Each week, “Pop Quiz” features an interview with a member of Greater Houston’s education community. To suggest someone we should interview with an interesting story to tell, email us at education@houstonlanding.org.

Meet the interviewee

After teaching at a Houston ISD high school for five years in the early 2000s, Anita Wadhwa became intimately familiar with some of the biggest problems in education, including student dropouts and teacher burnout.

But Wadhwa hungered to learn about potential solutions. So she enrolled in a doctorate program and, in her research, gravitated toward a topic she felt could reshape some of the destructive dynamics she has seen in schools: restorative justice.

Restorative justice generally describes a set of practices that respond to rule-breaking — such as a fight in the lunchroom — with an emphasis on healing and understanding between students, rather than punishment.

Some advocates believe the approach could address persistent disparities in discipline between student groups who more frequently receive harsh punishments, such as Black, Hispanic and low-income students, than their classmates.

In 2013, Wadwha founded the nonprofit Restorative Houston and now regularly holds “restorative circles” in many Houston-area schools, gathering students together to discuss issues in their lives.

Versions of the practice remain controversial. Opponents often argue restorative justice approaches are too soft and don’t do enough to stop students from breaking rules. Last year, when former Fort Bend ISD Superintendent Christie Whitbeck sought to introduce “restorative practices” to curb discipline disparities, district trustees pushed back and blocked the change.

Some restorative justice advocates for years have celebrated the third week of November as “International Restorative Justice Week.” To mark the occasion, the Houston Landing spoke with Wadhwa to hear what the practice could mean for local schools. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

For folks who might not be so familiar, what is restorative justice and why is it something you believe is important?

Restorative justice is the philosophy that we’re all connected so deeply that when a harm takes place, it’s the responsibility of the community to come up with the solutions for how to repair the harm. That harm doesn’t just mean harm between individuals, but harm between institutions and historical harm. So, things like truth and reconciliation commissions, conflict mediation, but also, at a base level, connecting with one another. This is all part of restorative justice. 

What we’re restoring is our humanity and our dignity. In so many institutions, like schooling (and) the criminal justice system, when harm takes place, it’s taken out of the hands of the people who are victimized or impacted. We’re restoring the dignity in the process and asking what needs need to be met (for) people who are victimized by harm and what is the community’s responsibility.

What might that tangibly look like and what role might it have in a school setting?

In schools, what this looks like is, if you think of a conflict between a teacher and a student, and let’s say the student yells at a teacher, gets in-school suspension and then is returned back to the classroom. There’s never any conversation about what is the root of the issue. That’s what restoration does; you’re getting to the root issue. 

It could look like you circle with the teacher and the student. You pull the student from a class and the teacher on an off period and you’re in a space. You’ll have an adult facilitator and a youth one who is trained, so it’s an intergenerational process. And then they would do some kind of mindful activity to carve out the space. Circle is a very different space. And then they ask the questions, ‘What happened, what was the impact, and what can be done to make it right?’ as opposed to, ‘What happened, what rule was broken, and how are we going to punish this person?’ 

And 90 percent to 95 percent of the time, this leads to some form of understanding. Because there’s a talking piece, … it’s one person at a time speaking. And through the rounds, you start to see what was happening to the student before they came into the classroom. What did I, as a teacher, do that might have set that student off? What is the teacher going through (during) the periods before that student came that might have set the teacher off? And we start to see each other outside of our power and our roles. That’s how you heal the relationship. Then, when they come back to your classroom, you have a better understanding of each other. You can go on with the business of learning.

It sounds designed to build empathy.

Correct, exactly what you said, it’s empathy. 

We did a role play (activity) with young people. I gave them an actual disciplinary situation that, when I was an assistant principal, had happened. We gave them rules. We said, ‘You’re going to be the teacher, you’ll be the counselor, you’ll be the circle keeper.’ We call them a keeper. It’s someone who keeps everyone to the agreements of, we’re going to be respectful, only one person (speaks) at a time, be aware of your body language, don’t be on phones, things like that. 

So, they did the role play. And I said, ‘If a fight happened, how would the counselor feel?’ The student was like, ‘I wouldn’t feel anything.’ And I was like, ‘Wait back up. What is the counselor’s role?’ And so you have to teach young people what is the role of this person in the building. … Their prefrontal cortex is still developing, so it’s a really important skill. Adults also need it. … So empathy is key to this.

Some folks’ hesitation with these sort of practices might be that students wouldn’t buy in, or that the process wouldn’t actually reverse students’ behavior. What’s been your experience based on the circles you’ve done?

Well, I would start by telling people, ‘How successful is in-school suspension?’ Because, if you’ve ever visited (in-school suspension) spaces, it’s usually a room, white walls, cubbies. Sometimes they make students write rules down over and over again, or they’re sleeping, or if it’s someone really doesn’t care, kids are on cell phones, so there is no learning. 

Part of the process of doing (restorative work) is you’re not going to necessarily see an immediate result. I will say in most cases, like I said, probably 90 percent, there’s improvement. … If it’s two students who have conflict, you might come to the decision, y’all just don’t need to talk to each other, you need to avoid each other. And at least they’ve come to that clarity. And in other cases, there’s people who become friends again. There’s teachers and students who build a bond, or at least can tolerate each other, and the behavior doesn’t necessarily repeat. And then in other cases, it might take years for certain behaviors to change. 

There’s a whole range of options. You can do in-school suspension, but you make it a restorative space. …  We would come and a student would sit in a circle with a fellow student, mentor, circle keeper, and they go, ‘What brought you here? What’s going on?’ And then they would do mindfulness activities. And then the teachers would come to the room and build relationships and go, ‘This is the work you’re missing.’ That’s a lot more work (than traditional in-school suspension), but that student, even if they were repeating the behavior, they were still being held accountable and having to make agreements.

Our idea that accountability is (requiring) a kid go home or sit in an empty room and not learn anything is just a very interesting marker of success. You’re going to meet some teachers who say, ‘I would have quit teaching if I didn’t have circles.’

The other thing is, we don’t only do circles for harm repair. … We do circles weekly in the schools that I’ve been in. … Every week you’re sitting in circles. Students are doing circles for academics, sitting in a circle, looking at other people. … It’s not an unusual, weird, hippie dippy thing that you’re doing when you get in trouble. No, this is just how we engage with each other.

That’s more preventative?

I don’t even call it preventative. It’s, like, proactive. Preventative in that it can, as a result of your connection, prevent future things. I just don’t say preventative, because that’s not the sole reason. We do it because we’re being proactive. Conflict is going to happen, so let’s get to know each other and build relationships so we can navigate it.

In Fort Bend, there was a push from the superintendent for what they were calling ‘restorative practices’ in response to discipline issues. But then a number of board members pushed back on that proposal. So I’m curious why this is a process that some people deem controversial.

As I describe it, it doesn’t sound controversial, is it?

It is a way of being. It’s a philosophy. It’s an investment of time. (Most) districts and institutions are not run that way. So when they introduce something like restorative justice, first of all, they don’t call it justice. They call it, in Texas, ‘restorative discipline,’ which means they don’t look at it as a way to, just at a base level, build connection and empathy and social-emotional skills. I mean, there’s students coming in with high levels of anxiety and mental health issues who believe that the cell phone is offering them relief, when really it’s just an avoidance technique. And those poor children are not going to have those phones when they’re in certain situations. So these are really raw core skills that we need to provide. If they’re not reading well and their attention span is short, it’s because, you know, are they having deep conversations with each other? … So all of these things are connected.

I think that it gets a bad rap because it’s been used in the media, on certain outlets, to look at places where I don’t think it’s implemented … with the mindset that we’re all connected and we’ll start from there and then we’re going to repair harm. When you say you’re going to do something, we’re going to take the time to keep you accountable and follow up with you and do it over and over and over again. Because kids would rather go to in-school suspension than have to sit down and tell a teacher, ‘This is what was going on with me.’ A lot of teachers don’t want to sit with kids and be vulnerable because they’re like, that’s not my job. So I think it’s just a difference of philosophy and also a misunderstanding of the philosophy as a way to do discipline, and that it’s soft on discipline. And really I would also say, ‘Well, how is your system working?’

… When a ninth grader comes in and they see … two 11th graders coming into their room doing a circle, they’re like, ‘I guess, I guess this is what we do. This is weird. I hate it.’ And then by the end of the year, some people might still hate it, but a lot of them liked it. And this was my experience in Katy (ISD), with all the anti-trans policies and book bans. I was like, ‘I’m gonna close the door and do a circle.’ And some of them are like, ‘Oh my God.’ And then by the end of the year, they’ll be like, ‘When are we doing circle?’ Because it’s fun. Isn’t it fun to breathe, to not be a robot whose sole job is to produce writing and literacy skills? It’s like, can we just connect with each other?

This has been really interesting. For folks who are interested in learning more, how could they plug in?

If they go to restorativehouston.org, we have an events tab. There’s some video clips and different information on what the philosophy is and we have monthly circles. … They’re usually in person, in a different area of town each time, so I think if they would come to a circle, that’d be a great way. Or just reach out to us.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Find him @by_ash_ls on Instagram and @small_asher on X, or reach him directly at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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