At a workshop two weeks ago, Rajihah Coaxum and her fellow teachers ran into a problem. They loved the ideas they were getting - so-called “restorative justice” techniques for turning a classroom into a real community, and helping students resolve differences through dialogue. But given that almost all of teachers' time is taken up by subject-matter lessons, teachers wondered when they could find time to actually deliver the restorative justice lessons, which aren't about any academic subject.
Coaxum, who teaches fourth grade at Central Park East 2 elementary school in East Harlem, focused on one technique in particular, called the “centerpiece.” Classroom centerpieces are like table centerpieces, except instead of flowers, they're made up of symbols of each of the students - like, say, index cards highlighting a person they care about, or a feeling they're having after a news event, each glued onto a piece of cloth. The goal, as Coaxum learned at the workshop, hosted by the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, is to build a sense of community, and a starting point for talking about sensitive topics.
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