TRANSFORMING SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIN O'CONNOR, EDUCATION EQUITY INTERN

Erin O’Connor is completing an internship at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee focusing on education equity and working with the Transforming School Discipline Collaborative. She is currently an undergraduate at DePaul in the Secondary Education and Social Sciences program.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up? What was it like? 
I’m from Troy, outside of Detroit, but I went to school in a wealthy suburb called Birmingham. I was very aware of the privilege of the area- the Whiteness and the overall affluence- and I was aware that people around me were afraid of Detroit and of the people who lived there. When I was in school, there was talk of a bussing program between Detroit and the suburbs. At that point, Detroit was the most segregated metropolitan area in the country. Yet there was a huge resistance to any sort of bussing for fear of making our neighborhood “bad” because of “those people.” 

It’s interesting because I now live in Lakeview, near Wrigley Field. It’s a pretty conservative, White area. In some ways, it almost feels the same as the suburbs. That can be frustrating, but I have gotten to work in other areas of the city, and I’ve been involved in a lot of advocacy outside of DePaul and Lakeview.

What type of advocacy have you done around Chicago?
For about two years, I worked in a program in Englewood for students referred by teachers because of traumatic incidents. Students met everyday, and we’d start with a peace circle, and every Wednesday, they’d work on a coping skill with an individual mentor. Throughout the week, students worked to develop their coping strategies and shared their successes and challenges.  I worked specifically on the “literacy initiative,” so I did a lot of homework help and general care as well. 

In my freshman and sophomore year, I also worked as a tutor for immigrants and refugees with Heartland Alliance, and I ended up helping a lot of my students with citizenship tests, too. 

This year, through an office at DePaul, I was trained on restorative justice practices and specifically on peace circles. Soon, I’ll start working in a Chicago Public Schools high school facilitating peace circles; I’ll be placed in a classroom whose teacher applied for the program. The schools involved are mostly South Side schools, but as of right now I don’t know where I’ll be placed. 

Can you explain more about peace circles and restorative justice?
Restorative justice is based on the idea that people are more than their behaviors, that their behaviors are often the result of challenging environments, and that they can change. In my experience, restorative justice practices move away from punishment, because punishment generally leads to more harm and re-traumatizes students. Restorative justice started in prisons and is used to bring both sides of a conflict together for mediation. With students, it’s generally not a legal issue, but it’s more about sharing experiences, considering what may have fueled the action, and responding in a positive way that brings about reconciliation in the community.

That’s where peace circles come in. Generally, the teachers are overworked and overwhelmed, so they didn’t have time to process or work through all their students’ conflicts. A peace circle is  a space where students could identify why forms of violence happened and how it affected the people around them. The peace circle isn’t about blame or judgment, it’s about meeting people where they’re at. It’s about helping people realize the impact of their actions and find reconciliation with each other. There are still challenges - even peace circle supervisors can have implicit bias or minimize or misunderstand the experiences of students. And a lot of the students have challenges with mental, social and emotional health, so it’s hard to allow them space to process trauma while still keeping them and others safe. A lot of the kids I worked with were both victims and perpetrators of violence; it’s a cycle, and a peace circle is a way to address that.

Do you think peace circles are a viable option for schools who want to implement more trauma-informed services? 
Peace circles are low cost and effective, but I’m not always sure that institutions are interested in implementing these tools when it’s ultimately easier to just remove kids from classrooms. After SB100 was passed, schools have found ways around it. I would suspect that if there was any sort of mandate for trauma-informed services, schools would still find a way around it. On the other hand, if teachers and administrators begin to understand that the challenges students face are structural and inform their behaviors, and identify the needs of their students and communities, there is hope for change.

Plus, I think it’s important to understand that trauma services and restorative justice approaches have benefits outside of high trauma areas. It’s helpful for everyone, but it’s often framed as only helpful to those who are marginalized, which is a turn-off for many White, affluent voters, and so that makes it harder to implement systematically. We’re all living here together and a lot of this trauma is the result of historic discrimination and structural inequity- and the reality is that’s a lot of people’s fault. If we acknowledge that, maybe these services can be implemented.