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Circle Forum
By Stan BakerEducation
Circle Forum episodes
- Pay attention to the silence
Whether it’s in a classroom circle or a conversation with parents, pay attention when participants are silent. In the book Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing our Realities, one of the contributors, Christina Parker, writes that “power and privilege act to silence divergent and alternative perspectives, with the result that these perspectives remain unexamined.” Steve tells a story about the teacher who didn’t think she was having a circle meeting since it was around a carpet square.
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Learn restorative structures then adapt them to your classroom.
- Know your group - class or staff - and know what they need.
- Practice circle related skills.
- Pay attention to the silences in circles and restorative conversations.
Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing our Realities
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO paying attention to silences .
Download the free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
17 min - "Your silence won't protect you"
The title is a quote from Barbara Sherrod, one of the contributors to the book Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing our Realities. Sherrod’s writing prompted us to talk more about what it’s going to take to change the narrative of stories like “these parents don’t care” when referring to black or indigenous families. And Sherrod is exhausted with all the battles along the way to create safe spaces and places for conversations about educational structures that inhibit student engagement. You’ll want to hear Steve’s story too about how systems dealt with his dissenting opinion.
Restorative suggestions:
- Be intentional about inviting parents into circle conversations.
- Restorative facilitators and practicioners must check themselves for bias.
- Whites cannot be silent if the educational narrative is going to change in schools.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of inviting parents into conversation .
Download the free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
17 min - Changes to mask mandates are opportunities to build community
Whether you support the use of masks or not, conversations about masks in schools have been very polarized. In this podcast, Shelley, Steve and Stan start with what’s happening as schools transition away from mandatory masks and end up talking about RESPECT. How do we treat others who look different that we do because of a mask or not? How can we engage parents again in respectful conversations?
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Address the issue of wearing masks using a circle process in the classroom as you would any other topic.
- Know your students and the best approach to this topic.
- Prepare for conversations about masks with students and with the adults in your building.
- Use a fair process for the conversation which Engages, Explains and had Expectation clarity.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of asking great questions .
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
18 min - Students with special needs engaged with restorative questions
A restorative approach to students with special needs can help teachers get to know their students and their special needs. Our guest this week is Dane Ellis from the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board in Ontario. He persisted from September to February and was successful in having a reluctant student participate in daily community circles. Listen to this terrific story of great questions, listening and teacher persistence.
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Know your students. It helps you as a teacher to understand the how and why of students behaviours.
- Persevere when implementing circles in your classroom.
- Never assume that students can’t do circles.
- Asking the same predictable questions helps de-escalate student behaviours.
- As the teacher and leader of a classroom circle, set the expectation that everyone participates.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of asking great questions .
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
24 min - Student belonging in school starts with simple things
Teachers are central to building students’ sense of belonging in school and there are a lot of structures that gets in the way. Listen in for a story of one secondary teacher who invited the Gay-Straight alliance students into her classroom and created a safe space at lunch.
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Draw on your own interests as a teacher to build connections with kids.
- Build belonging in your classroom.
- Learn students’ names and how to pronounce them.
- Valuing people as part of the school team builds connections with adults.
Altered Destinies: Making life better for schoolchildren in need by Gene I. Maeroff 1999.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of building belonging .
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
17 min - New research on pandemic and principal stress
It’s an understatement to say the pandemic has been stressful for everyone. This new research from the Rand Corp points out some very interesting findings (see below). Steve and Stan discuss these findings using a restorative lens. Restorative practice suggestions:
- Restorative practices offers the HOWTO of building and maintaining relationships in the stress filled pandemic.
- Be intentional about talking with principals regarding their stressors.
- Look for inequities in the structures and provide more support for those principals disadvantaged by gender, race or socioeconomics.
Key Findings of Rand Research Report
- Four out of five secondary principals experienced frequent job-related stress during the 2020–2021 school year.
- Secondary principals of color, female principals, principals serving high-poverty schools, and principals serving schools with high enrollment of students of color were especially likely to experience constant job-related stress.
- Secondary principals' top job-related stressors included supporting teachers' well-being and students' social and emotional learning, as well as navigating pandemic-related challenges.
- Secondary principals whose schools provided fully remote instruction were more likely to experience constant job-related stress than principals whose schools provided hybrid or in-person instruction; sources of job-related stressors varied by mode of instruction.
Recommendations of Rand Research Report
- Support the well-being and mental health of principals, especially principals from historically marginalized groups and principals who lead schools with large proportions of students of color and students living in poverty.
- Help principals support and improve teachers' and students' well-being.
- Provide guidance and resources to help principals manage the operational aspects of their jobs.
Read the full Rand Research Report The Well-Being of Secondary School Principals One Year into the COVID-19 pandemic
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO asking questions about well-being .
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
30 min - What to do when a student is always sleeping in class
What’s happening for a student who sleeps in class all the time and what should you do? Steve and Stan discuss this question from an online forum. Whatever educators do in this situation, we ask “Who’s being helped or served by this action or response?” Schools are like an early warning system where changes in behaviour are noticed very early so it’s important to find out what’s happening (a very restorative first question, by the way).
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Ask the question about what’s happening first before going to a punitive response.
- Be curious.
- Listen to what the student has to say even if you don’t like what you hear.
- Consider whether a school response to the student would be the same one for an adult or not.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO asking questions to students using restorative practices.
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
18 min - Listening to student voice means implementing a change
This week we continue our discussion with Soukaine Berri, a high school teacher in Windsor, Ontario. Student engagement starts with learning about student interests and listening to students’ voices. Soukaine has a terrific example of how listening to students made a change in her content subjects. Things that get in the way of engagement include:
-hunger
-mental health concerns
-transportation
-student jobs to support their families
-lack of a trusted caring adult
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Student engagement is enhanced by a whole school approach where staff intentionally talk with each other about the impact of restorative practices in class.
- Engage students by talking in circles about their likes and interests.
- As adults, be reflective and take the student voice seriously.
- Listen to student voice and be prepared to implement a change in your curriculum.
Get some sample questions for circles in the Restorative Practice Resource Project (search “circles sample check in questions” in Chapter 4)
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of classroom circles and check ins using restorative practices.
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
18 min - Daily circles make a difference in secondary classroom
Our return guest this week is Soukaine Berri, a high school teacher in Windsor, Ontario. Her classroom stories illustrate how taking 5 to 10 minutes per class can help you as a teacher to know your students in the content subjects. Soukaine has 2 great questions for her Community Discussion time every day. She reflects on how much a teacher can and should share about themselves with students. You’ll want to hear her story about how she listened to the student’s voice and implemented a walking break at the mid point of the long class time. Gotta love what happened to the walk in colder weather when students advocated for a change.
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of classroom circles and check ins using restorative practices.
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
17 min - When things just aren't going right, ask restorative questions to make the change
“In the middle, everything can look like a failure.” (Kanter’s law) Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School says that “everyone feels motivated by the beginnings…we love happy endings, but it is in the middle where the hard work happens.” Shelley, Steve and Stan continue the conversation about change and guess where they end up?
Fair Process and the 3 E’s: Engagement, Explanation and Expectation Clarity
Restorative practice suggestions:
- Recognize that restorative practice involves change.
- Consider the pace of change and that change takes time.
- Use good questions to implement change.
- Get voice from everyone impacted by the change.
- When things go wrong or just aren’t working right, ask the restorative questions:
- What’s happening? What do you think about this? Who’s been affected by this and how? What’s the hardest thing about this for you? What do you think needs to happen next/What to you need so that things can be put right and everyone can move on?
“New principal suspends half of all students, sends parents a “wake-up” call SNPost
The Real Reason people won’t change Harvard Business Review
Link to more info on Fair Process 3 E’s - Engagement, Explanation, Expectation Clarity
Order Steve’s book The Restorative Principal Leading in Education with Restorative Practices
Visit CircleForum for more information about the HOWTO of change using restorative practices.
Free practical tools and restorative resources for teachers on restorative.ca
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
24 min
About Circle Forum
From the publisher's feed
Leading a school in today’s educational landscape is both rewarding and complex. This podcast equips elementary and secondary school principals with proven strategies to tackle challenges they face…
daily. Hosts Shelley Steele, Steve Young, and Stan Baker—along with expert guests—explore topics like restorative practices, staff well-being, equity-driven leadership, student absenteeism and navigating complex systemic challenges. Discover actionable advice, inspiring stories, and strategies to transform your school community while maintaining balance in your leadership journey.