just going to find something negative to say to you, or push you, or whatever it is, and, yeah, trying to have some healing there for the child, and then also talking to them about natural consequences. Yes, I do want to say parents. Sometimes I find parents are very, very protective of their children and they don't want them facing any consequences, natural or other, and I'm just gonna let that stay there.

Lauren Moseley: 29:12

Just

TD Flenaugh: 29:15

that you you know it does. It is very harmful for kids, and I know I have as a mom, definitely given my daughter consequences that kind of hurt me right. Like, I can't go out now because she's not going where, you know what I mean, or or whatever it is, right, whatever it is, like, Oh, I feel bad. I wanted her to do this, but she did this right, and I told her not to, you know, and so that is what it is, so. Or then, you know, people like being lashing out at someone who says, Okay, your child has a natural consequence. Or your child, you know, they don't want their kid to feel any discomfort or anything like that. But I would just say it. Really just leads to kids being be getting to a situation where we don't have control, where you know, actually the police are taking over, where you know they've committed a crime or whatever. It's not just a push for something. Actually punch someone and that person broke their nose or whatever, right? So situations get out of control, because we didn't want them to face the natural consequence when they push someone and now they're breaking people's noses or whatever. So yeah, just, you know, part of the falling for learning podcast, obviously, like reflect, yes. Are you? Are you? You know, preventing your child from having consequences, because it does not bode well for their future, unfortunately, right?

Lauren Moseley: 30:47

Yeah, that is such a good point. Yes, I always tell my kids be a bucket filler, not a bucket Dipper. I'll have we all have. We all have these buckets. Everyone has an invisible bucket, and every time you are, you know, being intentional and communicating positively, you are literally putting wonderful things in that person's bucket. We want to always fill up people's buckets. We don't want to be the kind of people who are literally emptying out people's buckets by not giving our kids what they need so that they can come and interact with their classmates in a way that is respectable and and considerate. So I always tell my my parents, you know, just we would just want to help. We just want to help your son or your daughter be bucket fillers and not bucket dippers.

TD Flenaugh: 31:39

Absolutely we thank you so much for joining us today on season three of the falling for learning podcast. Do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage. Thanks for joining us. Yes, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing Hoot and into loving to write. Get your book set today. Thanks. Again for supporting the falling for learning podcast. New Episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com at falling for learning or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more. For more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.

Lauren Moseley: 33:18

Yay.

TD Flenaugh: 33:20

So today we're going to talk about

Lauren Moseley: 33:31

the Netflix filters and how it relates to learning. We're

TD Flenaugh: 33:39

going to talk about but I want to give the topic first though we want to talk about, we're going to talk about social justice or service learning,

Lauren Moseley: 33:50

restorative justice, service learning, okay, service I've never heard

TD Flenaugh: 33:55

it learning and restorative justice. Service

Lauren Moseley: 33:58

learning, okay, okay. So.