The Motte-and-Bailey Bait-and-Switch of Restorative Practices
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder identifies the rhetorical strategy behind restorative practices: defend the approach by retreating to universally accepted practices (the motte) while actually implementing the controversial elimination of consequences (the bailey).
Key Takeaways
- The motte-and-bailey is the strategy - When criticized, advocates retreat to 'we just want relationships and communication' (things everyone supports) while actually pushing to eliminate consequences
- We're already doing the good stuff - The positive elements of restorative practice — relationships, communication, understanding — are things good teachers have always done
- The new part is what's harmful - The actual innovation — replacing consequences with circles — is the part that doesn't work
Transcript
Educators already do the good parts of restorative practices kind of naturally and always have.
If you have ever pushed back against restorative practices and been criticized for it, the basis of that criticism has probably been that, like, how could you be opposed to building relationships and teaching skills and helping kids get along?
Well, those are things that educators have always been in favor of.
long before they were called restorative practices.
And I think the opposition to restorative practices that we're seeing now and that I'm kind of encouraging is the opposition to the mischaracterization of everything as teachable skills and the removal of consequences.
That is the part that does not work about restorative practices, and it's the part that's new.
And I heard an explanation of this type of argument recently called a Mott and Bailey argument, that there's a part that is defensible in an argument and a part that's not defensible.
And it is not defensible in this whole restorative practices argument that we should get rid of consequences.
Nobody seriously believes that that will work.
And when pressed on it, people will often say, well, no, I'm not saying get rid of all consequences.
We're just talking about building relationships and teaching skills and all the good things that educators have done anyway.
So there's this kind of bait and switch between the arguments.
a retreat from something that is what people really mean, but not really defensible.
They can't really say it out loud.
They can't really say, yes, let's get rid of all consequences, because again, nobody really believes that will work.
There's lots of evidence that it doesn't work.
So they retreat to this statement that, well, we're just building relationships, teaching skills, doing all these good things.
I think we've got to stand up and say, we have always done those things.
We have always cared about kids.
built relationships, tried to create a warm classroom environment, teach routines and procedures, teach expectations, put specific interventions and behavior plans and things like that in place for kids to do what we can to reach them when they're struggling.
But that is still not enough by itself.
And especially it is not enough if we try to replace consequences with rewards.
That's the other thing that people don't want to say out loud that they're doing.
They Nobody in their right mind would say that and expect to get away with it.
So they use this verbal sleight of hand and they call it restorative practices and they call it all this new stuff and they slam educators who push back as if they don't do all the good things.
What we're really pushing back due to is the inappropriate use of rewards and the inappropriate removal of consequences.
That's my take at least.
Let me know what you're seeing.
Let me know what you're hearing.
Let me know what you think.