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The example school at the end is an example of the nurturing approach I saw regularly over the years at our small independent school called Wondertree. Wondertree was an small, community school in which parents, learners and staff all worked together to meet the needs of the children. Sometimes it was very challenging, but always it was worth it. Some of the learners included children who had been considered "behavioural problem" kids in previous schools. Their "problems" often diminished or went away when they were loved and respected and mentored into understanding how to work with their emotions, manage their conflicts successfully, and ask for what they needed (such as a break from a stressful situation).
Consider the teenager playing basketball in this story. Here he was focusing on practising a skill, probably working through one of the many upsets of school life for a teenager using a perfectly healthy strategy: channeling his frustration into activity. Instead of talking with him, finding out what is going on, and supporting him to keep it up if he needed to, or negotiating an alternative that works for him and everyone else - he was tackled and quite possibly suffocated! This is of course the most extreme and horrible outcome, but the trauma of being subdued, restrained or isolated is clearly felt by the other children interviewed in the story. Let us first see that no other children suffer the fate of Corey Foster. And let us next see that all children are liberated from the confusing, painful relationships of traditional "Discipline". I think we can easily do what is being done at Centennial school in all our schools, and go well beyond our few shining examples into a rich and diverse world of nurturing, non-coercive schools.
