Spoken Stories, Spoken Word: An Insurgent Practice for Restorative Education

This paper uses the terminology of whiteness, settler colonialism, culturally responsive pedagogy, and restorative education to interrogate the usage of spoken word in schools. I argue that spoken word can function as a form of resistance to white colonialist practices and as an advocate of emotional learning and critical education. This paper focuses on representation, student empowerment, and identity exploration in the context of education institutions. It crosses borders between education and authenticity, between classrooms and real life, and between teachers and students. I aim to ground this essay in the American Studies discipline as it discusses systems of power in the United States and seeks to disrupt dominant narratives through spoken word as an alternative education strategy for dismantling white supremacy and validating marginalized identities. This work is only a small part of the larger conversation on restorative justice in education

Practice Makes Imperfect: Restorative Effects of Sleep on Motor Learning

Emerging evidence suggests that sleep plays a key role in procedural learning, particularly in the continued development of motor skill learning following initial acquisition. We argue that a detailed examination of the time course of performance across sleep on the finger-tapping task, established as the paradigm for studying the effect of sleep on motor learning, will help distinguish a restorative role of sleep in motor skill learning from a proactive one. Healthy subjects rehearsed for 12 trials and, following a night of sleep, were tested. Early training rapidly improved speed as well as accuracy on pre-sleep training. Additional rehearsal caused a marked slow-down in further improvement or partial reversal in performance to observed levels below theoretical upper limits derived on the basis of early pre-sleep rehearsal. This decrement in learning efficacy does not occur always, but if and only if it does, overnight sleep has an effect in fully or partly restoring the efficacy and actual performance to the optimal theoretically achieveable level. Our findings re-interpret the sleep-dependent memory enhancement in motor learning reported in the literature as a restoration of fatigued circuitry specialized for the skill. In providing restitution to the fatigued brain, sleep eliminates the rehearsal-induced synaptic fatigue of the circuitry specialized for the task and restores the benefit of early pre-sleep rehearsal. The present findings lend support to the notion that latent sleep-dependent enhancement of performance is a behavioral expression of the brain's restitution in sleep

The More She Longs for Home, the Farther Away it Appears: A Paradox of Nostalgia in a Fulani Immigrant Girl’s Life

Nostalgia, which is derived from the Greek words nos (returning home) and algia (pain), refers to longing for the loss of the familiar (Kaplan, 1987). The loss of our connection to the familiar is a painful experience as such loss is connected to a fundamental loss, the loss of ourselves. By losing a connection to familiar people, objects, and places that continue to remain the same from the past to the future, we also lose the continuity within ourselves. And this discontinuity of our past, present, and future selves creates anxiety within us (Milligan, 2003). The painful experience that accompanies the loss of the familiar and the severe longing for the lost was originally viewed as a type of depression, which required psychiatric treatment. However, increasing mobility and changes in modern society have made nostalgia a more typical experience for many. Nostalgia is a relevant experience particularly for immigrants who live away from their homeland

Restorative Connections: "From Parlour to Parliament," 25th & 26th May 2016 Conference Report

A lot has happened over the last decade in relation to restorative approaches in Ireland. A variety of settings, organisations and sectors are now familiar with this work, which is used both as a preventative measure and to tackle high-end offences. There is a growing body of research demonstrating its impact and an evolving group of champions. This report, and the conference which preceded it, is just one of the tangible outcomes of the continuing growth in this field and is one of the outputs of collaboration between two aligned structures

Transforming educational experience for children, parents and teachers practitioner research from the CDI/NUIM Masters Programme 2013

The purpose of this action research thesis was to implement an evidence based initiative that could help better engage students in school. This research investigated factors that affected students' choice of Leaving Certificate Science subjects and devised actions that would enable and inform this choice. The factors affecting student choice were investigated using qualitative and quantitative methods of enquiry. The research was set against a drop in the numbers of students choosing science subjects for Leaving Certificate (Smyth and Hannan, 2006). The research took place in a community school in the south west area of Dublin.

Master\u27s Project: Restoration and Relationship in the Public School System

This project explores the complexities associated with a public school’s adoption and engagement with restorative justice. Over the course of this project, I have focused on Circle Process, examining ways to be in authentic, accountable, and reciprocal relationship with Indigenous communities where Circle Process originates

Creating culturally-safe schools for Māori students

In order to better understand the present trends in New Zealand’s schooling contexts, there is a clarion call for educators to develop sensitivity and sensibility towards the cultural backgrounds and experiences of Māori students. This paper reports on the work of four scholars who share research that has been undertaken in educational settings with high numbers of Māori students, and discusses the importance of creating culturally-safe schools – places that allow and enable students to be who and what they are. The theoretical frameworks drawn on are based on both a life partnership analogy as well as on a socio-cultural perspective on human development and learning. The Māori worldview presented in this paper is connected to the Treaty of Waitangi, The Educultural Wheel and the Hikairo Rationale. Data were collected from two ethnographic case studies and analysed through these frameworks. Practical suggestions are then made for using restorative practices and creating reciprocal relationships in classrooms within an environment of care. The paper reports on an evidence-based approach to creating culturally-safe schools for Māori students

A Review of Disciplinary Interventions in K12 Public Education

As a part of the Achieving Racial Equity in School Disciplinary Policies and Practices study from the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium, this literature brief offers an overview of school discipline interventions in K12 public education. This includes more punitive models that have been used in the past that have contributed to racial disparities in discipline outcomes, including corporal punishment and zero-tolerance policies. Additionally, this brief offers an overview of four prominent alternative approaches to school discipline: Trauma Informed Care, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, Culturally Responsive Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, and Restorative Practices. The literature brief offers the history, theory of action, and evidence of effectiveness for each alternative discipline approach and offers a discussion of how to effectively implement them in schools. Implications for the Commonwealth of Virginia are discussed throughout the brief

The First Year of Teaching Classroom Research to Increase Student Learning

Victor and Janisha were two of the focal students in Daniels's research project on her first year of teaching in an urban public school. Together they reflect the two major groups in this high school that has 45% Latino, 35% African American, ..