Guillory
Lawson Guillory
Mrs.Livingston
English 3
22 February 2019
Restorative Justice Synthesis Essay
The national discussion around restorative justice is well deserved. The rehabilitation of impressionable children in school is one of the greatest innovations and ideas of the education industry. To focus on repairing the harm a student caused and to rehabilitate them and still allow them to have a chance to make something of themselves, as opposed to simply punishing the child and allowing them to keep the same behaviors. Without the correction of the toxic ideals possessed in these children, the cycle will continue, and many children will be lost in the justice system, rather than in school receiving an education. The topic of restorative justice also ties in to the topic of making school meaningful and worth something to these kids and preparing them for either the next step in their education, or to succeed in the real world. With that being said, restorative justice should be implemented in more far more places in order to make school more meaningful and preparing students, and to increase academic success rates and overall give more knowledge to these kids.
Restorative justice is part of the solution to the problem of schools not preparing students for life beyond school. If school systems choose to rehabilitate children As opposed to simply punishing them, students will have a much better school experience. Students now must deal with institutions in which the curriculum is focused on the simple retainment of information, and if a student fails to perform this task or acts out, (possibly as an act of boredom from the repetitive, and often useless tasks they are forced to do) they are reprimanded or punished. Instead, the focal point of schooling and especially the curriculum should be focused “on producing confident, well-rounded citizens who feel as though they belong and have value in society” (Cosslett, 1). This would in turn produce more prepared high school students by eliminating the boredom, and also reduce the amount of students who drop out due to disciplinary issues, because of restorative justice. Restorative justice and preparing students for life beyond high school and possibly college adequately, should essentially be paired together. Rehabilitation of the child as opposed to complete disciplinary action will lead to the student becoming more knowledgeable about right from wrong, and by keeping students in school, you allow more time for not only education to be received, but also passions to be discovered, and connections to be made. However, in order to achieve this goal, the number of suspensions and related disciplinary action must go down, and the only knowledgeable way to do this, would be through restorative justice. In fact, “One San Antonio middle school implemented Restorative Discipline in 2012” (Texas Focusing on Restorative Discipline, 1). The results are as follows: “After the first year of using...
