Earlier today we got to sit down and talk with Anne Bauer, a professor of education at UC with a focus on special education. Professor Bauer invited us to Ethel M. Taylor Academy, a local elementary school with a high rate of students living in poverty. Birdo, Rachel, and I had a great, eye-opening conversation with Professor Bauer where we discussed the most critical time when it comes to a child’s early education, the educational needs of children in poverty, and where Cincinnati schools fall short in providing those needs.
Professor Bauer made it clear that growth and learning begins at birth so, the most critical time for a child’s development is within that first year. She highlighted that the key skill that children in poverty are falling behind in is communication – including both verbal and emotional. She explained that the communication skills and language a child is exposed to at home, greatly impacts their growth in these skills at school. This idea connects back to the matter of the first year of a child’s life being the most critical because how a parent interacts with their baby imprints on them and begins to inform how that child will interact with the world around them.
Professor Bauer made it clear that growth and learning begins at birth so, the most critical time for a child’s development is within that first year. She highlighted that the key skill that children in poverty are falling behind in is communication – including both verbal and emotional. She explained that the communication skills and language a child is exposed to at home, greatly impacts their growth in these skills at school. This idea connects back to the matter of the first year of a child’s life being the most critical because how a parent interacts with their baby imprints on them and begins to inform how that child will interact with the world around them.
Towards the end of our conversation, Professor Bauer told us about restorative conversations, a communication strategy that enables those who have been harmed to convey the impact of the harm to those responsible, and for those responsible to acknowledge this impact and take steps to put it right. This strategy has been implemented in schools around the country and is beginning to be implemented in elementary schools in Cincinnati. The strategy can help break communication barriers between a teacher and a student namely in moments of conflict. Imagine a student is not complying with instructions a teacher gives and that instructor becomes frustrated with the student. In this scenario, if the problem persists almost always the solution is for the teacher is to kick the student out of class. What happens then is that the student walks away from the conflict not fully expressing their true feelings or intent and not truly understanding the other person’s feelings and actions. The restorative method aims to break that barrier that exists between a student in conflict and a productive solution by helping both the student and the teacher express emotions, address conflict, and restore relationships.
Professor Bauer explained to us the power and importance of restorative conversations especially when it comes to a child experiencing poverty. Typically these children haven’t been taught to communicate their feelings in an effective way so, their anger or reactions to a conflict may be misunderstood or addressed ineffectively. When Professor Bauer told us about this communication strategy she also mentioned how there was a lack of visual aids that could help teachers or school administrators better implement and use this method. She suggested we spend some time researching the strategy further and maybe focus our solution on restorative conversations. We couldn’t agree more with her and so now we begin the next chapter or phase in our research where we narrow in on this problem space. We hope to better understand the impact of restorative conversations through individual research and reaching out to Todd Haydon, a resource that Professor Bauer recommended to us to better understand this method. With this breakthrough, we hope to create a visual solution that can truly make a lasting positive impact.
Design Methodologies 