(A note before I start: The student names in this story have been changed. But this remarkable school is real and the moment is very real – I’ve just protected the kids involved.)
A Head Teacher Mentor at Bourke High School sent a message to one of our team recently that means the world to me.
She’d been dealing with a situation involving two Year 8 boys – I’ll call them Sami and Jake. Sami had been part of a group teasing Jake. It started small, got amplified and by the end of recess Jake was properly upset.
The acting Deputy Principal tracked Sami down. He half-smirked when she asked him to step outside. He knew what this was about.
What followed wasn’t a punishment. It was a conversation – direct, unhurried, honest. How did what happened make Jake feel? What would it feel like on the other end of it? And then: we’re gonna go and see him. Not to perform a fake apology. To fix things.
“I’m not saying sorry,” Sami said.
“That’s fine. Think of something else while we walk.”
In the room, a male staff member stepped forward, took Sami’s hand, shook it firmly and said: “This is what men do.” Sami then seized the obvious moment in a cleverly scaffolded interaction… and shook Jake’s hand. They complimented both boys. Done.
Most people would call that a on ok to good outcome, albeit not spectacular or tied neatly in a bow. The harm identified, the harm addressed, relationship somewhat repaired. And it was.
But there’s more to this story.
Later that day, during sport, the early career teacher who’d first reported the teasing watched as Sami walked over to Jake and shook his hand again. Completely unprompted. Unrequested. No adult had asked him to do it. He apologised, verbally this time, and promised that it wouldn’t happen again.
Sometimes, people make the banal criticism of working restoratively that a conversation isn’t a consequence. My inquiring response is, “Why on earth would it be?”. It’s a teaching moment.
A reflexive, mandated consequence has proven to lead us not a step past compliance. Compliance is what you get when someone’s watching and the consequences are clear. What Sami did on that oval – that was a choice. Something had shifted in him during that conversation and that handshake, and he took that shift with him onto the sports field without threat or instruction.
A suspension would have removed Sami from the situation. It would not have produced that moment. Only a restorative process could – because only a restorative process asks the person who caused harm to reckon with it and then shows them the way back.
A school that knows how to do that isn’t just managing behaviour. It’s building people. Better young men too.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. Join me for The Bullying Myth online workshop on Tuesday 27 October, where we’ll explore what’s actually working to reduce bullying in schools.
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