It's been so long since I last blogged, but life's been flying by at an incredible rate. Since my last post, I've taken a job as an high school gymnastics coach in the district I teach in, and my life has gotten exponentially busier. It's been so much fun already, and I am looking forward to an exciting (albeit busy) rest of the season. Tonight, however, my post is not really about what's going on in my life. It's more about an incident that occurred in a St. Paul school last week. Here comes the rant...
As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this evening, I came across a post regarding the incident. To make a long story short, a teacher in the St. Paul School District suffered a traumatic brain injury and concussion, and was choked unconscious while he was trying to break up a fight between several students. The incident has sparked outrage in the community, but unfortunately, this wasn't an isolated occurrence. Student attacks on teachers happen more frequently than most people would like to believe. In fact, I think many people would be surprised if they saw how children respond to adults in the classroom. It never would've crossed my mind to talk back to a teacher. If a teacher even gave me a stern look, I probably would've started to cry, because I didn't want them to be mad at me. But that's not the case in today's society. And unfortunately, I think parenting styles play a big role in the issue of disrespect.
I generally do not like to make strong statements in my blog. That's really not what it's all about. But when I saw the headline, "Mother says son didn't realize person who grabbed him was Central High teacher," I was mad. Genuinely mad. The article, which was published in the Pioneer Press, quotes the boy's mother as saying he was, "trying to defend himself," because he didn't realize the person trying to restrain him was a teacher. She went on to say that the cafeteria probably wasn't well supervised and minimized the attack, saying her son didn't attack the teacher maliciously. Bull. Her son picked the man up, threw him onto a chair and table, and proceeded to choke him unconscious. I don't care if he didn't know who was trying to restrain him from behind, when he choked the man, he knew it was a teacher. It was malicious. And it was awful. This teacher will never be the same, because he suffered brain damage as a result of the attack.
I'm a parent, and I understand wanting to stand up for your child. But sometimes, kids need to face the consequences of their actions. I certainly had consequences when I was a child, and I learned from them. Children will never learn to be accountable for their actions, or accept that they made bad decisions and take responsibility for their choices, if parents continue to make excuses for them. Throwing a teacher (or anyone for that matter) down, and choking him wasn't an accident. It wasn't a mistake. It was a choice. A terrible choice, but definitely a choice. There is no excuse for his behavior, and he should be held accountable for what he did. Clearly his mother is not going to hold him accountable, so I'm hoping that the legal system will take care of it in this instance.
This case is obviously extreme. But disrespect toward adults is a growing issue in schools across the country, and people need to be aware of that. Parents have a hard time accepting that their children have made poor choices, the consequently blame teachers for low grades and behavior problems. They blame other children, when their own children cause problems in class. What does that teach children? It sends the message that it doesn't matter what they say or do in school, because their parents don't care or won't discipline them. As a result, children fail to learn personal responsibility, which sets them up to be enabled, parentally dependent, irresponsible adults. It's better to accept that children are imperfect. Children will make bad choices. But children can also learn from those choices, if they're held accountable for their actions. In teaching accountability, kids learn how to recognize when they've made bad choices and take the necessary steps to make things right. If we, as a society, can set those expectations early in life, maybe the number of physically aggressive attacks on adults (or anybody) in a school setting...which should be safe, by the way... will decline.
With all of that said, I've worked with wonderful children in my years as a teacher and coach. Even the most challenging kids I've taught have good hearts, so I consider myself lucky. On that note, it's the weekend and I'm looking forward to catching up on sleep (Charley isn't feeling well, so that might actually be wishful thinking... Ha!). Have a great weekend everybody!
