Compassion and restorative justice

In case you didn't know, I should tell you that I'm a vegetarian. I started doing it as a religious thing. It's a compassion training thing. I figured working where I was going to work...I should have more compassion. More empathy ain't bad either.

But I don't feel that I have had the opportunity to express my compassion through the system of punishment at my school. When students get less than an 8 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday on their contracts, they have that many hours loaded up in detention. You get a 3 then you have 5 hours. I make my kids do them. You can't have no accountability. If I want something different I've got to have something to replace it with. My problem with our system is that it is just a form of punishment. It doesn't make the person not want to do what they were doing, it just makes them not want to get punished for it.

I would like restorative justice to transform me. I'm hoping the process will be the tool to create the type of social environment and community that I want to be a member of. Restorative justice requires me to change my own mentality. Of course, the irony is that for it to be successful, the qualities that it requires from me are the ones that I need to work on the most. You know, things like listening and patience, and shit like that.

Last week Tuesday I went to see this guy Howard Zehr. He's this guy that's been involved in restorative justice for a while. He talked about the stories of victims. It was some heavy ass shit. Made me really rethink the way that I do things. Too often I focus on the offender to the neglect of the offended. His talk made me think about all the ways that I handled interactions in ways that weren't in line with my core values and beliefs. I have found in my life that when I my values and my actions are in harmony my mental state is as well. The more I move towards praxis the greater the self integration the greater my personal peace. I am hoping for some restorative justice for my self and greater peace. Either way, I feel going through the process of trying to make this work will be purifying for me.