Unresolved conflicts in schools build barriers to learning, including low motivation, lack of focus, and disruptive behaviors that remove students from the classroom. When teacher-student conflicts occur, the negative effects can be long-lasting without a safe and structured way to repair the relationship.
This reader-friendly guidebook has a concrete, evidence-based solution: an easy and effective 50-minute mediation technique for teachers and students in Grades K-12. School psychologist Ondine Gross guides you through the whole process of starting a teacher-student mediation program, conducting successful mediations, and collecting and monitoring data to determine the effectiveness of the program. You'll also learn how to use the technique to mediate conflicts between students and between adults in schools, including staff members and parents.
Highly successful as a Tier II intervention, this common-sense solution will help your school leave ineffective discipline techniques behind and embrace more supportive approaches that model social and problem solving skills, reduce suspensions, and keep students learning.
Why Mediation?
* Statistic derived from average of three years of data from the author's school
Practical Materials: Compelling case stories; candid feedback from teachers, students and administrators; sample mediation dialogue; step-by-step mediation training and practice scenarios; an intervention tracking tool; and a mediation toolbox of handouts and forms.
About the Forms
About the Author
Foreword Jed Baker
Preface
Acknowledgments
Afterword
Appendix A: Your Mediation Toolbox
Appendix B: Tier II Intervention Guide
References
Index
"Restore the Respect offers valuable and practical guidance for nurturing respectful student-staff relationships through mediation. Ms. Gross describes the importance of creating caring school communities along with step-by-step procedures for conducting mediation and a ready-to-use mediation toolbox. Restore the Respect will transform schools in a very positive way."
- Lori Ernsperger, author of Recognize, Respond, Report: Preventing and Addressing Bullying of Students with Special Needs
"In Restore the Respect, Ondine Gross incorporates humor and a lifetime of public school experiences to share ways to use mediation by all stakeholders. As she says in the preface, "…schools are made up of people, and how people treat each other makes all the difference. Relationships matter!" A truer statement was never written. What especially captivated me was Gross's work with the adults in a school and mediation. So often it is the adult relationships that are toxic or at least unhealthy. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a very doable road map of how to put the teaching back into disciplinary consequences as well as strengthen collaborative relationships among all within a school."
- Linda Sloat, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign