Thursday, September 24, 2009
UFC in our schools
here is a good story and something to think about as a teacher in high school. A fight occurs in the hallway between 2 Guys. the students come running down the hall looking for a teacher. you are the teacher they find. what do you do? Do you break up the fight or let the students go toe to toe. suddently, the principal and vice show up with 2 more teachers. the 2 guys are still duking it out. one of the teachers trys to intervene and gets thrown into the lockers. another teacher trys to intervene and gets kicked, while another teacher is on the students back trying to pull him apart. in the end the students stop fighting, and next week the guys are seen hanging out as usual. personally, i would let the guys duke it out and i would call the emergency # that the school has laid out. Remember youre intent is to stop the fight, but if you make a mark on the student (bruise) you could be charged with assault. funny how the administrators did not get involved.
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Was this something that happened on your practicum?
ReplyDeleteno in a school in vancouver
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting story. It’s possible they were not suspended because the teachers and principal knew that they were friends and did not want to suspend two friends for an entire week. Maybe they thought that a more purposeful punishment was an in-house one. Also, a side note is that I have heard a number of my teachers now say that you should avoid getting physically involved and to use verbal communication primarily, unless one student is in serious trouble. Do you know what their punishment was...if at all?
ReplyDeleteDuring my practicum, my sponsor teacher told me a story about a fight during one of her first years teaching. She was working in an eastside Vancouver school, so there were a lot of minority groups and even some gang influence in the school. One day she overheard some students talking about a fight that was going to take place in a park near the school at 4:00 between two rival boys. The park was on her way home so she decided to drive by it and try to stop the fight on her way home. When she got to the park, there was a big crowd of students and she walked right into the middle and stood in front of the smaller fighter and told everyone to go home, which they did. When she got to school the next day, the principal talked to her about it and pretty much said "are you f*ing crazy? Never do anything like that again". He went on to explain that the way things work in that neighbourhood and how the different groups or 'gangs' will always get back at eachother, an eye for an eye type thing, and breaking up the fight and not letting the groups settle their differences can cause even bigger problems further down the road. The principal had the stance that if it doesn't happen at school, let it happen.
ReplyDeleteI found this to be pretty incredible, especially with my background growing up in a predominantly white area. I never would think to not stop a fight between two students, whether it was at school or after school. I guess the moral for us as teachers is that we have to be aware of the school dynamics before we try to break up a fight or try to solve some other conflict. It might just be the way the groups settle their differences, especially in a rougher neighbourhood like east Van.