This much-needed book provides a practical framework for implementing school-wide restorative justice practices to enhance students’ social emotional readiness.
Amidst today’s uncertainty and social unrest, this book offers teachers and students hope in the underlying principles of restorative justice that challenge us to be our best selves. Through curricular sequences, lesson plans, case studies, and narrative examples, Chaterji maps the terrain for learning and practicing empathy, studying models of repair and accountability, and creating conditions for trust and vulnerability.
While much of restorative justice in schools is responsive to incidents that have already occurred, this book argues for robust prevention and culture-building through students’ personal and conceptual exploration of pain, loss, oppression, and other emotionally charged topics. Chaterji carries lessons from restorative justice in high-level harm, such as victim offender dialogue, to the classroom through exercises that foster tenderness, self-reflection, and skillful attention on how to “make it right.” The text includes classroom-tested strategies and activities that the author developed over eight years of work with students in high schools across the Bay Area.
Book Features:
- Vivid case studies, anecdotes, and practitioner's notes from extensive restorative justice work in schools and prisons.
- Robust collection of supplemental materials, including activity descriptions, worksheets for classroom use, lesson plans, and curricular sequences (reproducible documents in an online appendix).
- Spanish language materials for teaching concepts in restorative justice, including circle-keeping scripts, sample agendas, and activity descriptions.
- A teacher-centered approach to implementing restorative justice through concrete lessons, thematic areas, and activities that foster greater trust, connection, and healing.
- A connection to SEL core competencies of responsible decision-making, self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, and self-management.
