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Creating a Complete 
Learning Community 
A New Chapter for Peace Learning Center and the Tribes Learning 
Community   

LYNNE MCMAHAN, TIFFANY TALBERT 

ABSTRACT 

More than one hundred years ago, John Dewey espoused an aligned belief that 
classrooms should be a model of the family, a complete community where students 
would be nurtured and grow through the learning culture. His profound belief in 
democracy and progressive education focused his pedagogical philosophy around 
creating civically engaged citizens. This ideal is one that is critically needed in 
2020—the year where racial and social justice and a global pandemic have 
unearthed and tested individual and systemic rights and responsibilities, requiring 
civically engaged citizens to move us through this unprecedented time. This article 
is intended to encourage and anchor the reader in the mission and vision and 
curriculum of two purpose-filled organizations (Tribes Learning Community, TLC 
and Peace Learning Center, PLC) that have taken Dewey’s beliefs and philosophy in 
a civically engaged, democratic classroom to the level of restorative action to build 
equitable, safe and courageous learning communities of trust and care for our 
students and the future of their world beyond the year 2020. To build well these 
equitable and effective learning communities, teaching and learning specific skill 
sets through social emotional learning, collaboration, and innovative strategies are 
essential.  

Keywords: civic engagement, resiliency, learning communities, relational trust, 
social emotional learning, equity, restorative practice 

Authors 

LYNNE MCMAHAN 
Associate Faculty member 
and Specialty Certification 
Coordinator, Prescott 
College 

Consultant and Online 
Platform Designer for the 
Transformational School 
Leadership Initiative 

TIFFANY TALBERT 
Director of Operations, 
Peace Learning Center 

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INTRODUCTION 

In the United States, the year 2020 has shined a 
light on equity as a central force for the 
educational, health, and economic outcomes of 
students, their teachers, and their families. 
Many schools and districts that serve youth from 
lower income families feature arbitrarily 
enforced rules, punitive discipline, silent 
lunchrooms, minimal recess, and authoritarian 
adults from non-representative communities of 
their students. These practices create hostile 
learning environments where learning is 
difficult and relationships are not prioritized. 
Add to this, a global pandemic has isolated not 
only students from their peers and teachers, 
their teachers and families are feeling this 
isolation as well.  

With this in mind, teachers and administrators in 
our preK-12 schools who are working diligently to 
change this paradigm of challenge to creative and 
constructive learning are asking the critical “how 
to” question: “How do we build safe and 
courageous learning communities of trust and 
care for our students in schools and classrooms 
during this time of racial and social justice 
restoration alongside an isolating global 
pandemic?” We believe the collaboration of Peace 
Learning Center (PLC) and the Tribes Learning 
Community (TLC) can answer this critical 
question through their combined curriculum 
focusing on building civically engaged, democratic 
classrooms that center the teaching and learning 
experience through equitable practices, social 
emotional learning skill development, and 
restorative practices.  

More than one hundred years ago, John Dewey 
espoused an aligned belief that classrooms should 
be a model of the family, a complete community 
where students would be nurtured and grow 
through the learning culture. His profound belief 
in democracy and progressive education focused 
his pedagogical philosophy around creating 
civically engaged citizens. What better place to 
develop this complete community of learning 
where productive individuals and citizens 

collaborate and learn through caring and positive 
classrooms and schools, both virtually and in 
person but in the container of the classroom? 
Within this caring container of the classroom, 
educators and students can unpack and 
experience individual and systemic rights and 
responsibilities, through civic and community 
engagement to move all of us through this 
unprecedented time. Classrooms can provide 
opportunities for deeper and more accurate 
conversations about our history and civic duties 
in a democracy where an individual’s inalienable 
rights and “justice for all” at the foundation of our 
nation’s constitution, has not been the lived 
experience for many of our children and their 
families, or the colleagues we work with. In order 
for our nation to move from the racial inequality 
our schools and classrooms have maintained and 
move away from this lived experience, we need a 
new way of learning and being together. We need 
a safe place to facilitate courageous conversations 
with our students through a critical pedagogical 
approach, while supporting students with social 
and emotional skill building to offset and thrive in 
the social isolation the COVID-19 pandemic has 
created. Knowing one’s self well is critical to this 
deeper learning and engagement in courageous 
conversations.  

We believe the curricular process of the TLC and 
the curriculum design of PLC provide educators 
and students this critical pedagogical opportunity. 
The following sections of this article include the 
work each organization is missioned to do, as well 
as real stories to anchor these missions. 

Classrooms can provide opportunities for 
deeper and more accurate conversations 

about our history and civic duties in a 
democracy where an individual’s 

inalienable rights and “justice for all” at 
the foundation of our nation’s constitution, 
has not been the lived experience for many 

of our children and their families, or the 
colleagues we work with. 

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THE MISSIONS OF PLC AND TLC: IN 
THE BEST INTEREST OF EDUCATORS 
AND THEIR STUDENTS  

In order to answer the question “how do we 
build safe and courageous learning communities 
of trust and care for our students in schools and 
classrooms during this time of racial and social 
justice restoration alongside an isolating global 
pandemic?” through the process of TLC and 
PLC curricula, we begin with the mission and 
history of each organization and their stories. 
Each organization was created to fulfill the duty 
of care to support and to create more civically 
engaged, equitable and peaceful learning 
communities.   

Peace Learning Center’s mission “supports 
communities in redefining peace through 
equity, social emotional learning, and the 
implementation of innovative practices. Our 
vision is a healed world where strong and caring 
communities strive together to fully live in 
peace” (peacelearningcenter.org). PLC has been 
working in the Indianapolis community for 23 
years, serving over 230,000 youth and adults.  

“The clear purpose of the Tribes process is to 
assure the healthy development of every child so 
that each one has the knowledge, skills and 
resiliency to be successful in a rapidly changing 
world” (tribes.com). When Jeanne Gibbs wrote 
the first Tribes book in the 1970s, little did she 
realize that the Tribes Learning Community 
process would help build community in 
educational settings well into the 21st century. 
With the support of many dedicated staff and 
district trainers, Tribes has reached over 46,000 
educators and their students in over 10,500 
schools in 43 countries. This leading social 
emotional learning (SEL) program currently 
offers training for elementary, middle and high 
school educators, as well as after school and 
youth development programs.   

The two organizations combined will have an 
impact on hundreds of thousands of youth and 
adults, educators and students, and 

communities around the world with their 
curricular focus on Social Emotional Learning, 
Equity, and Restorative Justice. TLC will 
provide the additional evidence-based 
curriculum that ensures classrooms move 
through a sustainable group development 
process of Inclusion, Influence, and 
Community. 

PEACE LEARNING CENTER 

Over 23 years ago two men were cross-country 
skiing in Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis, 
Indiana when they came across an old home 
abandoned by time and resources.  Today, that 
building is the site of Peace Learning Center 
(PLC), a nonprofit organization whose mission is 
to support communities in redefining peace 
through equity, social emotional learning, and the 
implementation of innovative practices. Tim 
Nation, co-founder, Executive Director, and one 
of those two men, had a vision that PLC could be 
a place where youth could learn about conflict 
resolution outside of their school settings.  

After many evolutions of the work at PLC, today 
these programs focus around three key categories: 
Social Emotional Learning, Equity, and 
Restorative Practices. Over the years PLC’s work 
in Restorative Practices and Equity has been 
bolstered by innovative programs backed up by 
data and external evaluations. In much the same 
way as Tribes, PLC’s approach is to work 
institutionally while also working on individual 
skills growth in each area. Through it all, the 
original concept of PLC has remained a priority: 
students need basic social emotional learning 
(SEL) skills such as conflict resolution to be 
successful at home, in school, and beyond. The 
SEL curriculum, developed by a team of 
professional facilitator/coordinators, addressed 
growing skills for students Preschool through 6th

grade through a series of eleven lessons focused 
on the five SEL skills: social awareness, self-
awareness, self-management, responsible 
decision-making, and maintaining healthy 
relationships (Collaborative for Academic, Social, 
and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2020).  

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While the end goal is to increase SEL skills for 
youth, PLC also hopes to build community and 
mutual respect in the classroom. Lesson subjects 
include: Being Yourself, Our Emotions Are 
Important, Mindfulness, We Are a Team, 
Handling Conflict Peacefully, Upstander or 
Bystander, and Peace Leaders in our Community. 
Each lesson is thirty minutes to an hour long, 
includes hands-on activities for youth and is 
accompanied by follow-up activities suggested for 
teachers. SEL skills are reinforced through field 
trips to PLC’s site where grade level teambuilding 
challenges create opportunities for youth to use 
their skills in new environments and with new 
individuals. 

Developed out of a rising need from schools, the 
equity work was created as a response to schools’ 
requests for meaningful and actionable 
professional development around diversity and 
differences. The foundation of this work is the 
“What’s Hidden Within: Implicit Bias 101 
Workshop.” This four-hour workshop examines 
what implicit bias is, how it differs from overt 
bias, how to recognize our own explicit and 
implicit bias and how we move past bias through 
actionable steps. Unique to the workshop is the 
built-in time for schools to develop personal and 
institutional action plans for next steps to 
mitigate bias. This program has been externally 
evaluated by Indiana University Purdue 
University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy 
and used widely throughout the state of Indiana. 

PLC has a strong Restorative Justice program 
that offers an innovative way to build healthy 
school cultures with built-in protocols for 
handling conflict and wrongdoing. The program 
teaches schools to build relationships and 
community through proactive circles; lead 
restorative chats where participants address one 
another in informal ways oriented toward fixing 
their own issues; lead responsive circles for full 
group dialogue about issues facing the whole 
group; and employ restorative conferences which 
bring together all parties where issues of serious 
harm have occurred. The Restorative Justice 

program was developed from the model used by 
the International Institute of Restorative 
Practices. Like Tribes, the restorative practices 
work is a demonstrating and training model that 
empowers educators to make them an active part 
of their classroom experience. 

The combination of each of these components, 
known as “One Indy,” was evaluated in the 2018-
2019 academic year with the goals of: “1) 
understanding the effectiveness of the initiative 
and its components; 2) identifying strengths and 
weaknesses of the initiative; and 3) providing 
recommendations to improve the One Indy 
initiative” (Mulholland, 2019, p. 14). Year after 
year internal evaluations have shown growth in 
SEL skills based on self-evaluation of students, 
as well as teacher evaluations of students’ skill 
growth. However, key takeaways from the 2019 
external evaluation shaped PLC’s next steps as an 
organization. The first recommendation was to 
increase the engagement of teachers.  

“Teachers play a huge role in shaping how 
positive conversations and relationship building 
can occur throughout the day. When the teachers 
are not participating in the sessions this ‘affects 
the power in the lesson.’ Generally, the more 
involved the teacher is in the SEL lessons, the 
more likely that the students are also going to be 
involved and receptive to the lessons” 
(Mulholland, 2019, p.14).  

The second recommendation was to increase 
opportunities for training for teachers around 
SEL skills. It was clear from surveys and focus 
groups with teachers that time and attention 
needed to be spent on providing teachers with 
an orientation and understanding of the need 
for instruction and skills in SEL. But perhaps 
one of the most critical deficiencies in the One 
Indy SEL program was that it was not on the 
CASEL approved program list which many 
educators and administrators look for when 
choosing curriculum and programming for 
their schools.  

An example of the Restorative Justice Program 

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is illustrated in the following story. With social 
media usage increasing and the divide between 
those different from ourselves becoming larger, 
more schools have found a need for PLC’s 
holistic approach for not only preventing, but 
also addressing the challenges they face. A 
school principal reached out to PLC when an 
incident of racial discrimination made national 
coverage. Using a popular application, 
Snapchat, a student took a photo of Sikh 
students (who wear turbans for their religion) 
and captioned it “bomb squad.” The snap soon 
went viral and all parties involved were called in 
for a restorative conference facilitated by PLC. 
The Sikh students maintained from the 
beginning that they did not want the other 
student punished, rather they wanted to dispel 
any perpetuated misconceptions about their 
culture and religion. As a group, the student 
who did the harm and those who were harmed, 
decided to provide educational presentations to 
the entire student body to educate them on the 
Sikh religion and culture. PLC’s restorative 
practices tools’ emphasis on equity through 
diversity education, and conflict resolution 
resources, turned the incident into a learning, 
growing, and relationship-building experience 
for everyone. 

TRIBES LEARNING COMMUNITY: A 
NEW WAY OF BEING TOGETHER    

The Tribes process for building communities for 
learning originated in the 1970’s by author 
Jeanne Gibbs to teach small groups of students 
and their teachers substance use and abuse 
prevention, replacing risky behaviors with 
positive choices. The focus was on the individual 
student, tapping into the human development 
themes of resiliency and belonging. The Tribes 
Learning Community (TLC) process created 
community building through inclusion and an 
active, safe environment. An unintended 
consequence of the original process, educators 
found the method gave them the opportunity to 
teach core academic subjects in the small group 
system more effectively. Student behavior 

problems decreased, student self-esteem and 
responsibility increased, and the overall climate 
of the classroom improved. The process is based 
on a synthesis of a wealth of research on human 
development, social emotional academic 
learning, resiliency, a caring culture, community 
building, professional development, authentic 
learning and assessment, reflective practices and 
systems change (Benard, 2005, p. 4).   

As with all effective processes, the pedagogy and 
andragogy of Tribes improved over the decades of 
implementation and consistency of use, as Jeanne 
Gibbs embedded the statement “trust the process” 
for educators to continue to be consistent in their 
facilitation, trusting that when challenges occur 
during the influence stage, if educators and 
students stay the course, a strong healthy learning 
community will emerge. The cooperative learning 
model built on positive group dynamics became 
one of the lead strategies of this improved 
process, transferring responsibility of problem-
solving and group learning support from the 
teacher, who becomes facilitator of the process, to 
the students managing their work together. Four 
Tribes Agreements were determined and 
comprise the “common language” of Tribes 
communities. The four agreements of mutual 
respect, attentive listening, appreciations/no put-
downs and the right to pass (as well as the right to 
participate), are the core tenets of building the 
classroom learning community.   

We, as public educators, must welcome all 
students, whatever a student comes with in 

their “backpack” full of life experiences that 
may include these societal factors. We 

must then passionately and compassionately 
provide opportunities for their emotional, 

social and academic success. We must learn 
well to understand the individuals they are 
when they come to us, helping them find a 

place of nurture and trust to grow beyond their 
“categories” of poverty, racial isolation, and 

student mobility. 

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As a process, building a Tribes learning 
community has developmental stages that 
occur within the class as the greater community 
or in the small cooperative groups called tribes. 
The three stages of group development are 
inclusion, influence and community, each 
corresponding to basic human needs. 
“Inclusion—the need for safety and belonging; 
influence—the need for respect, autonomy, 
identity, and power; and community—the need to 
be connected to something larger than ourselves 
that gives our lives meaning and purpose” 
(Benard, 2005, pp. 132-133). Specific activities 
help move the classroom community down the 
Tribes Trail (the group development process) as 
it is called. Two important components reinforce 
the group development down the Tribes Trail.  

One component is the community circle, where 
the class meets on a regular basis to discuss 
the community’s norms and expectations, as well 
as creating an opportunity for meaningful 
and respectful dialogue. In a circle, everyone can 
be seen and heard. “The circle is an ancient 
and universal symbol for unity and wholeness. 
For many millennia human beings have met in 
tribal or village circles to tell stories, provide 
mutual support, and arrive at an understanding 
of the common good” (Garfield et al. as quoted by 
Benard, 2005, p. 89).   

Reflection is the second component that is 
necessary to community and small 
group development. In reflection goals, working 
relationships, and the curriculum are processed 
by the class or in their tribes. Reflection 
increases meaning from the activity, 
continuously improving the quality of the group’s 
task, as well as giving teachers an immediate 
method for assessing learning objectives.  

Both components work because the level of 
relational trust has evolved from the community 
the teacher and students have built together. The 
focus of the community becomes the students and 
their learning, not the teacher and the teaching. 
This dynamic term of “relational trust” emerged 
from a longitudinal study of 400 schools in the 

Chicago area that began in the 1990s by Anthony 
Bryk and Barbara Schneider, affirming the strong 
belief that we must keep relationships and people 
at the heart of education in order to keep 
ourselves moving forward and positively in this 
often challenging work. In their book, Trust in 
Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement, Bryk 
and Schneider (2002) shared that relational trust 
was a critical factor to the ultimate outcome 
school reform was intending to produce, that of 
school success and student achievement. They 
were able to show that schools that were 
successful academically had high levels of relation 
trust. These trust relationships were between 
principals and faculty, faculty trust with each 
other, and trust between students and their 
teachers. Student benefits to relational trust with 
their teacher and peers takes on a level of 
inclusion that supports the emotional and 
academic well-being of all students, including the 
external factors that students of poverty and 
students of color experience (Bryk & Schneider, 
2002).   

These external factors are the reality of schools as 
schools are a microcosm of the greater 
community and mirror back the issues that 
emerge from it. With that said we, as public 
educators, must welcome all students, whatever a 
student comes with in their “backpack” full of life 
experiences that may include these societal 
factors. We must then passionately and 
compassionately provide opportunities for their 
emotional, social and academic success. We must 
learn well to understand the individuals they are 
when they come to us, helping them find a place 
of nurture and trust to grow beyond their 
“categories” of poverty, racial isolation, and 
student mobility. 

The mission of Tribes, “to assure the healthy 
development of every child so that each has the 
knowledge, skills, and resiliency to be successful 
in a rapidly changing world” (Gibbs, 2001, p. 
10) puts the essential component of relational
trust at the forefront of the process: to
create democratic classrooms where students and

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teachers teach and learn together and at the end 
of the year, have grown to be better people 
through relationship and learning. The Tribes 
agreements and community building process 
provides the learning community the tools and 
practice to create this relationship and bond, 
building relational trust between students and 
teachers, as well as giving staff members collegial 
connection in the six plus hours they are together 
each school day.   

The school and classroom community learns 
that when trust and belief in the process of 
Tribes happens, the consistency of use occurs, 
plateaus in the process are reached, overcome 
and deepened, and the emergence of an 
authentic, strong, professional learning 
community evolves in each classroom. Through 
positive and caring classroom communities, the 
greater school community blossoms.  

To share the story of TLC, the story of one Tribes 
focused school illustrates well the benefits of this 
process. In 2004, when the opportunity came to 
open a new school, literally from a bare piece 
of land, the questions of how to create caring and 
positive classrooms and school culture 
alongside Dewey’s democratic ideals and 
pedagogical philosophies, were at the forefront of 
planning and development. The new principal 
wanted to create a home and a family where staff 
members, students and their families would come 
to grow and learn as caring individuals and 
members of a community, while focusing on social 
justice by creating a holistic place for all. The 
diverse New Mexico community was an ideal 
opportunity for this to occur, as students were not 
only of Spanish descent, but Mexican American, 
Native American from various tribal 
communities, African American and Anglo. Staff 
members were hired intentionally to meet the 
needs and perspectives of the various community 
members, and family and community collaboration 
in building a learning community was welcomed.   

The process for creating community through 
Tribes: A New Way of Learning and 
Being Together was selected as the principal had 

years of imbedding it in her teaching and 
administrative experience. The goal was to create 
a community for learners that would sustain both 
the individual and the family it would 
become long after the principal had moved on. At 
its highest and best Tribes has helped both 
teacher and student co-create an enlightened 
learning community where healthy interactions 
and meaningful relationships are the norm, and 
where individuals reach their full potential by 
participating in an environment where mutual 
respect, collaborative learning, and commitment 
to the whole matter most. This was the legacy the 
principal hoped to leave.  

This new school embraced the belief of creating a 
strong, sustainable professional community for 
learning. The learning community worked hard to 
live up to the original intention and vision. In the 
first year, one of the fourth-grade teachers said 
best what the intention of becoming would be:   

“A school where the students are given 
grounding in the skills which will allow them 
to become persons of civic efficacy and social 
responsibility; where students are provided the 
opportunity to acquire self-reliance and self-
motivation; and where diversity is respected; a 
school where professional collaboration and 
cross-grade level dialogue  promotes 
achievement of standards-based learning for all 
our students; and where a love for life-long 
learning is instilled in students and staff, 
reminding us of what we are about” (McMahan, 
2007, p. 80).   

The mission of providing an education for the 
“whole child” and creating a collaborative 
environment through the Tribes process yielded a 
bountiful harvest of growth and learning as 
evidenced by continual improvement on the New 
Mexico Standards Based Assessment scores. From 
the first year as a school to the second year, 
students gained nearly 3 percentage points in 
reading and over 7 percentage points in math. 
From year three to year four students gained 
another nearly 7 percentage points in math and 
nearly 1.5 percentage points in reading. 

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After four years and substantial growth in 
student population from 765 to 1,550, the 
school divided into three new schools with 
three new visions and missions. The hope was 
that the sustainability through the Tribes 
professional learning community process 
carried on and embedded in the hearts of 
teachers and students. One of the third-grade 
teachers described this intention:  

“I believe as a teacher that creating a strong 
community within the classroom is vital for 
a productive year. By creating a strong bond, we 
are setting high goals and standards for our 
students to become life-long learners. My 
classroom is full of students that truly care about 
each other and feel comfortable sharing things 
with each other. My students work as a team to 
help each other to succeed. These children are 
very good about welcoming new students into 
our classroom by accepting them and making 
them a part of our community. Another positive 
aspect of having a sense of community is that it 
extends beyond my classroom walls and out into 
the entire school. I believe that not only do 
the children feel strongly about their community 
they have created, but I know that all of 
the teachers feel a bond with each other” 
(McMahan, 2007, p. 136). 

This teacher felt that the bond created by 
students and staff members formed the 
strength of the learning community and, with 
that foundation, could become the complete 
learning community that John Dewey had 
hoped would occur in a progressive, democratic 
educational environment.  

CONNECTING THE STORIES OF PLC 
AND TLC  

The acquisition of TLC as an organization by 
PLC has been a mutually beneficial intersection 
of the stories of each purpose-filled 
organization. The dilemma PLC struggled with 
in positioning the SEL curriculum with CASEL 
certified curriculum became more pronounced 
in the schools PLC served. TLC, with extensive 

evaluation and high value alignment was a 
perfect fit to complete the trio of offerings at 
PLC: Social Emotional Learning, Equity, and 
Restorative Justice. In schools like the one 
described, two-year evaluations of Tribes 
schools found improvements over control 
schools, such as:   

● evidence of improved student
inclusion, collaboration, respect for
multiracial populations, sense of value,
resiliency, and student engagement;

● students and staff enjoyed safe and
supportive classroom and school
environments;

● teachers and principals reported declines in
student referrals and suspensions;

● evidence of better classroom management
and increased teacher collaboration and
planning;

● three-quarters of teachers reported that the
Tribes process helped them to address
academic standards and helped students
master standards; and

● second and fifth grade reading and math
scores increased more in Tribes schools than in
comparison schools (WestEd, 2003).

What was even more compelling to PLC was that 
Tribes emphasized and reinforced their two 
other pillars of programming. Community 
Circles are at the heart of Restorative Practices 
work. These “proactive circles” are 80% of 
restorative practices and place meaning in 
relationship building among teachers and 
students. The Tribes Trail with its first stop of 
inclusion, gave life to their values of equitable 
practices, inclusiveness, and antiracism. As 
mentioned earlier, schools are microcosms of the 
greater community and the inequities that 
plague it also affect our students.   

While PLC was determining how to address the 
issue with their social emotional learning 
programming, Tribes was beginning a search of 

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a different nature. After several decades 
functioning as an organization run primarily by 
founder Jeanne Gibbs, her children, and long-
time trainers, it had become apparent that it was 
time for Tribes to find a new home. Candidly, 
many of those involved in the everyday business 
of Tribes were ready to retire from the profession 
and believed the organization could benefit from 
a younger, more diverse ownership. Having 
worked on collaborative projects with PLC in the 
past David Gibbs, Jeanne’s son, felt strongly that 
PLC would move Tribes in the right direction for 
future success and that PLC had solid value 
alignment with the curriculum his mother 
created. The partnership was mutually 
beneficial, allowing Tribes to find new ownership 
as well as filling a void in programming for PLC. 

In PLC’s home community of Indianapolis black 
students are 2.6 times more likely to be 
suspended than their white peers (Central 
Indiana Community Foundation, 2019). Due to 
disproportionate suspensions and expulsions for 
youth of color and LGBTQ youth, researchers 
have coined the term “school-to-prison pipeline.” 
What has been found is that students who are 
suspended just once in their school career are 
less likely to graduate with a high school 
diploma.  Furthermore, youth that do not 
graduate from high school are 3.5 times more 
likely to be arrested than peers who do (Central 
Indiana Community Foundation, 2019). The 
long-term effects of a single-biased and unjust 
interaction with the educational disciplinary 
system are real and felt by many. “Because 
educational attainment beyond high school has 
become the key determinant of economic 
opportunity and social mobility” the gaps in 
graduation caused by unjust discipline systems 
have real consequences for students of color 
(Lumina Foundation, 2019, p. 98).   

Both TLC and PLC have worked diligently to 
overcome this “school-to-prison pipeline” 
dilemma by providing proactive SEL work that 
builds relationships between teachers and 
students and between students and their peers, 

reducing bias, which in turn reduces the chance 
for disproportionate disciplinary actions. 
Moreover, the educational system in Indiana as 
well as the educational systems in most states 
across the country have acknowledged the need 
for SEL skill development in their districts and 
school. The Indiana Department of Education 
announced in 2019 that schools should 
implement SEL programming in some capacity 
(CICG, 2019). Many educators understand the 
necessity of these skills, but most believe they do 
not have the time or resources to dedicate to the 
topic.   

While 70% of principals expect their teachers to 
incorporate SEL skill development into their 
classrooms, they also acknowledge that “it’s hard 
because they have to get through so much 
curriculum for tests” (DePaoli, Atwell & 
Bridgeland, 2017, p. 21). In fact, more principals 
(71%) note that the greatest challenge to 
implementation is lack of time. The difference 
between the schools who are succeeding in SEL 
and those that are not comes down to, once 
again, equity. PLC sees Tribes as a way to level 
the playing field by providing teachers and 
students with tools and resources to incorporate 
SEL into their everyday curriculum. It is often 
said in the Tribes community that this process is 
not another thing for teachers to add to their 
plate, instead it is the plate on which everything 
else is supported. The Tribes plate that has 
always included SEL skill building and strategies 
for building resilient learning communities, now 
includes and supports PLC’s curriculum of SEL, 
Equity and Restorative Justice.  

This intersectionality of the Tribes Learning 
Community and Peace Learning Center is a new 
story that has yet to be fully realized and 
expressed, but as one organization working 
together to create a complete community of 
learning for the teachers, students, and families 
served, Dewey can be proud that his legacy of a 
democratic, civically engaged education will live 
on.

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COMMUNITY ENGAGED RESEARCH: PEACE & JUSTICE MCMAHAN | COMPLETE LEARNING COMMUNITY 

REFERENCES 

Benard, B. (2005). What is it about tribes: The research-based components of the developmental process of 
tribes learning communities. Windsor, CA: CenterSource Systems. 

Bryk, A.S. & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York, NY: 
Russell Sage Foundation. 

CASEL (2020). "What is SEL?" https://casel.org/what-is-sel/ 

CICF. Central Indiana Community Foundation, 11 Nov. 2019, www.cicf.org/ 

DePaoli, J. L., Atwell, M. N., & Bridgeland, J. (2017). Ready to Lead: A National Principal Survey on How 
Social and Emotional Learning Can Prepare Children and Transform Schools (pp. 1-57, Rep.). 
Chicago, IL: Civic Enterprises with Hart Research Associates. 

Gibbs, J. (2001). Tribes: A new way of learning and being together. Windsor, CA: CenterSource Systems, 
LLC. 

Lumina Foundation (2020). A Stronger Nation: Learning beyond high schools builds American talent (pp. 
96-102, Rep.). Indianapolis, IN: Lumina Foundation.

McMahan, L. (2007). From the Ground Up: Building and sustaining a new school’s learning community. 
Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico. 

Mulholland, S., PhD. (2019). Evaluation of One Indy: Evidence-based School Services Program (pp. 1-16, 
Rep.). Indianapolis, IN. 

WestEd (2003). Evaluation of the implementation and impact of Tribes TLC. San Francisco, CA. 

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