Week 12: Youth in the System

Angela C. Stanley

Week 12 videos: The school-to-prison pipeline, explained (3:15-minute video), Restorative Circles (3:44-minute video), Restorative Justice (9:31-minute video), Restorative Welcome and Re-entry Circle (14-minute video).

Quote/Point in video	Question/Reflection
What can you control? “I don’t want to change your behavior.  I want you to think about it before you do it.” Restorative Circles	I love the emphasis on “what can you control” because it is something that I not only use daily with the youth I work with but also to my own self.  Many times, we get angry and we don’t know the appropriate way to channel those emotions.  Sometimes, we end up creating misdirected aggression through our frustration and create a new problem that needs to be fixed.  I know I am guilty of this.  If we get ourselves into the habit of thinking before we act about what we can control, how we can get the points we want to across, the results are more than likely going to be much more productive and effective.
“Enjoy this journey to becoming a man.” Restorative Welcome & Re-entry Circle	Far too many times I have seen myself and my peers growing up struggle with this limbo state in between being a child and being an adult.  Too many times we see teens given strong responsibilities, forced to grow up quicker than others, and then reprimanded for acting “too grown.”  It can be confusing at this age when you have so many people in your family forcing you to act like an adult but also choosing which adult activities you are allowed to participate in.  I am not saying kids who have more responsibilities should be allowed all the freedoms of adults in the sense of certain lifestyle choices.  What I am saying is that I can understand the confusion and perceived defiance when a child is forced to be an adult because of his/her parents’ short comings in life.
“Fix the mess that we made.” Restorative Welcome & Re-entry Circle	I love the collaborative tone that is set here with this quote.  The coordinator who said this out loud is doing two things here.  One, he is emphasizing to the individual (Cedrick) that they are all sharing the responsibility for his mistakes and failures in life.  Two, he is reminding and confirming to the other adults in the room that they need to understand and take responsibility for Cedrick’s mistakes because their leadership had left an impact and influence on his life, whether they wanted it to or not.
The adult in the room is immediately vulnerable and attempts to dig as deep as possible in order to set the tone for the rest of the circle as well as allow a peer to facilitate much of the group. Restorative Justice	This makes me think of the article we read about Marcus being good.  The reflections we had about him being able to identify with others on an emotional level but not so much to authority came to mind when I heard the adult in this video talk about being vulnerable.  The fact that she set the tone of being not just an adult, but a human, with feelings, with fears, with sensitivity, was a beautiful way to set the tone for the other students in the room.  In addition, having another student who is a peer to the rest of the kids gave a great experience of leadership to that individual but also probably set the tone of respect even higher.  In my mind, not participating in an adult-run program is typical behavior, but when a program becomes more “student-driven,” I assume that peers want to be supportive.
Black students are suspended and expelled three times more than white students are for similar offenses.  This phenomenon can be shown in grades as early as Pre-K. The school-to-prison pipeline, explained	I love the ideas of making these facts known to schools across the world and implementing programs such as restorative justice into schools to discuss hard topics.  The idea of making this racism within discipline known is the first step to creating equality and change.  However, reflecting on the difference between my extremely diverse high school compared to the predominantly white high school that I work for right now, I wonder how to talk about these issues.  How can we express how important these issues are to kids who rarely ever face other children of color or diversity and so they don’t even find it important?  In my opinion, it seems like these children are going through life with the “color-blind” mentality.  How do we get a predominantly white school on board with learning about differences in race in more than just the context of discipline?