Falcon Randwick wrote:Schools should always have a discipline master who works to a set of well-circulated rules. Sending a student immediately to an authority removes the student swiftly from the class and allows the teacher to get on with teaching.
That works well, but getting the student to leave quickly and quietly can also be a problem, especially when they know they're heading into a possible disciplinary scenario. The student can/will pin that on the teacher... "Why are you making me do this?"
Falcon Randwick wrote:That said, I had a bully Year 12 student at my last school who threatened me by saying "I'm gonna punch you in the face". I instantly replied toe-to-toe to this kid who towered over me by at least six inches, "Anytime you think you're good enough, punk", he backed straight down. I was desperately hoping he wouldn't have a go at me as I had a broken hand at the time from a misadventure I'd suffered whilst on tour in Cambodia with Potato Stars and it would have hurt to have to use both hands to king hit the little cunt. Of course, I had previously convinced the turds in his class that I was highly unstable and that the satisfaction of punching them in the head would be worth more to me than losing my job. The year before, at the same school, I had one kid front me so I picked up a metal chair and convincingly threatened to smash it over his head unless he backed off. He did.
Your examples are believable in that they'd easily fit in with my experiences here, but I'm not sure whether you're serious. However, the underlying dynamics are the same.
1). A student pitches a hardball squarely at the teacher. This is a 'direct challenge', and, at the moment of pitching, the hardball is of unknown substance, weight, and force to the teacher.
2). The teacher, without knowing what the hardball is made of, what it contains, and without being able to judge the force behind it, stands up squarely in front of the student and catches said hardball.
3). The teacher thanks God and little fishes that he didn't just attempt to catch a sloppy turd or a ticking bomb and still has (clean) hands with which to continue, or, equally likely, the teacher begins a swift descent into loss of control of the situation having just accepted full responsibility for stopping the student's choice of missile and then having caught a turd or ticking bomb.
The teacher making step 2 is making a mistake. He has no idea what he's dealing with and shouldn't attempt to catch what's thrown.
He should step outside of the challenge - thus effectively both 'freeze-framing' it and removing himself from the crosshairs of being the target of the challenge - then he should place the student in such a way as to have them hold their own hardball.
To do that, the teacher should elicit whose choice it was to design, build, target, and then lob the hardball. The information should come from said challenging student.
Crucially, at the moment the information comes, the student should be given a chance/choice to change his mind over what he just did and he should be given a short time with which to consider.
The choice would be to pocket the hardball and to continue with the class in an acceptable way, or, when the 'freeze-frame' is over, continue as he was and enter the school's set rules and disciplinary procedures.
It should be made very clear to the student that all choices made during the entire episode were his, and that he has been given the chance/choice to change/alter his decisions with regard to the school rules.
This approach gives the student the opportunity to reflect and reconsider, and reinforces his understanding of precisely what he did wrong. It also lays a solid foundation for any needed follow-up stemming from the student's actions should the student choose not to change his mind and continue with lobbing his hardball.
You were perhaps lucky that the kid didn't decide to punch you out, Falcon - I've seen that happen, and you had no real idea of where he was coming from psychologically.
andyinasia wrote:There is the added caveat that in some of the shittier private schools in Cambodia, a fee-paying student (particularly if he has siblings in the school) is worth more to the management than one poorly-paid and easily replaceable teacher.
Painfully accurate.