The officer was wrong, but let's also be realistic.

outside the classroom..yes...the other students know the drill, and will tell the jerk to go outside..why? this is upsetting to all, and all want that situation to be over and done with..yes..I am realistic..it works..just wait..The other students will say...".Go outside and talk to the teacher.."

yes..that is what happened and will happen..everyone wants to avoid an in class confrontation..yes, everyone.

.Outside the room things can be handled easily....and quietly....yes!!!! but you got to be patient...

I learned patience early on. If the teacher is waiting outside..eventually the stubborn one, gets up and goes outside to talk to the teacher..every student in classrooms from kindergarten up, knows the drill. They see it many times..It isn't pretty, but it worked.
Yes, the others eventually badger the stubborn one to go outside and talk to the teacher...

I'm not doubting your own experience, but I note that it contrasts with my own.

a teacher so my 5th grade class was allowed study time without supervision.

All hell broke loose every time they did that. Just a few examples. We put the wast basket on top of the desk with the smallest girl in it so she could direct us in our creativity. Students raced over the tops of desks. No one was quiet. Total chaos.

This was in an all white school in the early 50s. They quickly learned not to ignore us.

BTW the girl in the waste basket is now a teacher.

I am surprised that your actions worked. But of course the kids knew you were just outside the door. We knew we were alone.

Just read the above post and realized I have seen this in action. 4th grade our teacher was dating one of the classes uncles and he shot a spit ball at her. She turned around and asked who did it - no one answered - we waited for a whole hour and no one answered. They even kept us after school while the buses left. Finally he got up and confessed. We all had to call our parents to come and get us. But the waiting did finally pay off.

Today, that would result in lawsuits, not entirely unjustified. Also, union contracts often have restrictions on how long teachers can be required to stay beyond the regular school day.

Your 4th grade example was decades ago, I know, but I don't believe that it would work today. Certainly not the arbitrary and ad hoc decision to hold the kids against their will.

If we were to follow the guide above, about the time another student said something to the disrupter, it would start a physical altercation between the students.

Going to be interesting hoe this evolves. I have not seen the new video. I just heard it on the local news.

You'll see that the only "hitting" that took place was when she was forcefully grabbed around the neck from behind. Anyone would instinctively try to protect him or herself when forcefully grabbed like that.

If you can watch this 26 second video and conclude that that counts as hitting, then...well, no words...

They still handled it poorly because the presumption was that force was a legitimate way to handle a disobedient child.

If you're going to suggest waiting, the teacher might have well just called the parents and moved the class to another room. The girl obviously needed a cool off period, not an escalating encounter.

Why can't people get this?

Oh boy.

I'm glad I'm not a teacher any more and don't have to deal with this sort of garbage.

Temporarily move the classroom for, at most, one day and avoid the whole confrontation?

Or have a resource officer resort to the escalation of prison-grade force on a child in front of your class?

This is a stupid easy choice here.

And carried her out of the room. When I was a teenager, something like that would have freaked me out and I would have been more than ready to cooperate - without any physical abuse as shown in the video.

that some of the ex-teachers on DU would make this a battle of egos over who will control "their" classroom.

And that's probably why they side with the cop. They probably see the classroom as their "territory" and any disobedience is an affront to the little world they feel they control.

I guess it would be too humiliating for them to just walk away with the rest of their class and allow the girl's emotions to settle down by herself or with a counselor or parent. No, they have to have a child physically dragged out of the classroom like a boss, right?

Like everyone will be real impressed with their power.

I had lots of teachers like that when I was a kid. I also had a few that wanted absolute control and felt that any questioning of their authority was a challenge. I learned so much more from the teachers who did not act like dictators. Even though there were kids that attempted disruption, there was never once a physical confrontation between teachers and students and we certainly didn't have cops enforcing the rules in school!

What do we expect in this country after decades of cowboy dictators in charge? The attitude seems to be prevalent that any questioning of authority or the status quo has to be squashed with maximum power, whether in classrooms, on the streets, or in international diplomacy. President Obama has dialed that back internationally, but the trend in the streets and in classrooms seems to have accelerated.

Teaching has been denigrated as a profession so teachers do not get the respect they should - and many of the people now in the classrooms have not been trained as thoroughly as teachers in the past. I suspect the better teachers of the past have long since left the profession and we're left with less well trained teachers who barely have a grasp of their profession much less the confidence to handle disruptive students.

How often should such behavior be tolerated? Once per month? Per week? Per day? Whenever the student feels like it?

Why should one difficult student be given absolute priority over the other 24 students?

And where should the other students go if there are no other suitable rooms in which to teach the class?

I'm not asking about the current situation, in which the assailant was entirely unjustified in attacking the girl, but you've made some bold declarations, and I'd like to clarify a few points.


Thanks!

Last edited Wed Oct 28, 2015, 04:50 PM - Edit history (1)

The OP suggests that the teacher use patience and peer pressure from the other students to get the bratty kid out into the hallway to talk to the teacher. Other teachers have suggested the inverse — have the other students leave the classroom and deprive the disruptive student of their audience to end the confrontation.

Either way avoids the extremely poorly handed way that we saw on the video with the violent manhandling and dragging of the female student by a male officer.

Again, I go with the teachers who have actual experience in handling classroom disruptions.

Violent, bully cops, no way.

I mean, I side with good, experienced teachers as well, but where does that leave us? Who gets to say what qualifies as a good teacher? How much experience is enough? If two good, experienced teachers reach different, incompatible conclusions, then who is correct?

I simply don't believe that having the teacher leave the room would work. Looking back on my own schooling, I can imagine no situation that would have been resolved by having the teacher flee the scene, because it's an explicit declaration that the disruptive student is in command of the situation. Certainly the other students wouldn't rise up to chastise the troublemaker, at least not without risking getting their asses kicked. And, anyway, why on earth should it be the responsibility of the other students to discipline a troublemaker when the teacher clearly can't manage it?

As for ushering the non-troublemakers from the classroom, well that again gives 100% of the power to the disruptive student and holds the entirety of the class hostage. As before, from my own school experience, this would validate absolutely everything that the disruptive student was trying to achieve. It would also solidify the intended disruption; if the teacher and students are standing in the hall, or if they have to find an empty room somewhere, they sure as hell won't be engaged in an active learning process.

I don't know what the answer might be, but it doesn't seem that either of these answers is correct.

and haven't seen either method in actual practice, I really don't get your doubt about if either way works.

Especially since teachers who have used both methods have been successful deploying them.

You state in the first method that the teacher "flees" the scene when that is hardly what was described. The teacher actually remained at the door in the hallway, still very much in contact with the situation. In the second version, taking the rest of the kids out of the class is much like a parent having learned to ignore a tantrum throwing kid until the brat realizes their acting out is not going to work.

As far as giving a disruptive student power, that so-called power is fleeting and gone once the student is disciplined by a suspension and/or their parents being called.

Again, I go with the teachers who have been successful using both methods and shared their experience with us.

Having known disruptors, I simply don't believe that either scenario works as described, in the same way that ignoring a bully absolutely dosen't work, After-School Specials notwithstanding. And if the teacher exits the room, leaving the non-disruptors behind, then he or she has indeed fled the scene, abdicating the role of authority figure to whoever happens to step up.

What's the point of standing in the doorway? How long should the teacher stand there? What does he or she do while standing there? What is the rest of the class doing while the teacher is standing there? Not learning, that's for sure. Or, rather, learning that a disruptor can easily get what he wants if what he wants is simply to disrupt the class.

As for the 2nd scenario, it is obviously not like a parent ignoring a tantrum! It's like the parent telling everyone in the restaurant to leave until the disruptor has decided that he's content with his complete control of the situation.

Again, it comes down to how we judge "good" teachers. If I can find ten good teachers who don't believe those methods will work, will that make me right?

As I mentioned, I've never made a souffle, but if someone proposed a goofy-sounding method to make them, it wouldn't be wrong of me to say "I'm not convinced." Especially if I've seen the proposed method fail or if other qualified bakers declare the method ineffective.

you continue to maintain you know better than actual experienced teachers who have use both methods successfully.

Good luck with that mindset.

"You don't know as well as this or that professional." Blah blah blah.

You, in turn, are saying "everyone in this thread whose experiences don't match these particular teachers' experiences is pig-headed and wrong."


Good luck with that mindset: someone who disagrees is wrong.

and I didn't say anyone was wrong. I cited two examples of teachers who were successful — quite a difference.

The only one I said was wrong was the bully cop.

Forgive me if I don't accept on faith that the stories of these two teachers apply across the board. I don't doubt their experiences, but they aren't consistent with my own. I wasn't the teacher, but so what? Why should that mean that my perspective is invalid?

If those strategies work, that's super-duper. What about when they don't? Should we keep pretending?

Can you at least acknowledge that possibility?

I know my field and I know it well.

I don't assume though that I know better than others actually practicing their profession in another field.

That wouldn't be too smart.

When you can't refute, belittle. And be sure to be smarmy about it.

I know my field very well, but I don't assume that the opinions and experiences of people outside of my field are invalid.

That would be the height of arrogance.

You implied, no you more than implied, you said the actual successful techniques of teaching professionals wouldn't work.

Now that's arrogance, so I've had enough of you.

Sorry to break it to you, but you are not the arbiter of truth.

But you're correct on one count: I have not implied but rather have stated explicitly that the methods described would not have worked in the situations I have witnessed given the people involved. I am not declaring that the methods cannot work; I am correctly observing that they are not the panacea that they are portrayed to be.

You have repeatedly and summarily dismissed my experience--and thereby the comparable experiences of others in this thread--as incorrect because I'm not a teacher, which is an arrogant and authoritarian of you, not to mention a prime example of confirmation bias.


But you've declared that you've have had enough of me. If that declaration allows you to exit the discussion in a way that you find satisfying, far be it from me to dissuade you.

I was in classes that were absolutely useless because of disruptive kids. Seriously-- we had almost zero time devoted to any actual instruction. It was honestly more like a prison yard than a classroom. I later transferred into the AP classes and couldn't believe the difference. It was great.

My attitude towards disruptive students is that they be removed from class and expelled ASAP. Not supporting this teacher's decision to escalate the situation by calling the police, but really-- I don't see why disruptive kids should be allowed such power over the situation, and it just isn't about them anyway. It's about the rest of the class.

I was referring to two techniques that actual teachers on this and another thread used successfully.

Of course once the kid is out of the class he/she should be dealt with appropriately by the administration — whether that's suspension or parents being called.

I don't think expelling is an avenue nowadays because of a possible lawsuit.

And the teachers examples I referred to were public schools.

My point is there are workable solutions that don't involve violent cops.

to these limits. I'm just saying, when it does get to the point where nothing can get the child to comply, the choice should be made to move the class rather than beat a child into submission with prison-grade disipline. If it keeps up, the school can build a profile for expulsion.

As far as where the class would go if no other room were avaible, someone suggested taking them outside, for one. But I would also suggest the library, gym, cafeteria, etc. Where ever a room wasn't being used at that time.

Now, you mentioned you thought the assailant in the current situation was entirely unjustified. Good. How would you handle it then? Anything is better than using physical force on a student.

Well, I would hope that among rational human beings (as opposed to that fuckwit power-drunk asshole in the video), this would be the default position.

In so doing, we hold the other students hostage in order to hand all of the power to the disruptive student. And who will watch over the disruptor during this time? And this assumes, after all, that they're fleeing a class that can be easily resumed in another location. What if it's a chemistry class? Or music? Or swimming? Maybe they can all backstroke to the library?

Assuming that the student is not harming (nor credibly threatening to harm) anyone else, I agree that physical force is unacceptable. Still, it strikes me as unfair to--in essence--punish the other students for the sake of the disruptor.

I simply don't have an answer, but in the same way that I don't know how to bake a souffle, I can tell when a proposed technique is wildly ill-suited to the task. It seems that some middle ground must exist between "assault the disruptive student" and "herd the non-disruptive students into a holding pen."

to the other students.

The idea that it is near an impossibility to move a class or change the assignment for, at most, a single day strikes me as odd considering children move around all day to get from class to class and assignments change when a teacher may be out sick or whatever.

You don't have an answer because you don't want to accept the answer is you leave.

My sons' use laptops and interactive audiovisual materials on equipment built into their classroom. You propose that the teacher should drag them to some other room to... What? Pretend to have their laptops and AV equipment? How do you relocate an art class? Or a music class? Or a swimming class? Many schools don't have the luxury of fully equipped spare rooms; into which shoebox should the non-disruptors be stuffed? Moving the non-disruptors to accommodate the disruptor is certainly punishing the non-disruptors, and it creates a bigger disruption than was likely going on in the first place.

You assume that the answer is to flee the scene, either with or without the non-disruptive students. You don't have an answer because you refuse to see that your proposed solutions can simply ratify the disruptor's behavior.

Last edited Wed Oct 28, 2015, 07:08 PM - Edit history (1)

If you're at the point where a student is so disobedient they refuse to comply with any requests, and you can't physically make them comply in a way that would not be considered barbaric, you have to face the fact that you have a situation on your hands. So there's is not going to be a solution satisfying to you as a teacher. That ship has sailed already. An uncooperative student is an inconvenience by itself whether you ignore them or act upon them. You have to deal with it.

And that calls for several possible inconvenient solutions short of violence.

1.) The parent is informed that the school administrator is giving the uncooperative child permission to leave school with the parent's okay.

If, after being explained the situation, the parent does not grant the okay for their child to be released from school:

2.) The teacher may have to bite the bullet and move their class (including altering the day's assignment), as inconvenient as that may be. (But insisting an uncooperative student comply with directions under the threat of force IS part of the problem or, more precisely, the introduction of a higher degree of problem, not a solution.)

Once the student vacates the school for the day, several, also inconvenient but non-violent, ways for dealing with the student can be executed.

a.) The school could move to expel. Here, I suspect, you will object due to the very real possibility of a lawsuit. But consider the current situation we have now where the school did not bend a little and are probably now facing a lawsuit for a physical attack on a student.

b.) If the student has shown no change in attitude or a sign of resolution they can be denied either entry into the school or to that specific class, depending on the case.

c.) Any other option you can think of as long as it doesn't involve violence on a student.

Will some solutions result in lawsuits? Perhaps. But you will have removed violence as an option of resolution.

But I'm not sure who you're addressing with this, since I certainly haven't advocated for a violent response--quite the opposite, in fact. Can we establish that as our common ground and move on from there without repeatedly rehashing it?

I'm on board with this, but rather giving the child permission to leave, why not require the child to leave? This would mean, for younger kids, that the parents/guardians/authorized adult must retrieve them. And if the child does not leave when required, then the child is trespassing.
Again, this is collective punishment of the 24 or so non-disruptive students, which you acknowledge (i.e., "as inconvenient as that may be.&quot
And what do we do, exactly, if the student declines to leave?

Elsewhere in the thread a number of posters have given clear explanations of why they don't believe that the "flee the scene" and the "herd the children elsewhere" scenarios are realistic. You give the impression that such objections are absurd, yet none of these posters is calling for a violent response. It's entirely possible that the proposed responses (flee/herd) won't work, or won't work in many situations, and that brings us to a perennial problem with these kinds of issues:

When a parent on DU asks for advice in dealing with an ill-behaved toddler, the responses invariably run along the lines of "speak with a calm voice" and "take the child out of the situation." Those are great, when they work, but of course that's not the problem, just as the flee/herd issue is not the problem here.

No one is asking what to do when the proposed good-on-paper responses work; they're asking what to do when those responses fail.


And we've seen no answer.

Sure.



Are you sure you really want to do that? That's basically the same approach that resulted in the violent removal of the student. My intent in phrasing the situation in a cooperative way, (You are given permission to leave for the day) rather than in a competitive way (You are trespassing on our property), is to avoid ultimatums and confrontational statements that can't be resolved other than by force. If, in your estimation, she's trespassing and refuses to leave that means she will have to be physically removed. Why be so confrontational with one of your students? She's your student, not your property. Forcing someone to do something they clearly don't want to do only makes you come out looking worse.

Additionally, further evidence has come out as to why this situation should have been handled in a more careful and thoughtful manner. It has been revealed the girl just lost her mother and is now parentless.




Why would a student who doesn't seem to be interested in being there decline to leave when given the option? In any event, if the teacher has followed my suggestion and left the room for the day, are you proposing the student will just stay in the classroom overnight? If no one had demanded her to leave from the beginning, I doubt she would have any impetus to resist and remain because it wouldn't have deteriorated into a test of wills.



Wow, those teachers must be rendered positively catatonic in a school fire. If leaving is not an option as a teacher for you, guess what?…There's the reason you can't think of a solution…There is none, if you toss out moving. It's fight or flight. Unless you think tricking the student with candy to leave the room will work. I mean, what's the alternatives if the teacher doesn't move? The situation is a stand-off and the teacher has to continue in a disruptive environment or you have to force the uncooperative student out physically. As the latter is not an option for either you or myself, you are left with two inconvenient options:

1.) Continue teaching despite the disruptive environment.

or

2.) Move the class out of the disruptive environment. (Don't tell me there's no other place you can go. It is inconvenient but don't tell me it's impossible. What should be regarded as impossible is throwing a student to the ground and dragging her out of class.)

The third option, dragging the student out bodily is also, not only, inconvenient but highly controversial, potentially injurious and questionable in terms of legality.

What you seem to be looking for, unfortunately, is a solution that defies physics. You don't want to physically force a behavior on an uncooperative-at-any-cost and disruptive student and yet you don't want to have to take yourself and your class out of the situation.

A teacher or administrator that stamps their foot on the ground and refuses to remove a class from an undesirable situation because it will be inconvenient for them really has no one to blame but themselves. That the child is disrupting the class, for which a violent response is not an option, is already inconvenient, right? So, at that point, why not move the class out?

You seem not to know what "sure" means in this context, because you lapse almost immediately into lecturing me that violence is wrong, which has been my position from the outset.

No, I don't want to do that, but I recognize the possible necessity of removing the student, whereas you seem to insist that it could never possibly happen. In your imagined world, I'm sure that your proposed solutions will work like a charm. In the real world, it is far less certain, and I wonder why you refuse to consider options beyond "herd-or-flee."

That's not for me to say. I'm not declaring that any one particular student would behave this way; I'm asking what happens if one does. You're avoiding the question by insisting that the scenario is impossible, which is clearly not the case.

You cannot possibly be so lacking in imagination. Maybe the student is afraid of an abusive parent or sibling. Maybe the student is in trouble with the cops and has reason to fear physical harm if he surrenders to them. Maybe he's avoiding a hostile situation in his neighborhood. Maybe his house has no heat and he doesn't want to go home to the cold. Maybe he hopes to avoid some unpleasant obligation outside of the school. Maybe he's a foster child who doesn't want to return to his foster home. Maybe he's avoiding some other real or imagined confrontation. Any or all of these might make the student understandably reluctant to discuss his fears. The point is that by failing to identify possible motivations, you assume that those motivations can't exist.

Your doubt is unconvincing, because it amounts to argument by assertion.

You suggest that a disruptive student is as catastrophic as a fire. Obviously, for reasons of safety, a teacher is fully able to usher the students from the scene, but I'm pretty sure that in that case they wouldn't race to an adjacent room and resume their math lesson while the room next door is ablaze. Your objection is absurd and requires no further refutation.

I don't "toss out moving." I state--correctly--that it is not a workable solution in all cases, and I frankly don't think it would work even in most cases. Tellingly, you've failed to explain how the teacher might relocate a swimming class or an art class or a music class or a class with laptops integrated with a room-specific AV equipment, simply to get away from the disruptor. How, in your view, would the teacher herd the students away in such a classroom setting?

Also, as I noted previously, and as you've failed to address, you're begging the question by proposing a method of conflict resolution that assumes outright that the disruptor will respond positively to it. No one is asking what to when the proposed solution works; we're asking what to do when the proposed solution fails. Your answer, in essence, has consistently been: "The proposed solution does not fail." That's circular.

Forgive me, but that's the question I've been asking you from the beginning, and you haven't answered it. Since I have named specific examples when moving is not an option (swimming class, etc.), then what do you suggest in those cases? Others in this thread have given clear, specific and reasonable criticisms of your preferred solution, but these criticisms have also gone unanswered.

Sorry, but you have no authority to declare what is possible. How about a biology class with microscopes and petri dishes? Should they swing on over to the cafeteria? How about a chemistry class with fume hoods and bunsen burners? Should they run ducts and rubber tubing down the hall to the gym? How about a metalworking class with a crucible of molten aluminum? Can they relocate to the library? Again, you're setting very specific boundaries in which your favored strategy is flatly assumed to work. I'm asking what happens outside of those boundaries--and you haven't answered.

I've also adtmitted outright several times that I don't have a great answer for those cases, but I'm not pretending that my favored solution is likely to work in all cases.

Again, this view is shared by everyone on DU; why do you feel the need to rehash it as if it's groundbreaking or revolutionary?

As has been correctly noted already, by doing so the teacher and the class are explicitly validating the disruptor's behavior, declaring his disruption successful and proving that he is in command of the situation.

when just your signature was funny. Now your entire replies have me laughing regrettably.

I have said, at least twice, you alter the assignment. You alter the assignment for the day to the best possible option under the circumstance.

If it's chemistry, you review or read one chapter ahead.

If it's swimming, perhaps practice out-of-water resuscitation techniques.

Obviously, it's going to be at least a more conducive environment for learning than the one with an intentionally disruptive child in it.

Not every child is going to be a room-clearing problem. Not every disruptor is going to refuse to leave if it is presented as an option rather than a punishment. Not every child is going to fearlessly ignore a teacher's direction or request.

We are discussing a circumstance where every sane option for getting the child out of the class has failed.

In the short run, the object is just to resolve the disruption. In the long run, the child is going to lose - parents are going to be called down, the child's performance and behavior profile reviewed, etc - so why feed into their game by making it a battle of egos?

You asked why the teacher should feed into the disruptor's ego by engaging in a battle of wills, but that question is ridiculous. It's a test of wills from the outset, and if the teacher flees the scene or derails the learning process for 24 other students by uprooting them at the drop of a hat, then the disruptor clearly has won the battle. If the goal is to disrupt, then chasing the teacher out of the room and fucking up the day's lesson plan is an explicit and magnificent validation of that disruption.

Incidentally, I use the term "battle" here because that's the word you chose. Interesting that you'd frame it as a military conflict. Hmm...


As for my formerly funny signatures, talk to Skinner. He required me to stop because far too many humorless DUers kept asking him about them, so he considered me a disruption and pulled the plug on it. Problem solved.

Long before I used the word "battle". And that's where I think the problem lies. It's not a competition and the child is not "winning" anything. But some people seem dead set on seeing it that way.

Maybe if the teacher in the recent news story had let it go and just removed his class all we'd be talking about today is a ruined lesson plan instead of an injured 16 year old and a lawsuit. I wonder how much of a "winner" that teacher feels like now.

It seems to me if anyone is going to "win" in such a scenario it's going to be the teacher that does not participate in a battle of wills.

It's like objecting to an adult calling one of us a nincompoop and wanting to make them stop saying it. You can't dictate what an adult says because we have free speech.
Similarly, how are you going to get a child to obey who is willing to push it all the way to a physical confrontation?

There is no solution under the sun other than walking away.

I suspect that you choose military terminology in order to serve your agenda, namely to bolster the circular argument that only your preferred solution is needed because your solution and only your solution can work. Conveniently, any other solution in your view is necessarily a lapse into violence and warfare.

You refer yet again to the current story as if there's any disagreement about it. This is an extreme case about an asshole assaulting a child. It's a non-representative example that fits your preconceptions: a quiet, non-violent disruptor is physically attacked without provocation. It's intellectually dishonest to pretend that a viable solution in this case would work equally well in other, wildly dissimilar cases.

Fleeing the scene is a declaration that the disruptor is in control of the game. Herding the non-disruptors out of the classroom is a declaration that the disruptor has won it.

For the last time, I'm not asking what we should do in cases when your preferred solution will work; I'm asking what you would have the teacher do when your preferred solution doesn't work.

Your answer always seems to be "Yeah, but it works."

That schools are flush with empty classrooms so that the rest of the class can be moved and continue their studies. There are a lot of schools with portables and double-wide trailers as a means allow a room for every class. How many empty classrooms are available in those schools.

When the bell rang for the next class period, she'd either slink away or have some 'splainin to do to the other kids. Problem solved.

She'd definitely have some to do when her parents were notified.

So am I.

then, urge him/her to do the right thing. The cops are called only for emergencies.
In over 25 years in public high schools, I don't remember ever calling the cops during classroom time..

Once, a kid laid a hand on me..he shouldn't have but he did..So I reported it, and the Assistant Principal called the parent and the kid, came up for a conference with a detective from the local police dist. Well..that detective sat with the parent, the student, the Assistant Principal and me, and threatened the kid with a year in jail, in front of the parent, who was embarrassed his son laid a hand on a teacher. The student was crapping in his pants, and I recall that even though it was over 40 years ago. And that kid apologized and was never a problem again in that class...never..

de-escalation was ALWAYS my first path, forcing "compliance" was fool-hardy ... no, stupid. And that, ALWAYS involved removing the audience ... whether that was getting the "uncooperative" one out of the classroom, or getting the classroom away from the uncooperative one.

And children today operate on the same basis ... trying to force compliance, especially, in front of an audience, is unlikely to work out well.

ALWAYS.. and taking it slow and thoughtful, almost always works. But Columbine created a few situations, very few, with potential horrific violence, changed some thinking..(not mine)..

General classroom stuff, always can be handled with what you said..."de-escalation"

if men/males don't let they "defining parts" get in the way.

Yeah .. We know ... You like the guns ... You believe they are the solution to disagreements ...

Too bad you weren't there ... Capital punishment is on your to do list ... You coulda let'er have it ... Right?

Am I right here?

is still defiant once they come out of the classroom? Certainly they all didn't just apologize, calm down and become a model student. Not questioning your tactics, just curious to know what happened next.

However I went in taking nothing and giving back everything. The very first time a student tried to make a scene, I sent them outside and we had a talk. I also called their parents and talked to them to.

Kids are really really tough...until you call their parents. Doesn't matter if they are 8 or 18. Simple effort to be involved in that childs life reflects in the classroom.

Be calm, Hunter.

Class of forty kids holding their breaths, some hoping I'd lose it.

"Well. I'm sure none of us wanted to see that," says I.

Kids snickering, some chaos. Not much accomplished the rest of the class.

I wrote a note to office and charged two kids to deliver it.

Send kids out in pairs, sort of like Mormon Missionaries, so they can keep one another out of trouble.

Document everything.

I think successfully teaching for a decade or so in rough public schools ought to be a prerequisite for police work. Teachers are not allowed to hit or shoot kids. They have to deal with disruptive behavior in other ways.

The cops that worked at our schools knew how to handle stuff without violence.. This whole story with the cop dragging a kid out of a room is a more than a bit absurd. Over what??

student to show up?

asses right the hell off.

Maybe stuff like this works in good schools? Where I grew up it would turn that teacher into an object of mockery on a cosmic level. He'd still be waiting outside twenty-five years later!

The cops would love to have the kids leave the room.

Take the rest of the class out of the room and deprive the brat of their audience.

Other teachers with experience have suggested that.

The disruptive kid then would not feel that she/he would be seen as backing down in front of the rest of the class.

There's more than one way to handle it.

Teachers with experience learn to de-escalate situations without resorting to using violent, bully cops.

Just standing around in the hallway?

Of course not. To an empty classroom, the gym or the auditorium. It's only temporary while the principal or other administrator deals with the disruptive student who no longer gets to grandstand in front of his/her audience.

What happened at that school Friday lasted a lot longer and is still impacting those children. So save your self-righteousness.

and talk to the teacher, when they just got a classroom to themselves to do whatever the hell they want.

The instant that the teacher flees the room, you'll have 25 kids on their phones. The very last thing they'll do is chastise the disruptor.

Also, abandoning the non-disruptors for the sake of the disruptor is literal collective punishment. Interesting.

When that exact moment happens, no one knows how a class will react, ahead of time..no one.. So what worked for me, might not work for another. Or, at another place. The most important of all ideas in my mind is not, repeat not to have what happened with the security in South Carolina. So we wait..so what?.. Now that student will be taken care of one way or another...

so..the teacher gives an order telling the student to come outside the room for a short talk. not a big deal..So..the student refuses to step outside to talk to the teacher for a short time..Refusing a teacher's request is a big deal. When the parent is called, or made to come up to school, and is told that the son or daughter refused a teacher's reasonable request to have a short talk with the teacher...not in front of everyone, but outside the classroom, what is the parent to say?..

Ok ...here is the question to ask all of you........

If the teacher asked your teenage student to have a short talk outside the class about some behavior, and your son or daughter refused a reasonable request, and you were told to come to school to discuss this with the schools Asst. Principal or the Principal, what would you do? That is your kid who did this. And at the conference when parents are called in, the teacher explains that he/she was trying to get the kid to do something, and didn't want to yell at your son/daughter..so the teacher quietly asked the student to come outside the room for a short talk. Your son or daughter refused that simple reasonable request

So, what are you going to do?....

Other students would have just egged te defiant kid on.

Honestly, the way that cop reacted was egregiously stupid, but too many DUers have a view of childhood behavior that is at odds with my experiences. This technique would have resulted in raucous and mocking laughter and an utter and complete lack of respect for that instructor for the remainder of the semester.

I have two school age children and I don't want them trooping from classroom to classroom with their learning day interrupted or cooling their heels waiting because some asshole kid decides to be a dick and needs a "cooling off period." There has to be a happy medium.

...everyone in that class would be telling that student they better not go out there because hey, free break with no work while the teacher sits outside in the hallway and we can do whatever we want.


So Problem Student can just sit there as long as the teacher is willing to give us free time cooling their heels in the hallway, and be a hero for it.

This absolutely would not work. Nobody would tell the student to go outside.

But I don't see your solution as realistic either. Perhaps in certain instances, but not as a norm. Too much patience results in a loss of learning time for the students who are actually there trying to better themselves. The kids who are not interested in learning and who disrupt class take away valuable time and experience from those children who DO want to be there.

I'm not busting your chops. I think our society as a whole needs a better dialogue as to what can be done about situations like this. I don't know what the answer is. But I know for certain it is NOT what was shown on this video. This cop lost it and escalated the situation to a standard that is NOT acceptable regardless of what the student may have done.

But something appropriate needs to be done about students who disrupt class. There are some student who simply won't respect authority - ANY authority, and those students either need to be brought into line by their parents or someone in authority or they need to be expelled so that they do not hinder the progress of the other students. The lack of respect of authority in schools and elsewhere (and vice versa, certain authorities being undeserving of respect) has lead to chaos and will only lead to more chaos. Discipline, when applied correctly and deservingly, is necessary and legitimate in just about any group setting.

coach to deal with them.

Order Must Be Upheld.

use your brain to figure it out, not "the cops"...usually it can be figured out.

And thank you for your work. Teachers are in the trenches.

Or Beady Eyes as she was known.

Always worked when I was in school.

and....every school public and private has one.. And that person's experience whatever that is, usually helps many teachers..Much better than the cops..cause she is a cop without a badge..she knows what to do/say.

She was there, but nobody wanted her ire. She was the reinforcements called in, and she was a damn army all by herself.

The *entire* damn typewriter (and half the typewriter stand - weighed at least 50 lbs, but she was elderly, tall and pretty much strong as a live oak) at a student. She quit teaching typing, but it quickly became the most quiet and disciplined class in school.

You did NOT want Sister Gregory on your ass for any reason.

law suite if something bad happened in the classroom while the teacher was standing outside and off the lesson. Write a note to the office. Call the office secretaries to tell the office the student is coming down to Principal's office or Disciplinary Office, with the note. Get back on the lesson. The teacher is there to teach which means to get back on the District and State approved Curriculum lesson(s) to be taught. For a second, off task behavior that continues after a warning, stand at the door with the door open and talk to the student in a quiet, very short student-teacher conference for a minor off task behavior. A student exposing him/herself is a severe disruption and is handled as such just like the Secondary Code of Conduct reads from the Secondary Handbook. In some states the City Police Department will send an Officer to write the student a ticket/citation.

yes, that's snark

If I pulled out a gun... that would have solved ....everything...sure...

Now THAT's a new strategy for America.

So, I got a few "fuck you" as a teacher..so what?

..most of the time the students respected me. And I was able to teach almost all of the time...(it was history..all kinds and it wasn't easy..go tell..)

or have an investment in for-profit prisons that need young slave labor all the time.

I must admit, never have thought about investments in "for profit prisons".

Maybe that company that makes those electric cars...but not prisons.!!

I would rather interact with animals and computers instead of people...

Parents, fellow teachers, other staff, and students.

But...the jerks of all types and backgrounds..OH MY GOD!!! (by jerks..I mean jerks from the parent group, fellow teacher group, staff group, and student group)..jerks of all types.. too many stories to tell..not enuf time..

If you have to, empty the classroom and isolate the child til the parent is there to deal with it.

Take disciplinary action i.e expulsion later.

that's the conclusion I came to also

I teach at the college level, but my ex-wife taught middle and high school before she threw up her hands and moved on to other endeavors. Some of her teaching was in districts with high poverty and crime rates; even the sixth-graders would tell her to f**k off. And in many cases, the parents really didn't care, so calling them down did no good.

I do a lot of travel for my work. I've been through parts of South America, Africa, and southeast Asia where people live in real poverty. We have poverty in the US, but nothing like they do in the developing world. And everywhere I go, I see children heading to school every morning in spartanly clean uniforms. I've seen it from rural Venezuela to urban Nairobi. The kids may live in shacks made out of random bits of plywood and sheet metal, but they go to school under all circumstances, and their uniforms are spotless.

Even in other parts of the developed world, the act of going to school is treated with more gravity than it is here. We had Belgian exchange students stay with us while I was in high school (and this wasn't really THAT long ago), and they were all shocked at the disrespect students sometimes showed their teachers. And this was in the relatively well-off suburbs.

I have mixed feelings about making students wear uniforms - I agree that uniformity is not necessarily a good thing (one of George Carlin's best routines includes a discussion of this), but I also see how it generates a level of respect for the educational process. I bring the example up not because I think school uniforms would substantially address the problems our schools face (I'm not an idiot), but to highlight the real difference in how education is viewed between our culture and others.

Deep down, Americans just don't respect education like they do in other countries. Kids will always be getting into trouble, but not like they do in the US. Maybe it's because generations of people living in poverty have seen no return from education - institutional racism keeps them down. Maybe it's because Americans are anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian by nature. Maybe there are too many distractions - and I put the overabundance of extracurricular activities on the same level as TV and the web . I don't really know.

I want to emphasize something - I do not blame what happened in the video on the student. The officer was way out of line, and he's lucky he didn't seriously injure or even kill her. He should be very seriously disciplined. The girl may be dealing with real problems that impact her behavior, and at her age, she should not be treated as a criminal. Nor am I claiming that disrespect for education caused this incident.

Still, it really looks to me like too many of my fellow Americans fail to take education seriously. This is a problem.

You and the OP have a similar respect for students. Perhaps the lack of interest American kids have for education is because the institution has no interest in them. It doesn't teach anything particularly enlightening.

And isn't it interesting to see those classroom disruptor's when they're all growed up....still doing what they do best.




.

Maybe that is part of the issue.

Admin removes the difficult student and everyone else sees that defiance doesn't pay.

If admin won't come, get another job. That school is hopeless, and you're doomed to failure.

When the community sees that they can't staff the school, you've finally got them involved. Put parents on advisory committees so you can build enough trust with them to get their backing for adequate discipline.

And keep unions and tenure: Without them, the kids are running the school.

30-year public school teacher.

I don't use your exact method, but if you build trust and relationships with students in your class, if a student has a meltdown or bad day and takes it out on you, you are more likely to have the other students help you talk the kid down to the good solution, which was part of your point, I believe.

It's hard work, but good teaching takes more than simply being an information delivery system. Handing the responsibility for your classroom environment over to a forceful encounter is *never* anything but a last resort for a truly violent student who is posing a danger to others.

And you were the "smart ass stubborn one "

So, ...here it goes...How would you like to be treated?...

...

I knew I could figure out a good one...

Of course, I was teaching in a community college at the time, but there wasn't much difference in age between my students and the girl in the video.

Basically, the student was being disruptive. After asking him to quiet down twice, I asked him to leave the classroom. He refused. I told him to leave again. He refused again.

At that point, I looked at him and asked a simple question, "How do you think this is going to end? You can walk out of my classroom now, or you can refuse to leave and just sit there. If you stay, I'm going to teach the rest of this class, and when it's over I'm going to walk down to the division office and inform them that you're permanently ejected from my classroom. All of the work you have done this semester will simply be wiped out. You did it for nothing. You can attend my class every day until the end of the semester, but from here forward I will no longer grade your assignments and you'll get an Incomplete when the semester ends. You won't actually get that far, of course. The dean will probably call a disciplinary hearing over this, and there's a good chance that you will also be expelled for the semester and all of your grades in all of your classes will be wiped out. All of your classes. All of your work. Gone. That's a lot of wasted work. Now, I've got to teach this class. Are you going to sit there? Or are you going to leave my class room and come back next week with a better attitude?"

He left, and when he came back in the following week, he actually apologized to me and explained that he'd been having a bad day.

Good, experienced teachers will figure a way to handle a disruptive student.

There is one poster on this thread is rejecting all suggestions from actual teachers who have handled such situations as being not workable even though they have worked.

I hope he/she reads your post, but most likely he/she will say that won't work either, even though it did.

Which the teacher / professor absolutely could impact in a seriously detrimental way.

A kid in high school is much different. What do you think that kid has learned from all of this? Be disruptive, if someone acts against you, make sure it's recorded and get the guy fired.

She's probably going to sue the city and make a few bucks. Not enough to not work for the rest of her life.

Yes, the cop has been fired, but if there actually is video of her hitting him, he can probably appeal and get his job back.

Sad situation all around.

If it's crucial that the student must leave the room but won't get up and do it alone, just have one or two people grab the desk with the student in it and slide it or pick it up and carry it out into the hallway. Then call the parents.

You call the police in to physically assault a child, potentially causing bodily harm.

That'll show 'em. Yah, sure. You betcha. Welcome to the future of education, Republican style!

I'm going to say this, and I'll take the flaming: if that were my child, that cop would be looking over his shoulder every day for the rest of his life.

Which is what the guy in the video did.

... required subject.
I ejected few students during that time. The only public threat I made was "Are you SURE you want to get into this here? I'm not embarrassing you in front of your peers, so why are you embarrassing yourself in front of them? I'm not even disciplining you. I just think both of us need time away from each other. We can settle this, but later."

(Full disclosure: I'm a large person, and I had a lot of "idiosyncratic credit"... reasonably well liked, well known, and known for acting flamboyantly sometimes)

Only one kid... a girl... refused to leave. I said: "OK.. the rest of us will leave, then. Everybody... let's move next door."

Dangerous move, but the kids followed me to the next room. The girl left the room and stomped off down the hall. Nobody got thrown around the room.

Make sure the offending student doesn't follow.

The next day have authorities there to bar the student from class.

If it's okay for the authorities to bar the student from entering, what are the limitations re: removing the student from the classroom?

I grew up in a small town and teachers could take us outside whenever they wanted to. Some would do it on a nice day for example. What really surprised me though is even in my kids' suburban school now we have one teacher who does that kind of thing routinely (she is an English teacher). She does all sorts of things with them. They read outside, they write their papers (so she has things to grade them on) but if she feels like playing a game in class or taking them for a walk that is what they do (with the caveat that this is an advanced class so the kids are probably pretty well behaved anyway).

I think some people are just more prone to be authoritarian than others. I hate having to present to people while standing up at a podium for example. Give me chairs in a circle & I will sit and present any topic all day long. Some of us just prefer less hierarchical methods.

I had exactly one class period held outside, other than gym and science classes specifically pertaining to the outdoor setting. It was a single session of an English lit class during the second semester of my senior year of college. Once outside, it was impossible to hear the instructor over ambient noise, and it was difficult to take notes with no chalkboard or whiteboard and no hard surface to write upon.

Before some clever soul jumps in to tell me that my experience must have poisoned my attitude re: out-of-the-classroom teaching, I remind the clever soul that that's not what I'm addressing.

Please, someone explain to me how a swimming class, or an art class, or a music class, or a class using laptops integrated with a room-specific audiovisual system can simply relocate on a whim to another empty room, assuming another empty room even exists. The teachers certainly can't herd their students outside on rainy days or snowy days or too-cold days or too-hot days, so November through March are off-limits for outdoor math class, along with much of April and May.

Remember, I'm not saying that the proposed strategies can never work; I'm saying that they wouldn't have worked in my own school experience, and some in this thread have credibly argued the same. But several others are insisting that the flee-or-herd strategies are the best solutions across the board, and they dismiss all other possibilities. To that end, I agree with you; they've embraced the authoritarian mindset wholeheartedly, insisting that their way is right and all others wrong.

other ways the situation could have been handled. Especially with a kid who wasn't actively acting out (obviously if there were a fist fight or something you'd call the office) there were other strategies that could've been used.

I've seldom seen such universal agreement as we've seen in this case, with everyone condemning the out-of-control asshole for attacking the unarmed and non-violent girl half his size. There is no dispute there.

The dispute arises instead between some who've declared outright that their favored method is the best, and that any counter-examples are wrong, pro-authoritarian, or retrograde.

In essence, my position (and apparently quite a few others') boils down to this:
1, The asshole should be arrested and sued for his unprovoked assault
2. The proposed herd-or-flee methods will not work in all situations and will often encourage the disruptor

I don't think there's any one answer in these situations. When folks talk about rogue cops this is a classic example. Sometimes you get a bad teacher as well. This happened to be a unique situation as well with a kid who had recent deaths in the family. If everyone were acting perfectly a counselor would've been brought in to help (even if it takes the kid out of class for a few days - maybe that's what she needs).

I understand your point. That hypothetical doesn't apply here though. I know my idea isn't necessarily the right one. It's what would have been my first instinct though. A well known rule was broken willingly. If the student won't leave the class, remove the class from the student.

From the evidence we have available, a young girl suffering a life-altering trauma was disturbing no one until a strong-arm asshole started assaulting her. Even if she did hit him, as I've seen suggested off-DU, then he should face the consequences of his ridiculously disproportionate response.

It's possible a response that's appropriate in this case might very well not be appropriate in another. The teacher could have ignored the girl, tolerated her phone-use, or even simply acted like a freaking human being and ask if she wants to talk about her mother's death for god's sake! But someone enaged in more active disruption would likely have to be addressed in a different way.

Throughout the thread some have pointed out that an active disruptor could feel validated by the teacher leaving the room whether or not the teacher takes the students along. But I suspect, though I admit that this is a face-value judgment from afar, that this girl would not respond that way; her disruption wasn't belligerent or confrontational; quite the opposite, in fact.

It is for this reason, as some have observed, that the two-fold strategy of leave-the-room or relocate-the-students seems unlikely to be equally effective across a diverse range of difficult interactions.

Your points are well thought out and well presented. One thing we surely agree on is the outrageous misuse of force on the SRO's part.

Thanks for answering.