Course Info – Unitive Justice in Education International Program – Primary, Level I

EDUCATION

Unitive Justice in Education International Program – Primary, Level I

One theory. One framework. One culture.

What this course is about

A school is the first justice system most children ever encounter. Long before they can define the word, children learn what justice is from how they are treated, and from watching what happens to the child beside them. What a school teaches them about worth, blame, and belonging settles deep and stays.

Most people who work with young children came to the work out of love for them. Too often that impulse now runs up against requirements, reports, behavior charts, and the daily work of keeping order. The trouble is not the people who care for children. It is the structures they are asked to work within.

Unitive Justice offers a different architecture. Fourteen structures found in every punitive system are each paired with a unitive structure that can replace it. The movement from one structure to its counterpart is called an Arc. Together, the 14 Arcs form a map for system change — one that applies at every scale of a child’s education, from a single classroom to a whole school, a community of schools, a nation’s school system.

The course also examines something rarely noticed: every system carries its own language, and it is the combination of structure and language that has sustained punitive justice for thousands of years, but without us being aware of what or how that was happening. That same combination is what makes lovingkindness foundational in unitive systems, but now as a conscious choice.

Because those who work in primary schools see every day the effects of early adversity on children, Level I also includes a lesson on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and what trauma looks like in a school, placed early in the course, at Lesson Three.

The course is offered in two levels, taken one level at a time. Level I has eleven lessons and covers Arcs 1 through 7. Level II has ten lessons and covers Arcs 8 through 14.

Who this course is for

This course is for anyone who believes that a school can and should reflect our deepest values as a human community. It is for teachers, teaching assistants, counselors, and school leaders who entered this work out of love for children and feel that original impulse slipping away under the daily pressures of school life. It is equally for everyone else whose ordinary interactions teach a child what fairness looks like — office staff, caretakers, cooks, drivers, security staff, technicians, coaches, and playground supervisors, as well as families, elders, volunteers, and school committee members — and for those preparing to teach. No prior knowledge of or experience with Unitive Justice is required. This course does not single out any role, school, or individual for blame — it looks instead at the structures that shape everyone who works within them, and discovers the common ground and shared humanity on which a different kind of school can be built.

Two ways to take it: Study Group and Self-Directed

The course is available to study groups of 6 to 12 people led by a volunteer course leader, and as a self-directed course for individuals.

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