Restoring Esteem & Focus

Effective learning and teaching is very much reliant on getting the person right first through building trusting and respectful relationships. When students and teachers are in a good place they thrive.

Therefore when students don’t meet classroom and school expectations, it is important to move away from the ‘breaking the rule mentality and issuing associated consequences’ mindset of many school student management programs that are characterised by the approach:

• What happened and what school rule has been broken?
• Who is to blame and what will be the punishment?

Where are the learning capacity building components in this approach? 

To develop reflective and thinking dispositions in students, to what to say and do and strengthen relationships, it is more preferable to adopt a mindset of ‘what has to be done to repair the harm done by their misconduct’ that is characterised by:

• What happened and what harm has been done?
• What need to be done to make things right?

 It is essential for students who have violated trust to reflect on their behaviours in order to find better ways to do things and then work out what they have to do to make things right. Adopting this restorative approach cultivates lifelong habits to be able to reflect on their contribution to relationships. It builds their capacity to restore focus when things go wrong. The following link leads to a Restoring Focus Activity from the website.

It is also important for those students adversely affected by others’ actions and words which violated their rights and harmed relationships, to have things made right for them. Restoring their esteem is an integral part of ensuring that they are in a good place as people. The following link leads to a Restoring Esteem Activity on the Learning Curve Website. 

The following approach works well in making the transition from a mentality of blame, name and shame to one of reflect, adjust and make things right. It is written from the perspective of a teacher talking to their class, Year Level Advisor/Coordinator talking to their Year Level or School Leader talking to the whole school. It is also very effective in resolving friendship issues by creating understanding and empathy: 

At times, you may have problems with other students, your parents or teachers; issues may happen at school, in your friendship groups, in sporting teams, on social networking sites and so on. It makes everyone’s life better that it be sorted out quickly, otherwise, it may cause further relationship issues.

Always remember, people don’t care what you know till they know you care; relationships are the most important things to look after in the world. To quote Albert Einstein, “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.” A very clear message for all of us; be real, be yourself and be honest to the person you see in the mirror every morning.

The first step in sorting out any issue is for you is to have an honest look at what you did or said and answer the following questions on the Restoring Focus Activity form:

• What happened and what did l do or say?
• What was l thinking about at the time?
• What have l thought about since what happened?
• Who has been affected by what happened?
• How do l think others have been affected by what l did or said?

 The answers to these questions are only for you to personally reflect on and think about;

• strive for win – win outcomes, it’s not about pointing out who is right or wrong
• it is about you discovering better ways to do and say things when it happens next time; because it probably will.

 This process is called Restorative Practice.

 The next step is to be totally positive in answering the following questions for yourself on the form:

• What could l have done or said differently?
• Describe what l would now do and say if the situation happened again
• How do l think it would things would turn out?
• What help do l need to do or say things differently?

If you have been affected by the actions or words of others, answer the following questions on the Restoring Esteem Activity form:

• What happened and what did I think?
• What have I thought about since?
• How have I been affected?
• What was the worst part of what happened?
• What needs to happen to make things right for me?
• Who can help me make things right?
• What can we do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?