Restorative Practices

The world is expressing bewilderment at the actions of Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student who shot and killed 32 people in the largest campus massacre in history. However, it seems that at least some explanation for his horrific crime is slowly emerging. Cho’s story is a classic portrait of a young man who lost all sense of connection to the people around him and became capable of mass murder.

The New York Times (April 22, 2007) reported that Cho led a lifetime of excruciating silence: “From the beginning, he did not talk. Not to other children, not to his own family. … [In high school] he was unresponsive in class, and unwilling to speak. … Classmates recall some teasing and bullying over his taciturn nature. The few times he was required to speak for a class assignment, students mocked his poor English and deep-throated voice.” Recently at Virginia Tech, as Cho’s behavior grew ever stranger and the writing he submitted in class became more violent and obscene, he “was allowed to remain in the seminar but was placed off to the side, where, [his teacher] said, he did not speak. She did not share his writings with the class. … And then he stopped going to class” (NY Times, April 19, 2007).

It is a pattern that has been repeated too many times, in too many school tragedies. When society isolates social offenders, it only decreases their desire to behave appropriately. They lose their sense of “connectedness” to their fellow human beings and lash out violently, a reaction that the world — rightly — finds shocking and appalling.

This is not a crisis that can be solved by tougher enforcement of “zero tolerance” policies, which studies (such as a recent report from the American Psychological Association) have shown to be ineffective at best and further damaging to social relationships at worst. Rather, it is restoration of the sense of connectedness, essential for social and emotional health, which is critical.

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1994–present), a large federally funded research project, found that where school environments promote connectedness, there are significant positive outcomes among students, such as less violence, less drug and alcohol use and less teen pregnancy. The need for children and young people (and, indeed, all people), to feel they belong and are cared for is one of the most crucial requirements for good health and well-being.

But how can schools create connectedness, while at the same time addressing serious behavioral problems?

The emerging social science known as “restorative practices,” which is spreading throughout education, criminal justice, and child and family services across the world, speaks directly to this issue. As a proactive expansion of “restorative justice,” a collaborative process involving those most directly affected by a crime in determining how best to repair the harm caused by the offense, “restorative practices” posits that the best way to help troubled people is to directly engage them in a restorative environment, one that fosters that essential sense of connectedness.

In a restorative environment, such as those that have been created at the alternative schools my wife and I started 30 years ago for delinquent and high-risk youth, “restorative practices” are systematically applied. These practices help create a supportive, caring environment for youth who have been rejected by other schools and the world at large. Above all, restorative practices are about engaging people. “Check-in” groups are held several times a day, so that every student may speak about his or her feelings and experiences. In this way, everyone feels heard and understood, building that all-important sense of community and connectedness. When students in these alternative schools misbehave, problems are neither swept under the rug nor handled rigidly. Instead, the students are asked to take responsibility for their actions. They must reflect on their own behavior, hear how their behavior has affected others and find ways to repair harm caused by their actions. A connection is again made, this time between action and consequence, and with a supportive group of peers and staff that, however, insists on accountability.

Empirical research has shown that restorative practices produce remarkably positive outcomes in the behavior and attitudes of young people who attend the alternative schools where the practices are consistently applied. Similar positive outcomes have been seen in public schools that have embraced restorative practices throughout the world, including those in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Research suggests that restorative practices are effective in dealing with bullying, and in lowering suspension, expulsion and truancy rates. A new graduate school, the International Institute for Restorative Practices, has been founded to provide education and research and to help foster this emerging social science.

I do not believe that the people who comprised Cho Seung-Hui’s community at Virginia Tech are to blame for what happened there. I only want to suggest, for the sake of the future, that if people like Cho Seung-Hui experienced restorative practices as part of their educational environment, it would enhance and sustain that critical sense of connectedness — crucial to all human health and well-being — so that hideous tragedies like this would be far less likely.

Ted Wachtel, President at International Institute for Restorative Practices, at 9:15 am EDT on May 17, 2007

The protective effects of social cohesion

Two of the commentators have picked up on similar and important themes:

In another generation, there were (often middle aged) housemothers (I will say it, they were often called Mom Smith or Mom Wilson) in the student dorms. I wonder if their steadying presence offered some benefits unavailable to students now.

[I]t is restoration of the sense of connectedness, essential for social and emotional health, which is critical.

It would be hard to imagine an environment with less social stability and less connectedness than a generic dormitory on a big university campus. I have heard (responsible and successful) students describe such places as providing “the worst living experience of my life.” There is an international movement underway to repair the decay of campus residential life through the creation of small, decentralized, faculty-led residential colleges, written about here at Inside Higher Ed a few months ago:

http://insidehighered.com/views/2006/11/28/ohara

Is this a cure for mass murderers? Of course not. A determined criminal is very hard to stop, and everyone who works with undergraduates know that many them arrive on campus with years of psychological baggage that even the best environment can’t always lift from them. But the violent criminal represents the end of the tail of a very broad distribution that ranges from students who commit vandalism, to those who are angry and abusive to their neighbors, to those who drop out, to those who misbehave in class, those who move off campus because the on-campus environment is so unpleasant, to those who disengage from the life of the institution, to those who do make it through but then spend the rest of their lives talking about how terrible their university was. This is the “abandoned generation” that Willimon and Naylor wrote about a decade ago:

http://rjohara.net/reviews/willimon-naylor

The criminal tail of the distribution has been around from the dawn of human history, and many features of Cho’s crime are mirrored in detail in the earliest Western literature:

http://collegiateway.org/news/2007-virginia-tech

But as specialists in the protective effects of cohesive communities have long known, social cohesion, in contrast to social isolation, is a strength multiplier:

http://collegiateway.org/news/2003-social-cohesion

It doesn’t simply prevent bad things from happening, it positively promotes the good. But constructive social cohesion of this kind, overseen by the academic leadership, has been all too rare on campus for more than a generation.

R.J. O’Hara, The Collegiate Way, at 12:55 pm EDT on May 17, 2007

Leave of absence

Regarding student leaves of absence, Karen Bower noted in her May 1 article:

“Financial issues are often paramount. While students may have adequate health insurance covering inpatient and outpatient services while in college, coverage often terminates upon medical leave from the university. Health insurance may also exclude inpatient services and place limits on the number of outpatient visits. Colleges should be cognizant of this reality and work to assist students without coverage and advocate for expanded coverage.”

Why on earth is this “reality” acceptable to anyone? For years, we have been dangling our young adults over a chasm. This is as true of those tossing their graduation caps into the air as of those taking medical leave. They’re no longer eligible to be covered by a parent’s health insurance, and it’s mighty hard for them to get their own coverage without either a job with benefits or being in school.

Many of us adults with health insurance have at least the protection of COBRA from sudden loss of benefits. Our kids, it seems, get nothing. Certainly neither of my sons’ colleges did anything to suggest how, once the rug was pulled out from under them, they might go about obtaining coverage. Why is that OK?

Kathleen, at 9:00 am EDT on May 18, 2007