“I\u2019m a dominating bully\u201d — how often do you hear sentences like that? For that matter, how often do you hear the voices of teens, no matter what they are saying, at conferences aimed at dealing with issues involving young people?<\/p>\n
The involvement of high school students as presenters at the sixth annual Restorative Justice Conference at the Marquette Alumni Memorial Union Tuesday was one of the reasons the day-long event, attended by a capacity crowd of about 350, was a success. The conference was sponsored by the Marquette Law School Restorative Justice Initiative.<\/p>\n
Three students from Milwaukee\u2019s Custer High School, two girls and a boy, didn\u2019t offer research evidence or a PowerPoint presentation. They just described incidents they have been involved in as bullies and as victims, gave their thoughts on why students act the way they do — and held the rapt attention of the audience.<\/p>\n
All three are part of the Violence Free Zone project at Custer, run by Running Rebels, a local organization that aims to direct teens away from violent behavior.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel people are bullies because they have nothing better to do,\u201d said Kenyonna Glass, an eleventh grader. Shanique Harvey, a senior, said kids act like bullies because they think it helps get them in with the popular crowd. Lavonte King, a freshman, said he had been both a bully and a victim. \u201cWhen I get bullied, I usually go bully someone else, take my anger out on someone else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked by moderator India McCanse, executive director of Literacy Services of Wisconsin, what advice they would have for parents who want to reduce the chance of their children being either bullies or victims, Shanique said, \u201cI would have to tell a parent to get more involved.\u201d She suggested parents take some days off work and spend the time with their children.<\/p>\n
But Kenyonna said, \u201cDepends on who the parents are.\u201d For many children, the problems of their parents are a major source of their own problems, she said. At another point, she said that often, \u201cThe person who is doing the bullying is probably going through things at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lavonte said he didn\u2019t feel he could talk to anyone in his family about problems he is having with bullying. He said sometimes he talks to his younger brother. The brother doesn\u2019t understand, he said, but it helps Lavonte to talk to him.<\/p>\n
Shanique said if adults in the family can\u2019t help, there are other adults. \u201cEvery child has someone they can look up to,\u201d she said. She said high school life is hard for many teens, adding, \u201cThey have so many opportunities, and they don\u2019t know they have them.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the keynote speech of the conference, Brenda Morrison, co-director of the Centre for Restorative Justice and an assistant professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, outlined the attributes of approaches that lead to justice being done with people and not to people, as she put it.<\/p>\n
Restorative justice efforts that aim to solve problems, heal wounds and direct those who have caused problems onto better paths are underway at many Milwaukee schools and in some criminal justice settings in Milwaukee. Morrison said, \u201cMilwaukee, you have a lot to be proud of.\u201d She said people elsewhere should learn from Milwaukee how to develop a comprehensive citywide strategy for restorative justice. She singled out for praise Justice Janine P. Geske, a distinguished professor on the law school faculty and head of the school\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n
Morrison offered the three R\u2019s of a restorative justice program \u2013 respect for the person, responsibility for behavior, and repair for harm done . She said, \u201cWe have to be willing to get involved in each other\u2019s lives and stand up against behavior such as bullying.\u201d As for lawyers, she said, \u201cThere are lots of really good lawyers doing amazing work within a system that needs to move to the next level of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conference concluded with presentation of Starfish Awards to eight Milwaukeeans for their contributions to the community. They are:<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m a dominating bully\u201d — how often do you hear sentences like that? For that matter, how often do you hear the voices of teens, no matter what they are saying, at conferences aimed at dealing with issues involving young people? The involvement of high school students as presenters at the sixth annual Restorative Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-law","category-speakers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}