My Philosophy

There are reasons why many educators are exhausted by Friday, why we stagger to winter break, and utterly collapse at the end of the year - all signs of an unsustainable system. There are reasons why so many children can’t stand school - and it is not because they hate learning. We are wired to learn. Our schools can be places that are alive, and honour the holistic, profound beings that we are. Learning who we are in relationship with others and the non-human world and the unique gifts we bring to the collective are the heart of education.

Restorative Justice

Described as a ‘reentry back to our humanity,’* restorative justice, although recently popularized in Western approaches to criminal justice reform, has deep roots in global indigenous forms of peacekeeping and ways of being. Restorative justice looks at the world through the lens of relationships, both in terms of their depth, or quality, and their breadth, or how they ripple out into the community and beyond. In this way, pain or alternately, healing, spread from one relationship to another in an ever-expanding ring of disharmony or harmony.

When I encountered restorative justice several years ago and read the 7 Core Principles of Restorative Justice, it was as if I’d been hit by a thunderbolt. I felt as if I were reading a holy book. What if we managed to live into these principles? What could we be together?

1. The true self in everyone is good, wise, and powerful.

2. The world is profoundly interconnected.

3. All human beings have a deep desire to be in a good relationship.

4. All humans have gifts, everyone is needed for what they bring.

5. Everything we need to make positive change is already here.

6. Human beings are holistic.

7. We need practices to build habits of living from the core self. 

[From “Circle Forward: Building a Restorative School Community” by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis.]

The Current Reality of Traditional Schools

I briefly worked as a Restorative Facilitator in a high needs, traditional school and saw how my role there served as the teeniest, tiniest, post-stamp of a band-aid amidst the onslaught of judgment, hiding, apathy, cliques, lack of connection, coercion, hierarchies etc. that define most modern, mainstream schools. Decades of research informs us that for actual culture-shifting to occur, as opposed to creating temporary truces between warring parties as I was doing, the shift towards prioritizing relationships must be within and between every facet of a school community. Further, the community itself must find a way to align itself - to move toward harmony - to the principles above.

• What would schools look like if we structured them as if we valued all gifts (principle #4)? There’s a good chance that a high percentage of kids wouldn’t leave school feeling like they’re stupid because their gifts to the world are mechanical ones, as opposed to the mathematical and linguistic gifts we so highly prize in our current system.

• How would we structure schools as if we believed that human beings are holistic (principle #6) - that our bodies, emotions, and spirits also need activation and nurturance - and not only our mental capacities? We might not still be subjecting our young to a system perfected by an industrializing, nationalizing, and militarizing country in the 19th century** - a system designed to extract obedience and habituate students to long hours of sedentary work.

• Finally, if we prioritized the desire of all humans to be in good or right relationship with each other and all of our non-human kin (principle #3), we would put tremendous effort into doing whatever it took to heal the forces within ourselves that are impeding a sense of belonging for all kids and to our belonging with the earth. We would not be suspending some of the most vulnerable kids for 10 days, not allowing them access to their teachers while gone, and then not putting any scaffolding in place to ensure they felt connected enough to make better choices moving forward.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. These seven principles are a map to a different way of being together.

My Approach

Education Liberation is my responses to decades of being obsessed with K-12 education and finally stumbling across a way of being that feels like it could be powerful enough to collectively steer this system toward a course that will better equip our children for the future they are inheriting. The key word here is “collectively.” I don’t expect to solve any of the issues above on my own. It will take a whole lot of us - those of us who are deeply invested in learning and in kids - to shift our way of being and work together to build something new. Many of us feel the disconnect between where the world is headed and the skills we are - and are not - fostering in our young. Simply stated, we are in a time in which we cannot afford to be mass-schooling people to be out of sync with their gifts. I believe that together we can steer schools toward a more vibrant course as long as we are approaching the problem, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, from a different level of consciousness from which it was created.

In my programs, I combine the most powerful forces I have ever come across: the millenia-brewed teachings of restorative justice; neuroscience research validating the body’s somatic wisdom and how to cultivate it; practices that support our connection to the land; and the magical elixir of poetry. These are ingredients to move us toward greater harmony if there ever were any. I encourage us to move slowly and gently in this work. I’ve been hearing the phrase “we go slow to go fast” a lot lately, and that is true in this work too. Cultivating presence - an ongoing process like tending to a garden - is a key component. We need to bring our whole, holistic selves back into schools. Once we do that, we can truly feel the impact that schools have on our bodies and spirits, and on those of the kids who are compelled to be there.

Our Cultural Conditioning & Why It Matters

I hold the deep belief that it is our responsibility, particularly if we work with children, to explore our cultural conditioning so that we are not replicating the learned hierarchies of previous generations. As educators, our potential for healing or harming is great and we are now in the midst of a backlash against anything that smacks of ‘woke,’ further entrenching people in their positions. Here’s my feeling on this: I aim to provide a soft landing spot for others, to meet people - and most especially the young people in my care -  with more compassion and grace. If I have not a’woke’n to the ways in which I am carrying the debris of my culture in my body, then I am, by default, drifting toward the disharmony I have inherited. Any shame I might feel around this serves no one - least of all historically disinherited people.***

We’re not here to cancel anyone, including ourselves. The goal is liberation for all. Why would it be anything less? This is why we do this work collectively. 

The Antidote

I am grateful for the preservation of Indigenous wisdom - and the ongoing Indigenous leadership - that allowed me to have my thunderbolt moment when I came across those seven principles. I also honour the profound teachings from Black thought leaders. I believe that prioritizing, referencing, and implementing global Indigenous teachings is the medicine we all urgently need - and which will ensure that restorative practices will not be co-opted and turned into suspension-reduction techniques rather than a genuine shift in our ways of being with one another. I hope I am sharing the spirit of teachings from these communities, whose ongoing healing teaches us all. I am humbled by how I have been influenced by culture, with my hierarchical, individualistic thinking - as much as I can honour some of its strengths. But our world is out of balance and restorative justice and somatic & land-based practices are, for me, a flashlight in the dark - blazing a path forward for us. 

It is an insult to expect educators to turn on a dime and parrot out the latest ‘fad’ in education - which is precisely what causes educators to be so suspicious of ‘the next thing coming down the pipes from higher up’ (insert eye roll here). And for good reason. This is why in this work we go deep and we move slowly.

North American Indigenous elders have taught me that “change only happens at the speed of relationships.”**** What could be more important than starting with the relationship we have with ourselves? 

To be taken seriously as teachers and school leaders, we must embody what we preach. The end goal? To take ourselves more lightly. When we shine a light for ourselves, we’re shining one for the collective too.

*Restorative Justice Facilitator Eric Butler

**https://karmacolonialism.org/the-origin-of-modern-schooling/

*** Dr. Howard Thurman uses the term ‘disinherited’  in lieu of ‘marginalized’ to reference the ways in which certain groups have been cut out of the "will" of the American dream.

****https://www.wlu.ca/academics/faculties/faculty-of-social-work/centre-for-indigegogy/faculty.html