Discipline Over Punishment

By Amina Malik

In our group discussion of Discipline Over Punishment we had thirteen educators from Philadelphia area schools. The book is an examination of how restorative discipline practices in schools

can improve education in urban environments. Gardner offers an alternative to oppressive practices that are commonly used in urban schools and that have been feeding the school-to-prison pipeline and has limited the options in life, specifically for youth of color. Gardner gives different scenarios of teachers and students engaged in restorative practices that highlight the possibility of restorative discipline and the opportunity for students to gain a place in society. Gardner gives real examples from different schools in California of inclusive discipline that lead to individual and community development for youth and adults.

However, many of his stories seemed idealistic and always worked because everyone in the school was supporting these practices. In our discussion, we felt that restorative justice is great in theory, but in practice, it would be a lot more difficult. The common feeling was that it would be easy for restorative justice to fall part. The most common problem we identified was teacher training or buy-in. Also, students might not take it seriously. A problem Matt mentioned was that students see restorative practices as weak. Many students in our schools are used to being disciplined due to being treated as criminals.

What resonated in this discussion is that it is difficult to restore someone to a community that they are not invested in. Restorative practices must start with staff before it can be used on students. We agreed that the first step must be using restorative circles and norms among the staff in a school before using them with students.