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Children taught to learn from mistakes

Restitution working at Don Ross Secondary School Helping kids learn that making mistakes is OK, and that the important thing is to make amends for them, can lead to a healthier and safer school environment.

Restitution working at Don Ross Secondary School

Helping kids learn that making mistakes is OK, and that the important thing is to make amends for them, can lead to a healthier and safer school environment.

The approach is known as restitution and it has been embraced at Don Ross Secondary in Squamish over the last three years.

Recently one of the local leaders in restitution, a teacher at Don Ross, came to Myrtle Philip elementary school to share ideas with parents at a Parent Advisory Council meeting.

"Inviting Rose MacKenzie to speak goes back to what our goals are and education is one of them," said PAC chair Cathy Jewett.

"It’s education for everybody, not just the students but also the parents, the families, and the staff."

Jewett said MacKenzie’s ideas were an important tool to add to the others parents, teachers and schools use to keep kids on track.

"It was a very positive way to point out how your actions can have an effect on someone else and also on yourself," said Jewett.

"The school is a huge part of raising a child but so is the community and the family. It is all those things together. So the question is how do we get everyone to look at this?"

Over the last decade discipline has remained one of the main challenges for teachers everywhere.

Many models have been looked at and tried to manage the problem. What stands out is that any system based on fear, coercion or reward is doomed to fail.

The reason for this is that youth can’t develop emotional intelligence without being able to reflect and make independent decisions. Any system of learning which uses heavy authority, position, threats, rules, punishment and rewards will, over the long run, perpetuate the very behaviors it is trying to eliminate.

Punishment results in children being detached from their moral sense as their feelings become numbed.

And incidents of bullying will only be resolved if children are taught to create communities together and meet their power-needs in productive ways.

The themes of restitution are already paying off at Don Ross said MacKenzie.

Kids are more likely to come and admit to inappropriate behaviour and mistakes because they know they will not be punished but rather guided through a process focused on how to fix what they have done.

MacKenzie recalled an incident where a student, while goofing around, put his foot through a wall creating a big hole.

"Rather than just leaving it and walking away he came downstairs and said, ‘I kicked a hole in the wall.’" said MacKenzie in an interview after the presentation.

"He said: ‘Obviously I have to make sure it gets repaired.’ So he put a work order in and then he was billed for it.

"He would not have come down and admitted to it without the idea of restitution being in place and that is the key."

During her presentation MacKenzie outlined several basic principles which can help teach self-discipline, a key component of restitution.

• Everyone makes mistakes;

• People know when they have done something inappropriate;

• Children are strengthened by the opportunity to make amends;

• Kids won’t lie to hide a mistake;

• The process of learning self-discipline is a creative one;

• People who have been allowed to make restitution themselves become more generous with others.

Most actions are driven by four basic needs, said MacKenzie. They are power, love and belonging, fun and freedom.

If you can get a youth to determine which one of these drives propelled them to do something, the youth can usually figure out a better way to get what he or she wants which fits into society’s expectations.

"When they find out it is not about punishments the energy shift is astounding and the kids will find a way to fix it and then it becomes a creative process," said MacKenzie.

"If a child has come to me and said they have stolen something then I would say, ‘I understand you have taken something and let’s talk about that. Remember that you made a mistake. It is OK to make a mistake. What about that thing that you stole? What needs were you trying to meet?’ and they will tell you.

"This way they are having to start to think about that. Then they internalize it a bit more and you invite them to think a bit more by saying, ‘can you think of another way to meet that need in a more appropriate way?’

"People know when they have done something wrong."

MacKenzie said there must be a "bottom line" in school. It would be determined by what actions done by a child are considered unacceptable.

Parents at the meeting suggested things that created unsafe conditions, acts of violence, defiance of a person in authority, drugs or weapons use.

In situations like that the youth must be removed from the situation.

But, said MacKenzie, while it may be a suspension, the idea in restitution is to give the youth time to ponder what they have done and come back with a way to repair the damage he or she has done.

After all, the youths have to re-enter the school at some point and function within it so a way must be found which lets both the school maintain its codes of conduct and the youth return and learn.

This way of thinking about things offers kids lessons for life, not just for school.

Said MacKenzie: "I think what people want is for children to be independent and making good choices because, you know, we are not there all the time.

"I think restitution, the approach, the kind of questions you ask your child, help that child to figure out how they can get their needs met in a way so that it works for them, but it also works for the family, the school and the community.

"Parents want to feel that when their children are playing on the playground or going skiing, and they are not being supervised by adults, that they are making good choices and that is a real challenge in our society today. Children are inundated with so many decisions – far more than when we were kids.

"The key to that is that you have to chose the least coercive road. You can’t coerce people. You cannot make people do things you want them to do."

MacKenzie plans to offer workshops for parents in the next few months. For more information you can reach her at 1-604-898-3671.

Also check out www.realrestitution.com