ACADEMY FOR RESTORATIVE EDUCATION

One of the critical components to AFRE’s mission is to encourage the study of the impact that Restorative Education can have on learning. Multiple researchers have looked at the impact of poverty, educational level of the parents, high stakes testing and a multitude of other variants have on academic performance. Many overlook the role that historic trauma has had, and therefore fail to study potential remedies related to that trauma.

African American students fall behind White students in academic achievement even when socioeconomic class is controlled for. The different learning styles, communication styles, motivators and cultural expectations that African American students have are distinct from other groups, and thus the opportunities to help them thrive may lie in strategies that differ from those that make other students thrive.

The AFRE Flourish Fellowship will accept 1-2 academic fellows per year, who will conduct research under the guidance of academic mentors, with the intent of discovering specific, effective teaching strategies to help close the achievement gap and address the distinct learning needs of African American students. All research will be published in the AFRE academic publication and fellows will be recognized for their lasting contribution to the advancement of learning at an biennial research symposium.