I had just opened the school’s front door on my way out of a meeting at the Paul Cuffee Charter School when I heard a teacher holler: “That’s it! We need to have a circle, and we need it now.”

They need a circle?

He said it only once. And without protest, a group of 18-or-so angry, pursed-lipped second graders turned and marched into the building, like a band’s well-drilled tuba section smartly rounding a corner in a parade. The group looked comically serious, compared with all the other kids who were still out there skipping rope, shrieking and playing four-square, hardly looking up to see what the disturbance was about.

Apparently, calls for “circle” happen often at Cuffee. When problems arise, circles form. When kids get into a beef on the playground, they can’t resolve by themselves, the class assembles to sort things out.

At Cuffee, circles serve as mini-think tanks for just about any problem.

The school’s classes all begin with a “morning circle,” which is a central feature of a program called “Responsive Classroom.” Morning circle is not specifically about solving problems. It is a daily ritual during which the class practices effective ways of being with one another — taking turns, being polite, listening carefully, considering all points of view.

So every day begins by reestablishing the class as a community of colleagues about to spend the day working and learning together. The kids and teacher greet one another by name. Often they do a quick academic review, like count by sevens or name the state capitals east of the Mississippi. They share news. The teacher, who does facilitate, is just another member of the group, who might share news of her new pet or broken washing machine.

Responsive Classroom teaches that the key to maintaining good discipline is to establish a community to which each child belongs, and wants to belong.

But as David Bourns, head of school, says, “Even the morning circles are problem-solving opportunities.” So someone might complain of a minor theft. Or say, “I want Manny to quit yelling at me.” Or, “I think Debbie cheats at four-square.” Together, the class and the teacher create and maintain rules reflecting how they would like to be treated. Together they hear disputes and decide what consequences should be applied when rules are broken.

Morning circle takes 15 or 20 minutes, which seems like a big investment these days, when the school day is short and teachers must cover oceans of academic material. But the payoff is a strong, orderly community of individuals who are confident they can take care of a good portion of their own problems, and so create fewer discipline problems in the first place.

Circles, by various names, are a growing movement internationally — a back-to-the-future tribal strategy to help communities establish and reinforce their own standards of acceptable behavior.

Countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia have radically transformed their justice systems by incorporating the protocols of their own native people, respectively the First Nation people, the Aborigines and the Maori. The very act of working on problems together, even on divisive or criminal issues, builds and strengthens the bonds within a tribal community. Merely punishing wrongdoers never gets at the heart of the issue. Circles do. Disputants are held accountable — and might suffer serious consequences — but all sides are heard and taken into account. Young observers learn the arts of peacefully resolving disputes.

Modern life has been hard on naturally occurring circles that teach social skills. Fewer families have dinner together on a regular basis. Families no longer gather on Sunday afternoon at Grandma’s house, whether they want to or not. Sandlot baseball died, and unstructured play where kids work out the rules among themselves is becoming rare. Afterschool activities tend to be supervised by an authority who sets the rules and adjudicates disputes.

Without these natural circles, kids have few opportunities to learn, as Bourns puts it, “what it means to be fair; what it means to forgive; what it means to have courage or be loyal. These are things we need to work on every day. Circles need to be constantly maintained and reestablished, just as families do, for example, by sitting down with each other and telling stories about your day.”

Suzi Shaw, academic head of the Lower School, says the school certainly doesn’t leave it to the regular circle process to handle any child who is very disrespectful or violent or having a tantrum. Shaw says, “If children don’t feel safe, then we have to work with [the difficult child] outside of the classroom.” But even in those cases, the school does not fall back on merely enforcing rules. It involves the child’s family in creating a plan to deal with the behavior, at home as well as at school.

The power of circles to reintegrate wrongdoers back into the community depends on the individuals’ desire to get along with one another and to belong in the community. Not all do. Some students can be a lot of work to integrate, if they haven’t been well socialized at home or in their previous schools. Of these kids, Shaw says “We say we have to ‘Paul-Cuffeeize them,’ or teach them how to be part of a community.

Bourns says, “Circles are tools for us to work on our relationships and to help us define ourselves. Like any tool, as you get better at using it, you make more and more beautiful things.”

In last week’s column, I said that Pam Humphreys is a lawyer. While she has taken the Bar exam, she has not yet received the results.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.