Circle Processes

At Hortons Creek, we teach in circle each morning and afternoon. Most days, teachers will use the circle process to teach the Positivity Project character strength of the week. When situations occurr that need to be addressed with the whole class, however, teachers will plan a circle in response so the community can work through the challenge together.

Ideas for these circles are taken from Circle Forward (Boyes-Watson and Pranis) , Better Than Carrots or Sticks (Smith, Fisher, and Frey), and Troublemakers (Shalaby).

For example, if multiple students report to the teacher that a group of girls is not being kind at recess, the teacher would then plan a circle that calls out this behavior so the community can call in a response. Before the circle, the teacher, assistant principal or counselor will meet with the students involved individually (the children reporting the incidents, the children who were said to have been unkind, and other students in the class). If the problem does not seem to impact a majority of the class, this would be a better circle to have with the small group of students who are involved, not the entire class. When meeting with the victim and offender individually teacher might ask: What happened? What led up to this? What were you thinking at the time? What do you think about it now? How did you feel? What questions do you want to ask the offender? What would you like to say to the victim? Who or what could make things right? How can we make sure this doesn't happen again? When talking to the offender, it is important to name them positively. For example, "You are such a creative kid. I am suprised to hear about you treating your classmates this way. Do you know that you can hurt people with your words?"

Once we meet with each student involved, we hold a circle. The teacher would begin the circle with an opening ceremony to bring everyone into the safe space. The teacher would then explain the purpose of the circle - calling out the specific behavior that needs to be addressed. Using the talking piece, the teacher would give each child a chance to share how the situation is affecting them or how it is making them feel. In a second round, students share what they think needs to happen to make things right.

To close the circle, teachers might say, "Usually people behave in certain ways to meet a human need. They could be reponding to something going wrong in the way we're treating one another. But I need help figuring out what the need is, and what's going wrong. We can't have a classroom where people are suffering" (Shalaby). The teacher might then go on to say, "Some of us seem to be feeling angry. Are there things happening that are making some of you feel angry, even if you're not showing your anger in the same ways?" (Shalaby). The purpose of this closing statement/question is to help students focus on the actions without rejecting the individual. We want students to begin seeing this individual problem as a result of much bigger societal problems. There are problems in our world where anger is a reasonable feeling. Framing conversations in this way will allow student to begin to recognize problems we face in our world today and practice calling in creative solutions in the safe space of a classroom circle.

Can you imagine the impact our children might have on our world if they begin seeing, understanding and interrupting societal problems in this controlled environment?

Each of the books below have been instrumental in helping our school develop a process for using Circle Processes to strengthen our school community.