When I became a teacher, my first job was at what equates to a camp for kids serving out prison sentences. They were under 24-hour surveillance, and many of them were considered dangerous.
I had boys serving time for crimes such as kidnapping, armed robbery, and beating someone so badly that they paralyzed them for life.
They often fought each other and even the guards.
Strangely, they had a lot of respect for their teachers. They were especially respectful to their female teachers.
They didn’t always do their work. They would occasionally talk back, but considering the environment, it was nothing major. I never felt threatened by a student.
I eventually left for many reasons and found myself in a school that rarely had fights on campus. The kids would get in trouble of course, but it was rarely because of fighting. The fights were a rare enough occasion that they were a big deal when they did happen.
Something has changed in recent times though. Violence in my school is on the rise, and this seems to be the case for many areas in the United States. What is even more concerning, is that this is not just students being violent toward each other, but students being violent toward their teachers.
Attacking Teachers
I’m not sure exactly what happened at my school, but there are now times when we have a fight every week. Students are also prone to become more aggressive with teachers and administration.
Although I have never had a physical altercation with a student, I did have a student threaten to knock me out after I required him to give me his phone. The student was eventually expelled after cursing out multiple teachers and administrators.
Other adults at my school have not been so lucky. Administrators have been attacked multiple times, most recently last week by a student that decided to get drunk on campus.
Some of this behavior may be modeled by their parents. There was even a parent that attacked a teacher because her daughter’s grades were not good enough. The woman’s husband had to pick her up and take her out of the building.
When did it get so bad?
There has been a steady decline in respect for teachers just through my tenure. Society tends to view teachers as the bad guys. They are viewed as people that gave you bad grades as a child or people trying to corrupt your children now with Critical Race Theory or normalizing LGBT people.
Even Meghan Trainor recently said “Fuck Teachers” while discussing the state of the school system on her podcast.
I know better than anyone that there are many horrible teachers out there, but it is this type of hate that pushes out the good teachers and just leaves the bad teachers.
It takes so much to be a good teacher; it is a thankless job. When you receive nothing but hate, it only makes continuing to put effort into that job a more difficult task.
TikTok Violence
The Slap a Teacher Challenge from TikTok is when I first remember consistently hearing about violence toward teachers. This challenge may have been a hoax, but there were violent stories that coincided with the claim. For example, one student attacked her disabled teacher. The 18-year-old student was arrested, and although TikTok stated that any violence toward teachers would be removed, videos have continued to emerge.
Need more examples?
Two months ago, another video shows a 6ƌ” student in Florida attacking a teacher after she took his video game. He knocks her out and continues to pound on her face. He could have easily killed her. Even when he is pulled away he continues to kick at her with a frightening rage.
Last month, a teacher in North Carolina was attacked by two students after she asked one of them to remove their hoodie, part of the dress code policy at the school. The other adult in the room, a behavior management technician disappeared during the fight. An adult from another part of the building finally pulled the girls off of her. The teacher was not asked if she was okay. They didn’t send her to the hospital. Her daughter had to rush to the school to pick her up. In tears, the teacher said that she would not be returning to the school. She always fed the kids when they were hungry. She had been nothing but good to that school.
On the day of writing this, another story was released about students attacking an adult. This time it was reported that a group of students formed a mob and attacked an assistant principal, injuring her head. When the story was reported, she was still in the hospital.
The principal was described as being nice and the best principal on campus.
Although the school claimed that administrators and officers helped break up a fight, another teacher claimed this was not true.
They said there were only two officers for the entire campus. They went on to say,
Conclusion
It only takes a quick internet search to find countless videos and stories about students attacking teachers. It is even more frightening how often the school and the community do not support these teachers.
Yea, teachers do not feel safe.
Much like school shootings, attacking teachers is becoming far too common. Telling the wrong child no can lead to a life-threatening attack.
I would love to end this with a resolution. It would all be theory and dreams of a different world. I can only look back to the past and wonder what was different.
After her coworker was attacked, one teacher said,
Yea, me too.
