<p>lol yeah. She also said that she can’t touch him or insult him.</p>
<p>Honestly, its situations like this one that make me think we need to get back to good old fashioned spanking with a paddle in schools.</p>
<p>I thought I heard on the news that the kid was licking the windows and the teacher told him to clean them. Then, he through a hissy fit.</p>
<p>I’m going to watch the news again tonight to see if this was indeed the reason for the kid’s outburst.</p>
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<p>She was fortunate to hit a soft area that can cause a lot of pain - that was obviously effective in this case. Maybe she’s had some self-defense training. I’m a bit amazed at the size of that student and even more amazed that there was another similarly-sized student that went in to restrain the first student.</p>
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<p>How do you paddle someone that’s likely bigger than any of the adults in the school?</p>
<p>I was being sarcastic. :)</p>
<p>But this situation is reflective of a much bigger issue. We’re so obsessed with protecting kids in school, that they think they can get away with just about any behavior because they are minors.</p>
<p>They just seem to get bolder and bolder. And it’s high time society put its foot down.</p>
<p>In the clip she states that the video only shows a small portion of the incident. Apparently the student had bumped her before the tape started and when he approached her again she fought back.</p>
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<p>It’s not society’s job. It’s the parents’ job. It’s also the parents’ job to provide proper nutrition and exercise. It looks like these parents are giving the kids a ton of food and then sticking them in front of the television all afternoon.</p>
<p>I disagree that it’s just the parents who need to control their kids. We’re not talking about a 6 year old. We’re talking about a teenager who knows full well that his behavior is unacceptable.</p>
<p>He needs to be expelled. Until you make it clear that you will not tolerate this kind of behavior, teenagers will just keep on getting bolder and bolder.</p>
<p>It seems to me that there should be a criminal complaint filed against the kid. Clearly an assault and battery, false imprisonment, etc… I wonder if there is a possible civil claim against the district for failing to provide a safe work environment or failure to warn if the student has a violent past?</p>
<p>I know it’s the parent’s job but have you met some of these parents?</p>
<p>Another segment I saw on the Today Show was of a kid who was tasered by police during an incident. His mother was on the Today Show with the kid and during her rant against the police she was saying how her kid never had any trouble with anyone else, just in school. While his mother is saying this I’m watching this kid bounce around in his chair, completely unable to sit still or focus and I’m thinking to myself, “who does she think she is fooling.”</p>
<p>What do you do with an expelled kid when we have compulsory attendance laws? A lot of states are moving to require compulsory attendance up until 18 years old.</p>
<p>I think that our district uses a private school to put kids with behavioral problems and that private school costs quite a bit more than our public schools per student.</p>
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<p>Almost all of the parents that I know are deeply concerned about the education and well-being of their kids, kind of like CC. So, no; I haven’t met some of these parents. I don’t have any good answers to situations like these and I imagine that those working closest to these problems do the best they can.</p>
<p>Public schools can absolutely not tolerate a teacher striking a student. Ever. I’m surprised she wasn’t fired.</p>
<p>Having said that, it is shameful what our teachers have to put up with from disrespectful and unruly students, on a daily basis. And in most of these cases, the parents are impossible to work with and are as bad as the students. Most people have no idea how bad it is. Being a teacher is very stressful in my opinion.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I watched the tape. It’s clearly not child abuse, and the teacher shouldn’t be prosecuted. But I’m not positive I would keep her in the classroom, at least at that school. If she didn’t have 23 years on the job, and wasn’t a popular teacher, she would probably have been fired already, and she may still be fired. I agree with those who say she was lucky the kid didn’t respond when she escalated the violence, and another kid stepped in. She didn’t do anything to the kid with her punches; he was trying to intimidate her, but he wasn’t prepared actually to hit her yet, and he never got there. He seemed kind of stunned at her response. It was not effective classroom management, that’s for sure. I’m sure she legitimately felt threatened, but it turns out that the kid was bluffing (which of course is pretty normal).</p>
<p>Now, what she should have done isn’t clear to me at all. She could have left the classroom, but I’m not certain that is the right thing to do. It’s clearly the right thing to do to protect herself, but there has to be a huge cost in long-term effectiveness if you tell kids they can drive the teacher out of the classroom more or less at will. And I don’t think you can ignore the issues of leaving a bunch of students without adult authority in a room with a 250-lb student who has lost his temper and gone rogue. There has to be some effective way of getting help into the classroom without forcing her to leave. It also would have been nice if the other students had intervened before she started throwing punches. I don’t want to depend on that, or encourage students to fight, but social constraints are really important to teenagers, and they didn’t seem to be coming to bear quickly enough here. (Not to mention the fact that other students in the class were busy playing classroom lawyer or recording video for future sale.)</p>
<p>Can’t there be room for a teacher to make a mistake, even of this type? I remember how much I loved my 7th grade art teacher, I think when I heard this woman talking she reminded me of her. Based on the interview I heard this woman should be in the classroom.</p>
<p>I’m a teacher and we have training once a year to teach us how to behave in these kind of situations. We learn how to hold our bodies in such a way that we don’t leave ourselves vulnerable, how to not get backed into a corner, etc. Unfortunately, teachers are actual people and react with fear and surprise when confronted with actual or threatened violence. I’n not sure, if I was in this situation, If I would be quick thinking enough to react properly or if my instincts would take over.
I do think she should be back in the classroom. As her lawyer said at the interview, just because you are a teacher doesn’t mean that you have no right to defend yourself against violence. If the review of the tape determined that it was self defense, then she doesn’t pose a threat to other students, unless, of course, they assault her first.</p>
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<p>She could have ordered one of her responsible students to run for help to the principal’s office.</p>
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Witnesses reported that he made contact with her with his chest before the tape started rolling. I’m sure he was stunned at her response as he, like most kids, as evidenced in the video, think he cannot be touched under any circumstances.
Effective classroom management? Well, I sure wouldn’t feel completely confident about my ability to manage a classroom while a 250 lb student is assalting me and forcing me into the wall. We didn’t get SWAT training at my teacher college.</p>
<p>What makes you think he was bluffing?</p>
<p>@Bay: That is yet another unrealistic pie-in-the-sky scenario.</p>
<p>^^^
I agree. There would be no time to send anyone anywhere, especially since their bodies were blocking the door.</p>