Attacked!

Imagine this.  You’re teaching, and you ask a student to quiet down.  The student, instead of shutting up, starts f-bombing you (that’s the f-word) and runs toward your staff assistant.  You get up, stand in between the student and the paraprofessional, and he starts punching you in the face and kicking you.

Have you dealt with a situation like this before?  If so, how did you handle it?  Did the student get arrested?  Did the student get expelled?

How do things get this out of control?

I’ll tell you.

When students misbehave, they get interviewed instead of you.  Then, when you get interviewed, your word is doubted because people already have a picture of what happened (painted by your very truthful student).

Often, you hear from your staff assistant that your students are in the main office.  You don’t know why.  Nobody tells you.  In your next meeting, you are told that you shouldn’t say such and such to the students, that it’s not professional.  You wonder why your side of the story was never heard.

You have consequences for poor behavior, like lunch detention, but parents complain so that is taken from you.  You have a radio, but you get in trouble when you use it.  You call security, but security complains because you call too much, and because it’s not a “real” emergency.

The kids don’t like it when you raise your voice, so they get to sit in the office instead of  in your class, and you just think they’re absent.  Students complain that you aren’t fair, so they’re transferred to another class.  Students want to see a counselor because you asked them to follow directions, so they walk out the door whenever they want without consequences.  You have no say-so.

Students fill out behavior sheets, but some say, “I don’t do those.”  You can’t enforce it because nobody really cares, as long as the parents aren’t complaining and the student isn’t bothering the important people.

You give consequences, and people with more authority than you take them away, effectively undermining what little authority you have over your students.

That’s how.