Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2015 V45 No 2 | Page 26

by _______.”
In Josh’s scenario, his apology went something like this: “Mr. Smith, I apologize for
leaving class early on Friday. I recognize
that by leaving class, I disrupted the learning environment. In the future, I promise I
will stay in class and complete the work you
assign us. If you notice me getting antsy or
agitated in the future, could you give me that
little head shake you do? That will remind
me of this conversation.”
Once we assisted Josh in crafting his apology, we then coached him on the various responses he could expect from the person he
was apologizing to by role-playing his apology being well received and then by roleplaying his apology not being well received.
This point cannot be underestimated.
Often, students feel that doing the work of
creating and delivering an apology should in
and of itself make everything all right. What
we know in doing this work is that sometimes
the person receiving the apology is still angry,
hurt or upset. And in that case, it is entirely
possible the person on the receiving end says
something that reflects those feelings.
We coach the students through that possibility and role-play negative responses. We
remind students that in crafting and delivering the apology, they are doing their part.
How others react is up to them. It is critical
that the person apologizing not react angrily
when faced with a negative reaction, because
if they do, they might as well not bother apologizing in the first place. In addition, if they
get angry, the person on the receiving end
will more than likely feel that they were right
about the person apologizing in the first place.
We are reminded of a time we were working with a middle school student and this
phenomenon became clear to us. The student got a referral from the “lunch lady” for
repeatedly cutting in line. We went through
the whole process of apologizing, and everything was going very well until we roleplayed the lunch lady not receiving the apology very well. The student we were working
with became really angry right there in the
assistant principal’s office, which ended up
being perfect because we were able to share
how important it is to simply say, “Thank
you for accepting my apology.” And to then
follow up the apology with actions that show
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Leadership

We remind students that in crafting and delivering an
apology, they are doing their part. How others react is up
to them. It is critical that the person apologizing not react
angrily when faced with a negative reaction...
the apology was sincere.
For Josh, after role-playing several times,
we told him it was time to go deliver the
apology. His eyes got huge and he asked,
“Now?” We replied, “Yep. The timing is perfect. It’s sixth period.” He responded, “I can’t
apologize in front of the whole class!” We
especially love it when kids say this because
then we get to say, “Well, you had no problem doing what you did in front of the whole
class, so now we’re going to go and make it
right in front of the whole class.” And for
that, there is no response. Josh nodded and
said, “Okay, let’s go.”
So here we go, the two of us, along with
the assistant principal and a teacher we
picked up along the way, all walking down
to the classroom. At this point, we are hoping for an open response, but the teacher
didn’t know we were coming, so a variety of
responses were certainly possible.
When we entered the classroom, the assistant principal asked if he could have a couple of minutes to speak to the class. After the
teacher agree