NATCHEZ — The Mississippi Association of Educators is hosting a workshop in Natchez Saturday aimed at helping teachers understand how their students’ lives and backgrounds impact learning.

MAE’s Restorative Justice project employs a communication model that helps teachers learn how to identify issues that may be holding students back. It also provides an opportunity for educators to examine their own backgrounds, preconceived notions and cultural influences that may be impeding their ability to reach their students.

MAE’s goal is to address the issue of low student performance by helping educators understand how school climate can positively or negatively impact a student’s ability to achieve their highest potential.

Participants form “peace circles,” and a circle keeper helps walk them through open and honest discussions of issues that impact their students and themselves.

“We are very excited to be offering this important opportunity for our teachers,” MAE President Joyce Helmick said. “MAE is dedicated to providing the very best learning opportunities for Mississippi students, and we believe that by helping educators build positive relationships with their students, we will lift up the achievement level for thousands of students across Mississippi.”

Helmick said other than their relationships with families, students’ relationships with teachers are “the most important harbingers of students’ self-image and awareness as they grow into adults.”

“All of us have been influenced by teachers,” Helmick said. “Part of our job here at MAE is to make sure that our teachers’ influence encourages students to be the best they can be.”

Transforming schools is as much about culture and climate as it is about curriculum, said Carol Redfield-Mims, MAE Central Mississippi Uniserv director and local Restorative Justice coordinator.

“Two things are clear — if schools are going to increase academic achievement, we must reduce conflict to keep students in the classroom and retain quality teachers,” Redfield-Mims said.

The peace circle model creates the conditions for students, teachers and community to come together in a safe space to address their feelings and needs, and reach a resolution that repairs harm and restores relationships, Redfield-Mims said.

“We believe that our participant teachers leave the workshop better positioned to deliver high-quality instruction,” Redfield-Mims said.

Participants in the six-hour course can earn continuing education units for $20. The event is free to MAE members and $25 for non-members.

The event is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Alcorn University Lecture Hall on the Natchez campus.

For more information or to register, visit maetoday.org/events.