Rehumanizing Schools
Conversations and practices for visionary educators and changemakers ready to turn their values into real change in schools.
Together we explore belonging, non-coercion, restorative relationships, and the practices that make educational transformation possible.
Three Possible Routes:
RJ FOUNDATIONS
4 weeks, Oct. 19 - Nov. 9 | The inner and relational foundations of restorative practice
REIMAGINING SCHOOLS
3 weeks, Nov. 16-30 | Questioning the structures, assumptions, and practices we have inherited
Education Liberation: The Full Journey
7 weeks, Oct. 19 - Nov. 30 | For educators who want to do both
What tools—and what ways of being—will help us dismantle the patterns that are keeping schools stuck?
✔ Circle Facilitation Foundations
✔ Accountability Planning Templates
✔ SEL practices you can use immediately
✔ Classroom belonging practices
✔Living Land Acknowledgements
✔Resources based on each week’s theme
✔ Weekly recorded videos
✔Ideas for making real change in your school
✔ Solidarity and inspiration from other educational mavericks
What would education look like if our purpose were not only to prepare young people for the world they are inheriting, but to help them discover the gifts they carry to transform it?
What if conflict isn't something to eliminate, but something we should be teaching young people how to navigate?
What if listening to the body's wisdom is a primal skill—one that, by its very structure, school teaches children to override?
What if students don't need more motivation—they need more agency?
These aren't individual problems. They are invitations to question the structures, beliefs, and ways of relating that we've inherited that are embedded into the design of school.
Education Liberation
Education Liberation is a journey into the inner and outer work of educational transformation.
We explore what happens when we stop treating restorative practice as a toolkit and begin to understand it as a way of being in relationship—with ourselves, with students, with colleagues, and with the systems we inhabit.
Each week, we gather in circle, practice restorative ways of relating, examine the stories and structures that shape our schools, and work with practical tools you can bring directly into your classroom and community.
You choose where you want to focus:
RJ FOUNDATIONS
How do we practice restorative relationship?
REIMAGINING SCHOOLS
What would school look like if we questioned the systems we've inherited?
Participants Leave With:
RJ Foundations: October 19 - Nov. 9
4 Weeks | Before we can transform our schools, we transform how we understand relationship, conflict, accountability, and our own role within them.
Returning to our Humanity
RJE Foundations
Values
Practicing Presence
“We need practices to build habits of living from the core self.”
Returning to Each Other
Empathy
Staff Meetings Reimagined
“We are profoundly interconnected.”
Listening From the Heart
The change-making role of gratitude and awe
Community-building circles
Shifting your orientation to needs
“The true self in everyone is good, wise, and powerful.”
Rethinking Punishment
Punishment vs accountability
The restorative questions
Healing Circles
Tools to move from avoidance of fear to curiosity
“Human beings are holistic.”
REIMAGINING SCHOOLS: Nov 16 - 30
3 weeks | Questioning the structures, assumptions, and practices we have inherited
Critical Humility
Refocusing the lens from ‘problem kid’ to lagging skills, including our own
Everyone belongs
“All human beings have a deep desire to be in right relationship.”
Hierarchies in School
Grace
Transformative Justice
Non-Binary Thinking
Disarming ourselves
“Everyone Has Gifts - Everyone is needed for what they bring.”
Living Education Liberation
Reimagining the future of your school
Action plans
Celebration
“Everything We Need To Make Positive Change Is Already Here.”
Throughout, you'll move between reflection, community, practical tools, and classroom application—so that the work isn't just something you understand, but something you can begin to embody and use.
These courses are guided by the preserved wisdom of global indigenous teachings on Restorative Justice.
Other influences include:
Tyson Yunkaporta, Rupert Ross, Resmaa Menakem, Sobonfu Somé, Sonya Renee Taylor, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Elizabeth Gilbert, Rick Hanson, bell hooks, Ursula LeGuin, Gabor Matte, Audre Lourde, rev. angel kyodo williams, Adrienne Maree Brown
Joe Brummer, Ross W. Greene, Drisana Daniels, Chuck Daly, Terry O’Connel, Kathy Absolon, Angel Acosta, Eric Butler, Charles Eisenstein, Dorothy Vaandering, Ken Danford, John Taylor Gatto, Peter Gray, John Holt, Ivan Illich, Ken Robinson, Charles Taylor, Zac Stein, Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
Quotations are from the book Circle Forward: Building a Restorative School Community by Carolyn Boyes-Watson and Kay Pranis.
Choose your journey
RJ Foundations
4 weeks · $247 earlybird / $297 regular
Mondays, Oct. 19 – Nov. 9
For educators who want to develop the inner and practical foundations of restorative practice.
Reimagining Schools
3 weeks · $197 earlybird / $247 regular
Mondays, Nov. 16 - 30
For educators ready to question the structures, assumptions, and inherited practices shaping education.
Education Liberation: The Full Journey
7 weeks · $397 earlybird / $497 regular
Mondays, Oct. 19 – Nov. 30
For educators who want to do both: develop restorative practice and explore what it means to transform the systems in which that practice lives.
All Sessions:
6:30–8:00 pm ET over Zoom
Meet Your Facilitator
Abby Karos
Abby Karos is an educational changemaker and justice-centered entrepreneur committed to reimagining education as a relational and liberatory practice. Her work supports young people, educators, and communities in moving beyond compliance-driven models of schooling toward learning cultures rooted in trust, restorative practices, and a love of learning.
She is the founder of two education-impact initiatives: Compass Centre for Self-Directed Learning, a learning centre for teens, and Education Liberation, a consultancy informed by global Indigenous restorative justice beliefs and practices. Abby holds a Master’s in Educational Philosophy and has training in Non-Violent Communication, Healing-Centered Education, embodied racial healing work, Restorative and Transformative Justice, Ember Circle/Council coaching, and Roadmap to Liberation. She is currently a Fellow of the Acosta Institute.