A rare moment of quiet falls over the dozen Dudley High School freshmen seated in a circle in Coach Mitchell’s physical education class. It’s Tuesday, so the class is being led by UNCG’s Michael Hemphill, Jeremy Rinker, and Omari Dyson.
Rinker, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies, has asked the students to share an example of a hero in their lives.
“My mother,” the first student answers. “She works and then comes home and cooks us dinner.”
As they move around the circle, each student has a chance to share. The goal is to build trust, so everybody feels safe, respected, and included. “At the start of each year, most people aren’t comfortable sharing, but over time, as we build relationships, they trust us and each other enough to open up,” says Rinker.
These relationships are foundational to the practices of restorative justice – a collaborative and peacemaking approach to conflict resolution.
This is the final year of a three-year curriculum designed by Dr. Hemphill, Dr. Rinker, and Dr. Dyson to introduce restorative justice to Dudley High School students.
“Communities in Schools is a dropout prevention nonprofit that is embedded in schools five days a week,” Hemphill explains. “Through our contact with them, we found that a lot of Dudley students were ending up at in-school suspension. Our partnership with Communities in Schools and Dudley High School aims to change the school climate from punitive to restorative, so kids feel safe and like they’re part of a community, even when they make mistakes.”
Ultimately, Hemphill says, this assets-based approach, which builds on the strengths and perspectives of children in the community, should reduce suspensions and dropouts and help students develop conflict resolution skills they will take through life.
Restorative justice’s values could be taught in any class, but Hemphill, an associate professor of kinesiology, realized a golden opportunity in the PE elective. “To graduate from high school in NC, you have to take health and PE, and our state’s essential curriculum standards prioritize teaching conflict-resolution skills,” he says. “Students typically take PE in the 9th grade, so over the course of a few years, you can impact an entire high school.”