Professional Development for Brooklyn High School Staff

On November 7, I coordinated a professional development at William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn, bringing Janet Connors and Clarissa Turner from CIRCLE UP to speak about their experiences as survivors of homicide victims.

Eighty-five teaching staff watched the film the day before, then convened with us over Zoom. After a brief Q&A we divided into several small “circles” facilitated by Janet, Clarissa, and me along with two staff members trained in restorative justice. It was a moving experience for all – and an opportunity for the school to deepen its restorative justice work with its students, many of them facing challenges in their lives.

This opportunity grew out of a large in-person training we did with principals, social workers, and restorative justice coordinators from 20 New York City schools in 2019 (pictured above).

Peacemaking in Prison

Chaplain Gene Presley (above right) has dedicated his life to facilitating workshops for incarcerated populations. He teaches a course called “Peacemaking in Prison” at Wakulla Correctional Institution located outside of Tallahasse, Florida.

“There is so much pain and brokenness, not just in prison, but everywhere in the world. We need awareness of restorative justice and the peace circle process to inform our decisions about conflict, justice, and positive change.”

— Michael, one of Gene's students

Presley ‘s course curriculum has four phases:

The first phase focuses on peacemaking through emotional intelligence. Inmates watch documentaries and read books about how emotions operate in the brain and how to de-escalate situations that could otherwise end dangerously.

In the second phase, the men learn about circle-keeping by reading sources such as the Circle Keeper’s Handbook by Kay Pranis. The students wrote values instrumental to circle-keeping on paper plates. One student explained that he drew a donkey on his plate because he is “being a jack-ass” when he is not empathetic :)

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In this phase, Presley also shows his students CIRCLE UP. The men respond to the film with reflections on its central themes of forgiveness, accountability, and justice. The stories of Janet and other grieving family members led inmates to consider the effects of their actions on others – and to believe in the potential of relational practices like peacekeeping circles as a way to propel community healing forward.

Below are some excerpts of responses written by Presley’s students.

In the third phase, Presley’s students learn mediation and negotiation skills. One resource the students use in this module is a selection of simulations, such as a family mediation simulation, from the Florida Dispute Resolution Center.

The course ends with a phase that teaches students how to become facilitators, which is why Presley refers to his program as being “run by the incarcerated for the incarcerated.” In this part of the course, the students learn about pedagogy, leadership, and ethics. You can read more about Presley’s approach in the article he-co-authored in the spring 2023 issue of Organization Development Journal, "Getting After the Violence: Changing Prison Culture Through Prisoner-Driven Dialogue.”

It is moving to know that CIRCLE UP is one of many resources out there being used for this work, and that there are teachers like Presley who are so invested in their students, and students who are so invested in what they are learning.

Encore Broadcast

CIRCLE UP will be having an encore broadcast on the America ReFramed series on WORLD Channel on April 13 at 8pm/7pm CT - and will be streaming free April 13- 28 here. I’m excited to be able to reach new audiences with this evergreen film, especially at a time when we need all the justice we can get!

The Fractal Nature of Social Change

A fellow member of an anti-racist working group recently referred me to this inspiring piece of adrienne maree brown’s writing on fractals. So many ideas here inspire me: that “small is all,” that transforming ourselves is the way to transform the world, that making a number of slight shifts in your own family, workplace, and community can reverberate as patterns replicate. Brown puts it much better:

How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale. The patterns of the universe repeat at scale. There is a structural echo that suggests two things: one, that there are shapes and patterns fundamental to our universe, and two, that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale.

Natural-world metaphors really work on me! It gives me hope, amidst so much injustice in the world, that the little things many of us are trying to do towards social and racial justice might ultimately lead to the deeper, transformative change we crave.

On that note, I’ll share two little cell-like contributions to that bigger vision of change: templates for short and long talking circles to hold after viewing CIRCLE UP. These are included in the facilitator guide Carolyn Boyes-Watson and I put together for the film. I hope this offering might be useful in some way to whoever is reading this – please let me know if it is (and I’d be happy to mail you a copy of the guide if you like to hold physical objects in your hands)!