Conflict as a Portal

The Invitation to Liberation

The Violence of Silence: When We Erase the Lessons of Conflict

bell hooks taught us that love and justice are inseparable. If love is the soil in which justice grows, then silence is the drought that stunts its roots.

Consider the trees that stand tall in a forest — each one shaped by the wind, the rain, and the storms. They don’t stand in isolation; they grow together, each influencing the other. The winds shape them, but they also provide a refuge for birds, shelter for animals. The storm might break branches, but it also clears space for new growth.

The forest thrives because of the constant push and pull, the harm and the healing.

In the classroom, when we tell our students to be quiet, to be still, to sit passively and “get along,” we deny them the winds, the rains — the experiences that deepen their roots. Conflict is the storm that clears out the old and makes space for new growth, but only if we’re willing to let the storm happen, and to be present for it.

If we fear conflict, we are fearing the very conditions that allow for growth. We are choosing stagnation. And in doing so, we are denying our students the opportunity to become who they are meant to be.

Restorative Practice Puts Us More On The Hook, Not Off It

Punishment is seductive because it promises simplicity. It offers an illusion of control — like a river that runs straight, cutting a narrow path through the land, but eventually becomes a shallow trickle, no longer able to nourish the ecosystem around it. Punishment does not require understanding. It does not require care. It does not require us to sit with discomfort. It is the bluntest tool of a system that prioritizes efficiency over humanity.

Punishment does not prevent harm. It only moves it out of sight.

Suspension does not undo harm, it simply relocates it. Detention does not teach accountability, it only teaches endurance. Expulsion does not create justice, it only creates isolation. Loretta J. Ross reminds us that calling out without creating pathways for accountability is just another form of disposability. Our students are not disposable. Our communities are not disposable. We are not disposable.

What if, instead of casting people out, we brought them back in? As Ross says, “a call in is a call out, with love.”

True accountability is like the river that winds and bends, carving deep channels into the earth. It flows, reshaping the land, but it never abandons its path. Real restoration is not soft — it is rooted in the deep work of transformation, much like the earth itself, which holds the scars of years of weathering and pressure. These scars don’t mark weakness; they mark resilience.

If we are to truly repair the harm in our classrooms and communities, we must acknowledge that harm does not happen in a vacuum, we have all been complicit in harm in one way or another. How were we received? Could we have learned the same lesson without shame, blame, or pain? Healing does not happen through simple, transactional measures. We cannot turn back time, as much as I love Cher! But we can flow forward, carving new channels of connection. We must help our students create the rivers of their own accountability.

Punishment isolates. Accountability brings us back together in the work of restoring trust. This creates deeper trust, not only between one another, but amongst the communities we belong to and serve.

Conflict as an Invitation: A Framework for Transformative Accountability

If harm is inevitable, then our work is not to avoid it. It is to transform it. We must understand truth-telling as liberation, understand the root causes, centre impact over intent, believe in the power of collective repair, and commit to change.

Truth-Telling as Liberation

Truth is like a seed buried deep within the soil. At first, it may seem insignificant, but when it’s allowed to sprout, it grows into something wild and beautiful. When we tell the truth about harm, we are planting the seeds of change. We are daring to pull back the soil, exposing what has been hidden so that new life can grow from it. The first step to repair is naming the harm. Not minimizing. Not explaining it away. But saying: this happened, and it matters. We cannot heal what we refuse to name.

Understanding Root Causes

The roots of a plant often extend far beyond what is visible above the ground. Just like the roots of harm — what we see on the surface is only a small part of the story. We must dig deeper and examine the unseen causes, the hidden systems that allow harm to proliferate. By doing so, we begin to understand the ecology of injustice — the ways in which it is intertwined with everything around it. Every act of harm has a history. What conditions made it possible? What unspoken dynamics of power are at play? What has this moment revealed that was always there, just beneath the surface?

Centring Impact Over Intent

The wind may not intend to uproot a tree, but the damage it causes is real. Harm does not wait for permission. It simply happens. And it is only when we centre impact over intent that we begin to repair the damage — not by focusing on the intention behind the harm alone, but on how to heal the ecosystem that has been disrupted. “I didn’t mean to” is not the end of the conversation — it is the beginning. Harm is about the effect of our actions, not just our intentions.

Collective Repair

The forest does not grow in isolation. It grows because of the interconnectedness of its trees, plants, animals, and soil. Repair must be collective, because no single individual can restore the ecosystem alone. We are all in this together — creating pathways for justice, reshaping the land, restoring what has been harmed. The work of repair is not solitary; it is communal. Accountability is not an individual burden — it is a shared responsibility. How do we, as a community, co-create justice? What does making it right actually look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like?

Committing to Change

The seasons change, the soil replenishes itself, the winds shift — but the forest remains. Change is constant, but it does not erase what came before. It builds upon it. True accountability is a practice, a way of being, much like the seasons circle back year after year, each time with a new offering. Justice is also a practice, not a single act. The work of repair is never over. It is beautiful, enriching, and an honour to be a part of the process of restorative and transformative work because when we are practicing restorative and transformative justice, we are as close to the sacredness of the land and the natural rhythms that we come from as we have ever been.

What This Looks Like in the Classroom

We must become like the forest, not the storm. A storm can rage through a place and leave devastation in its wake. But the forest — the forest teaches us how to grow through the seasons. It teaches us how to weather the storms and stand strong, side by side with our neighbours, even when the winds come.

When we replace rules with relationships, we are planting the seeds of trust.

Instead of rigid discipline, we build classrooms based on shared agreements — ones that students help create.

When we replace exile with engagement, we are nourishing the soil where true connection can take root.

Instead of sending students away when harm happens, we bring them into spaces where they can repair and be restored.

When we replace silence with dialogue, we are inviting the kind of growth that only happens in the open, under the light of truth and care.

Instead of pretending conflict doesn’t exist, we teach students how to navigate it with courage, clarity, and care.

In nature, nothing grows alone. And in our classrooms and communities, neither should our students or ourselves. Every conversation, every act of repair, every truth-telling is a step toward cultivating a land of justice. If our classrooms are not sites of justice, then where will justice be learned?

Conflict as a Portal: The Hardest and Most Necessary Work

Every rupture is an opening.

We can choose exile, punishment, silence.

Or we can choose repair, accountability, transformation.

One road preserves power.

The other builds something new.

And if we are here to teach, to guide, to liberate — then we already know which road we must take.

As we walk the path of education, let us remember that we are not merely tending to minds — we are tending to the spirit. We are not just planting knowledge, but cultivating the hearts and spirits of those in our care and by our side.

Just as a forest needs both the storm and the sunshine to thrive, our classrooms need the raw honesty of conflict and the gentle embrace of restoration to bloom into places of true learning and belonging.

In the end, it is not perfection we seek, but presence — the willingness to grow, together, through all seasons.

For classrooms that heal, not harm,

Ms. K