I pit students who punch their teachers

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]

Diane, I fail to see how your comments are helpful in the discussion. I happen to think it’s possible to be assertive and confident and NOT transform into a caricature of oneself. If you’re naturally soft-spoken, small, or even blonde :wink: , it is entirely possible to learn to be an effective classroom manager without resorting to yelling or growing “gonads.” The one-upmanship among students and teachers to see who is tougher is ultimately counterproductive for both. I’d be just as indignant if I heard this story concerning another adult working with children.

[/QUOTE]

Except that’s not what I said. I am quite aware that one can be soft spoken, small, and even blonde, and still be assertive. I certainly did not say anything about yelling. The “gonads” comment was a figure speech (Jesus people. . . . :rolleyes: and by “Jesus people” I don’t mean the Hari Krishnas). I did not say dick (no, not an actual penis) about any one-upmanship among students and teachers to see who is tougher.

What I actually said was, if those kids pick up on her self-image as a helpless little “girl”, they are going to walk all over her (do I need to explain the “walk all over her” thing"). Simple as that.
El Cid Viscoso - “Sultry. Like fire in a swamp. Hot, hot fire.” You lost me at “swamp”. :smiley:

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To clarify, I realize that your comments about gonads weren’t taken literal, I just wanted an excuse to mention the Hari Krishnas.

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[QUOTE=Diane]
What I actually said was, if those kids pick up on her self-image as a helpless little “girl”, they are going to walk all over her (do I need to explain the “walk all over her” thing"). Simple as that.
[/QUOTE]

+1

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I support the OP, especially since it brought to mind situations which have happened to my Fierra when she taught in England. Where most of the teenage “boys” outweighed her by 2:1, and gave no ambiguity that they would easily deck her if they felt like it - and who would “push her” out of their way in the classroom as a show of their “dominance”.

Anyone that cares do some searches on the situations of violence against teachers in English schools, and the pretty much worthless support the teachers receive from anyone.

As far as the rest of this gob-smacking clusterfuck of a thread, I’m not saying anything one way or another.

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As this thread appears to have found it’s natural end, I am a little late in responding to the comments about my “school psychologist” drive-by. If the subject comes up in a later thread, I will go into my thoughts in more detail. In short, the school psychologists I have dealt with in the CA public school system (both as a student and as an adult) have been uniformly useless- young, inexperienced, ineffective and combative when questioned.

Both my SIL’s have PhDs in psychology, and I know good ones when I see them.

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[QUOTE=Una Persson]
As far as the rest of this gob-smacking clusterfuck of a thread, I’m not saying anything one way or another.
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Wisdom which I’ll start living by.

Glad things worked for you, Perro Fumando!

Daniel

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[QUOTE=El Perro Fumando]
Don’t start feeling too sorry for the kid. Suspension for three days, followed by a transfer to another math class and he and his guardian will be signing an agreement that they understand that he is not to approach me at all for the remainder of his high school career. He will never be placed in my class again. He will also be given an all-expenses paid trip to nighttime anger management classes (for the three actual incidents I wrote up, some written by other teachers, and the threat to hit me again).

I’m satisfied with the result now. It’s a shame it took 3 days for this to happen, but it’s finally here. Thanks for the supportive words from those of you who gave them.
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3 days is warp factor speed, IMO. And this seems a good, practical and pragmatic solution–for all involved. I am glad to see the kid stays in school. And I am glad that you won’t have to deal with him. I do think that his quasi-restraining order may add some cache to his image, (sadly enough). I hope he straightens up and flies right.
And yes, even first year teachers should have better control over their classrooms. You are the responsible adult; this is their first (and hopefully only) shot at 9th grade. It all comes from you for that 50 minutes–they will either follow your lead or eat you alive. Your choice.

Most professions expect a certain working knowledge and basic competency from the get go. For example, a brand new nurse is as legally liable for an error as an experienced one–why is it different for teachers? All that said, chalk this up to experience and one that most likely won’t be repeated. Good luck.

tdn --I’ll happily join you in a discerning discussion aka bitch session about the woes of the gainfully employed! :slight_smile:

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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Most professions expect a certain working knowledge and basic competency from the get go. For example, a brand new nurse is as legally liable for an error as an experienced one–why is it different for teachers?
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It isn’t different for teachers: had she committed some act of negligence or abuse, she would be as legally liable as if she’d been teaching for twenty years. However, if a new nurse is unclear on how to best handle a (for example) racist and abusive patient, surely we ought to cut the nurse a little slack?

Daniel

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Well, that’s my point(but I didn’t express myself well). That new nurse should turn to her colleagues or administration to ask for guidance–not post on a message board, trolling for petite blonde sympathy. In this case, the aggressor is a child, which if anything, heightens the inequality of the power structure as well as it changes the outcomes striven for.

In the case of the nurse, it is usually an adult trying to harm the nurse. Neither child or adult matters a damn, really, since we are taught in nursing school that the patient is to be treated with respect and dignity at all times, no matter what the pt may be attempting to do to the nurse etc.

There is just some stuff that we (nurses) don’t talk about with lay people. Just as teacher wouldn’t say to a group of people who may or may not have ties to her school that she has a bunch of dolts or premature juvenile deliquents this year. Some lines should not be crossed. She has every right to her feelings, just not the right to expect public sympathy for them.

By no means do I want to sentimentalize this kid or what he did, but seems to me that the victim bit doesn’t wash, at least not in public. Bitch to the other teachers in the staff lounge, cry on husband’s shoulder, but in that classroom (and in public, since she is the representative of her school and her profession here), she must needs to stay in control: calm, cool, collected. I didn’t see that here. I am glad her AP resolved this (if it was indeed the AP who did)–it seems a good solution for all.

I have no issues with her, and I wish her all the luck in the world in teaching, but IMO, she needs to grow up a bit and realize that it’s a hard, cruel world, and in an unequal relationship such as teaching, judgement will be occasionally harsh and often unyielding. It is damned hard to learn that lesson, but IMO it’s better for all if it is learned. No one wants a nurse who talks trash about her pts; no one wants as a teacher someone who regards her pupils as problems. Hope this explains things.

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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Well, that’s my point(but I didn’t express myself well). That new nurse should turn to her colleagues or administration to ask for guidance–not post on a message board, trolling for petite blonde sympathy. In this case, the aggressor is a child, which if anything, heightens the inequality of the power structure as well as it changes the outcomes striven for.
[/quote]

I guess it seems to me that she did turn to colleagues and administration, and resolved the problem very effectively. Venting about it on a messageboard was not a substitute for action, but an addition to action.

Daniel

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[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
I guess it seems to me that she did turn to colleagues and administration, and resolved the problem very effectively. Venting about it on a messageboard was not a substitute for action, but an addition to action.

Daniel
[/QUOTE]

But I think she should have kept it in the staff lounge–that’s the difference. YMMV.

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Oh yes- no one should come in here to vent or bitch…

:rolleyes:

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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Expulsion solves nothing–it puts a kid with anger management issues outside his peer group and on the street with nothing but time and boredom on his hands–great solution! :rolleyes:
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No but part of the problem is that the reply to this students actions need to be quick and decisive. Failure to discipline a student harshly for something like this sets a horrific precedent.

The nursing anologies are kinda a little off base.

Nurses regularly keep their licences and easily replace jobs even with the occasional life threatening medication error. A teacher would be fired on the spot for defending themselves with anything more direct than hiding in a corner. Like the medical world, no matter how much training you have, no matter how much experience you have, stuff always happens, when you least expect it, from the angle you least expect, on the day you were least equipped emotionally to deal with it. Medical folks get alot of leeway there, teachers are often expected to operate in a fantasy world where everyone sits quietly and pays attention, does their homework, turns in all assignments.

In addition a patient is often incapable of any kind of meaningful physical force, a healthy 15 year old boy can beat you to death if he really wanted to. I know there are plenty of exceptions, I was an EMT and saw my share of combative patients.

Teachers also have to work long term, much of the medical profession sees a given patient between a few minutes and a few days. Caving to a demanding or threatening patient will rarely even be witnessed by anyone who will exploit that percieved weakness. Folding and not pursuing discipline in front of the class would cripple her ability to ever control her class for years, since the students invariably will talk about it and other students who think they can use theat of violence without repercussions eventually will. Even worse, imagine the student in question is a white male…if the next one isn’t and does get punished harshly…along come the allegations of racism and unequal treatment…lawsuits right behind that.

Drach - child of a kid who got in ALOT of trouble in HS, so much so that several veteran teachers asked of I was related to DrachDad.

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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
But I think she should have kept it in the staff lounge–that’s the difference. YMMV.
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WHY??? Isn’t bitching and complaining part of what the Pit is for? Plenty of people come here to vent about crap that happens at work. She didn’t give you an identifying information about herself or the kid, so why tell her she shouldn’t discuss it her? Better for her to sound off here than at work, where it could be used against her somehow. This is a ridiculous criticism to make of the OP, IMO.

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[QUOTE=drachillix]

The nursing anologies are kinda a little off base.

[/QUOTE]

Are you kidding? It was the only way eleanorigby could pat herself on the back.

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Drachillix --nursing isn’t long term? Tell that to the NH nurses who work with violent and combative Alzeimer’s pts. I see frequent flyers more often than American Airlines. Tell that to the prison nurses as well. A healthy 15 year old may be able to beat you to death–but that healthy 15 year old has a working brain, unlike the hopped up crack addict, the dementia pt etc. I’ve been doused with urine from an angry gang banger pt–NOT mentally incapicitated, unfortunately. Just sayin’.
Drago -I have no desire to pat myself on the back. I used the nursing examples 1. because it’s something I know, 2. nursing and teaching have more commonalities than not and 3. there are some things (again, MO) that service industry professionals should keep to themselves.

Clearly some (or most) don’t agree with me on this. OK.
Rubystreak --teachers bitch about their students frequently. My time as a sub showed me that. Nurses bitch and vent about pts and families as well. But I don’t bring that here (not when there might be legal ramifications as the OP stated) and I really don’t share it at home. I share it with my colleagues–NOT administration (unless appropriate).

I think the OP would have been better served with sharing this with her fellow teachers. That she felt compelled to bring it here hints at something else going on–perhaps she didn’t get the support from her fellow teachers? IF that is so, why is it so? Perhaps this school is not a good fit for her. I don’t know-that’s all speculation on my part. It’s not all that important to me, really, so I’ll drop it.

I still hope she toughens up for these types of situations and stays in teaching.

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Sorry, that should be Dag Otto. I need my morning tea.

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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I think the OP would have been better served with sharing this with her fellow teachers. That she felt compelled to bring it here hints at something else going on–perhaps she didn’t get the support from her fellow teachers?
[/QUOTE]

On the contrary, she might have broken federal law by sharing it with her fellow teachers. Teachers are subject to some pretty strict privacy rules, and sharing anecdotes about students with others who may identify those students is a good way to get into real trouble (at least, it is if the administration cares about federal privacy rules–may admins don’t).

She shared the story here, with folks who are extremely unlikely to be able to identify the student in question. That was far more appropriate than it would have been to gossip about the particular student in the teacher’s lounge, even if the latter is more common.

Incidentally, I’d say the same thing about nursing. If you were to gossip about problem patients in the lounge with other nurses or doctors, that would strike me as far more unprofessional than venting about them here would be. Do patients not have privacy protections that would prevent you from gossiping* about them with others who could identify them?

Daniel

  • I use “gossiping” to distinguish this sort of talk from talk within a professional context of trying to assist the patient. There’s nothing wrong with gossip in general.
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[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Rubystreak --teachers bitch about their students frequently. My time as a sub showed me that. Nurses bitch and vent about pts and families as well. But I don’t bring that here (not when there might be legal ramifications as the OP stated) and I really don’t share it at home. I share it with my colleagues–NOT administration (unless appropriate).
[/quote]

If she wanted disciplinary action for the kid, she kinda had to share it with administration, no?

How do you know she didn’t share it with her fellow teachers? Maybe she got home, was still fuming, decided to write a Pit thread about it? You have made several assumptions based on zero evidence, ie, that her fellow teachers didn’t support her. I’m pretty sure they would have, but the incident was fresh in her mind when she opened the thread. It’s her first year, maybe she doesn’t have a close enough friendship with anyone to go to that person all upset. It’s a professional environment, after all.

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Sometimes, it just boggles my mind what people will argue. The idea that this kid should get a pass because “boys will be boys” or it might “hurt his reputation” is at best moronic and is likely to land this kid in the federal pen some day.

Students test the limits. It is what they do. Developmentaly it is their job. They are testing to see the boundaries and to see what the rules are. If they hit a rule and it stays firm then they know the edge and although they may skate that edge, they will not go very far over. By not dealing with this student hitting students, the AP was doing this kid an amazing disservice.

Being easy on these kids is no favor, particularly for minority kids, where the outside world is likely to be a lot harsher to them than their white counterparts. By letting the rules in school slide, then they have to believe societies rules don’t count maybe then the rules in society don’t count eventually he will run into a rule that does, and it will be quite a bit worse than three days of suspension.

The other people it hurts is the other students. School should be as safe a place as we can make it. By letting the bullys have their way with no reprecussions that AP was giving him the power to destroy every other class he is in. This kind of thing is why schools are failing.