9 – When Students Attack…Oh and They Do!

“Experts dubious about 3rd-graders’ plot …Nine girls, boys apparently mad at veteran teacher at Georgia school”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23905909

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130150

Okay…my panties are definitely in a bunch! People…come on now…REALLY? …The sweet child routine? Ummmm…NO! I see it happen every day. The biggest bully, and I’m talking Repeat Offender Award for Being a Brat Bully will shove their peers, curse loudly in the classroom, yell obscenities at the teacher, ditch class, make sexual innuendos, etc. AT SCHOOL…but when Big Brat Bully is called on the carpet and Mama Brat Bully comes to the school, then Big Brat Bully transforms into this unrecognizable church mouse…quiet and unassuming…lover of nature and all mankind (bite me). The parents have bought the act and are going to bat for B.B.B., as all the teachers wear their most incredulous “What the French Toast?” faces. All the B.B.B.s I have ever taught are the future sociopaths of the world, and Mommy/Daddy/Grandparents make it worse for these children to learn some good old fashioned DISCIPLINE!!! Mama Brat Bully only opens the doors of the penitentiary/unemployment line/extra-room-in-the-basement even wider by making lame excuses for Big Brat Bully’s inappropriate behavior.

Currently, a case involving children and a murder plan for their teacher is “shocking” the nation! I laugh. Why is the nation shocked? Why do adults believe that little people are incapable of murder…plotting murder…the execution of a succinct murder plan? Wake up America! Your children are not innocent…you are blind! So what if the alleged are 8- to- 10 year olds…they are people, too! Crime does not have an age limit.

In a Newsweek article, Elizabeth Berger, M.D. (child “shrink”) states, “When it comes down to it, the whole weight of the adult world rests with the teacher’s authority. And this is something that few children would have the folly to buck.” I almost fell out of my seat with laughter! Surely this woman is visiting the weed man along with my student’s mama! I realize that I teach an older crowd, however, I do have friends who teach elementary school…and their stories are not pretty, either! The teacher’s authori-TAH means ABSOLUTELY zilch, zip, zero where I work! However, that goes back to improper home training (another blog for another day).

Students do attack, both verbally and physically. I want to take you back to the day our school issued progress reports…the day that I thought I was going to be attacked by a mob of students! Never in my career of teaching had I felt in danger of my life by the hands of students! These “kids,” however, were not joking! After progress reports were issued, they piled into my room with the ferocity of a tsunami. Each of them stormed in my room donning scowls and spewing obscenities from their mouths. “You gone change dis motherfuckin’ grade!” “What the fuck is dis shit?” “I ain’t got no 18! I come to class every day.” They crowded around my desk, leaving me a marginal view in which to map out an escape route.

The hair on the back of my neck rose at attention. I had no help. My door would not lock because I had no key…so the students continued to pour in until there were at least fifteen to twenty huddled around my desk. I looked up into their angry faces and saw that they WOULD strike me if they smelled my fear…this was an important wake-up call for me. I had no help. No security or hall monitors were alerted…I had no way of getting the attention of the administration (and I guess no one thought it strange that these kids were freely roaming the halls and pouring into one room when they were not supposed to be)…None of my other colleagues (who are usually VERY supportive) came to help because I assume that they were experiencing their own private hell in their classroom as well. It was fight or flight…I was left to my own defenses as means of survival and in order to survive, I had to communicate with them in terms that they best understood.

The message is that there must ALWAYS be consequences for those who fall off the path. As an educator, I can only do so much…my impact is not as lasting as the one that has begun in the womb. If you are a parent, and more than one person/teacher calls a personality trait of your “darling little one” forth to you that you find unsavory and difficult to accept…so what…deal with it! Do not stick your head in the sand! You are a human…not an ostrich! It is your responsibility to attempt to steer your little one away from Hitler-esque/David Koresh/Uni-Bomber tendencies! If the teachers tell you that your child is a bully, then chances are…your child is a bully…FIX IT! If teachers tell you that your child has an attitude problem, talks back, can’t sit still…seek medication, counseling, an exorcism, some type of intervention but the bottom line is that you must FIX IT! Do not ignore it! If you do not, then your child will have problems as an adult because those types of issues just don’t fix themselves! …Just ask Ted Bundy.