John Thompson: Do Not Treat Difficult Students Like Criminals

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1. Dienne says:

   November 5, 2015 at 10:11 am

   “Perez-Pena, Hauser, and Stolerberg explain that in the South Carolina case captured by cell phone video a girl defied a teacher’s instruction to stop using her phone in class.”

   Hold it, full stop. She DID stop using her phone. She put it away and apologized. What she refused to do was hand it over (and, seriously, if someone in authority – your employer, say – demanded that you hand over your cell phone, would you?) and she refused to leave the class because she felt like she hadn’t done anything wrong.

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2. Dienne says:

   November 5, 2015 at 10:19 am

   Basically in the SC situation, admin was called because the girl sassed the teacher and the cop was called because the girl sassed the admin. The admin should have told the teacher to do his job and the cop should have told the admin to do his job. If you can’t deal with teen sass, you probably shouldn’t be in a high school.

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   • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

     November 5, 2015 at 11:20 am

     Why should we think it normal that teachers should have to put up with “teen sass?” If students are acting in a disrespectful way to their teachers, obviously parents are not doing their jobs.

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     • Dienne says:

       November 5, 2015 at 11:25 am

       You never sassed as a teen? Really? C’mon, it’s what teens do. It’s part of the process of finding who they are separate from their parents and other adults. Some of that involves some open, if moderate, rebellion. I remember when I discovered the power of the swear word on my devoted Christian mother and my father who protected her. And I was a very “good” kid (read: obedient) – I was afraid of getting in trouble. If even I sassed, then I can’t imagine a kid that doesn’t.

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     • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

       November 5, 2015 at 11:41 am

       No, I was never disrespectful to a teacher although I had a few who were outright abusive to me. I never heard my parents swear or treat teachers with disrespect. To my parents, an education was the most important thing a person could have. My mother was a lawyer and encouraged healthy debate and discussion as did my father. So, I don’t consider rebellion or debate to be sass. Perhaps our definitions of “sass” are different? 🙂 My parents were my PARENTS and NOT my friends until I was older and our relationship changed in that way. Unfortunately, I think that has been lost. I graduated from HS in ’86 and I can’t remember ANY of the behaviors going on in my HS that go on today. I can’t remember any student saying “F you” to a teacher back then. It happens all the time now – and worse. If a teacher asked me to give him or her something, I would hand it over without a thought. To know a teacher’s first name was like knowing some major secret of the universe! As a teacher, I think of some of the best students I had who were contumacious and thoughtful and “rebelled” by asking tough questions, but they were never mean or vindictive or hostile or even rude or disrespectful.

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     • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

       November 5, 2015 at 11:54 am

       I think you bring up a good point about students being afraid to get in trouble. Students are not afraid of getting in trouble now the way I remember when I was in HS. There’s a kind of indifference to it all by many students. They are indifferent to their parents’ rules, the school rules and they just don’t seem to care what happens. So, they get punished with in school suspension or out of school suspension and they just don’t care. Something has to be going on at home for this attitude to be so ubiquitous.

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     • Lenny Rothbart says:

       November 5, 2015 at 5:23 pm

       There’s a lot of ground in dealing with “teen sass” between “putting up” with it & calling the cops. From what I’ve read about this particular case, the student had already put away her cell phone & apologized. The issue was she refused to comply with the teacher’s demand that she turn over the phone to the teacher. Yes, she should have complied, but on the other hand, the teacher, being an adult, could have saved face by simply saying calmly, “Well, make sure it stays put away,” & continuing with the class. The whole thing would have been forgotten in seconds. Instead, the teacher chose to escalate it into a power struggle, forgetting the 1st rule of management: as soon as you have to say, “I AM THE BOSS,” you’re not.

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     • Dienne says:

       November 5, 2015 at 7:08 pm

       Exactly.

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     • Katy says:

       November 5, 2015 at 9:27 pm

       I agree with you. The connection with the student is very important; the cell phone rule is less so. Picking your battles is a helpful guideline, especially with a student who has so much on her plate already.

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3. Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

   November 5, 2015 at 10:35 am

   In most cases, students’ use of cell phones in class is disruptive to their focus on what is going on in the present moment. Frankly, it’s disrespectful to a teacher if a student uses his or her cell phone in class. I think that many times teachers are trying to uphold school policies of not having cell phones in class by taking them away. Teachers have to interrupt their classes many times to tell students to put their phones away and often tell the SAME student multiple times. I’ve had parents call their children while they were in class! Furthermore, students are not adults in a work environment. A classroom is already filled with enough distractions, and cell phones just make it worse. Teachers are under enough pressure for students to perform on tests, etc., that this is just another distraction. Schools are now monitoring what students do on social media because so much of the drama that goes on there ends up being played out in school. Even worse is that they are truly addictive. That said, of course the officer should not have assaulted this student. I think the situation does point to the need for a wider discussion of cell phone use in schools.

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   • MathVale says:

     November 5, 2015 at 3:32 pm

     I watched on PBS as a representative from Common Sense Media discussed the 8-9 hours of media time students now receive every day – cell phones included. As usual, the representative insists it is the job of schools and teachers to instill proper phone behavior. As if that is on the test or a teacher can do that in a classroom of 30 students hiding their phones on their lap texting. Again, the teachers fault we have cell phones in schools.

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4. Paula says:

   November 5, 2015 at 10:52 am

   I just watched a video in which a substitute teacher was abused by a group of students. It was painful to watch and the sub was terrified. The fact that the students were recording the incident and enjoying the abuse made me angry. Why are the rights of the teacher to not be recorded,not be humiliated come in. These students were taunting and threatening the teacher but when do we make students/parents responsible for their activities?this is not being addressed in our discipline policies, that’s why they don’t work.

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   • Dienne says:

     November 5, 2015 at 11:34 am

     Substitutes are in a really bad position. They don’t have the time to build up relationships with students, and the students know they’re not the “real” teacher, so there’s not so much natural authority to the position. I’m not sure what the solution is other than to pay and treat them well to build up a regular pool of experienced subs who get to know the kids at least a little, and to have admin and/or other teachers making frequent checks on the class.

     But in any case, actual harassment and abuse is a completely different situation than mere “sass”. A kid refusing to do what s/he’s told or talking back is not a threat that needs to be dealt with by law enforcement. In fact, teachers who can’t handle that kind of thing on their own actually lose face with the kids. Calling in a bigger bully to handle your problems for you is not a way to earn respect.

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5. retired teacher says:

   November 5, 2015 at 11:54 am

   The best cell phone management system I have ever seen was the following: The teacher had a numbered plastic shoe holder at the front of the classroom. Upon entering, students who had been assigned numbers placed cell phones in their numbered slot and sat down. The teacher took attendance from the numbered chart and visually checked the four or five non-cell phone students in the class. It is a great strategy for avoiding conflict and potential drama.

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   • Dienne says:

     November 5, 2015 at 12:01 pm

     I like it. The students can’t access their phones, but they know where they are and know they can get them back at the end of class. No power struggles over handing the phone over to a teacher or other authority.

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     • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

       November 5, 2015 at 12:03 pm

       It does work much of the time. But it’s even better if ALL teachers use this system. If not, students go from class to class fighting with the teachers who have the system complaining that other teachers don’t. Of course, there are still those students who will refuse to relinquish their phones.

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   • MathVale says:

     November 5, 2015 at 3:35 pm

     My daughter’s math teacher tried that. The students took her phone out, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it. We are no longer at that school. Other cases phones are stolen this way. Perhaps the best approach is if parents actually enforced a “no phone” rule going out the door. While I didn’t walk up hill both ways, the cell phones in my era were the size of a suitcase and we didn’t need constant communication on SnapChat to function.

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     • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

       November 5, 2015 at 4:00 pm

       It’s a nightmare no matter how you slice it!!

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     • 2old2teach says:

       November 6, 2015 at 12:59 am

       On one hand we have the tech industry pushing the use of hand held devices in classrooms, and on the other students being deemed disrespectful for using devices inappropriately. Adults can’t seem to resist the temptation to peek at their phones. Is it really surprising that teenagers are no better if not worse? When I was growing up, there were no cell phones to distract us. That is not to say we didn’t find other ways to zone out. Most times teachers ignored the glazed look, but if we got caught no one got all huffy about how disrespectful we were. Yeah, we were generally more easily subject to adult authority, but the good teachers knew enough not to abuse their authority either. In my high school classes we always used to get around to a discussion about respect. Invariably the kids believed that you had to earn respect, which is how they saw the “hood” working. I was in the opposite camp. I contended that everyone deserved respect. You only had to earn it back if you had lost it through your own actions.

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6. Duane Swacker says:

   November 5, 2015 at 12:06 pm

   The SC incident should have never gotten to the “bring in the law” stage. Completely mishandled by the teacher but more importantly by the administrator. Has there been any discipline-letters of reprimand given to the teacher and the administrator?

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7. Gordon Wilder says:

   November 5, 2015 at 2:33 pm

   John Thompson’s writings are, I believe, beautiful. Flexibility in our thinking is a necessity. He had better training than I did many years ago and as we all should do and as I tried to do,educate our students in as many aspects of that education as is possible to the best of our abilities. He understood the situation and worked to solve it. Was truly interested in his students. No one has all the answers, we do the best we know and we must learn along with our students from experience and I for one have HUGE respect for what he has written.

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8. Jon Lubar says:

   November 5, 2015 at 3:27 pm

   It seems to me that the underlying assumptions about the nature of the student is the place where the authorities went off the rails, and they went off the rails before any incident happened. Acting out is one thing, but a wrongheaded a priori assumption about the humanity of the students in your school guarantees that gas will always be thrown on whatever tiny fire erupts. http://atthechalkface.com/2013/02/17/the-lowest-expectation-of-them-all/

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9. Firstgrademonkey says:

   November 6, 2015 at 1:26 am

   I have used the remove all of my students from the classroom technique. It works well until being faced with the clean up afterwards. Once I had a student who completely destroyed the room including my files. It was not the only violent outburst from this student. He would bite, hit (using anything within reach- computer keyboard, clip boards, pencils, student chairs etc.) kick (he wore high top leather shoes). Often the incidents made little sense. He hit a child over the head with the keyboard because he was having trouble signing into the computer and insisted that another child five rows in front of him was laughing at him because he couldn’t sigh in. By the time, I cleared the room and buzzed for help, he had bitten a second child and choked a third. None of these children had said or done anything that could be labeled as a provocation. It might have labeled it as his having an off day if it were not a daily occurrence. He not only attacked the children but adults as well. It took eight months to get through the referral process and have his placement changed.

   I agree that we need to protect children with difficulties, but this is ridiculous. It happens more often than you would think. The Kindergarten teacher had just as much difficulty with this child the previous year. My response is this, what about the other 27children who share that room, do they not also have a right to a safe and functional classroom? They were terrified. I had one child on anti anxiety meds and two other parents considering it for their children. I am still puzzled that NOT ONE parent lodged a formal complaint about the problem. How about the adults, should they be forced to work in an environment where they are assaulted on a daily basis? Should they be forced to lose their personal reputation by having this type of child placed in his/her classroom? Today, my assistant principal commented on how hard I had worked over the summer on my classroom management as my classroom felt so much calmer and ordered this year. I know he meant this as a compliment, but I felt demeaned!

   Something needs to be done, as it stands now everyone loses. The students lose ther right to be educated in a safe, friendly environment. They learned less than than they could have. Every minute I used to deal with the child’s violent behavior was wasted time for everyone else. The teacher lost respect and some professional reputation, the child lost because he could have had needed services sooner. His parents lost because they too were living in fear for themselves and their child. Turns out he was assaulting them too. I was shocked at how powerless they felt about helping their child. They are excellent parents. I can’t imagine how painful this must be for them.

   I think parents and others need to realize that teachers are human. We have an education in teaching, but we are not doctors, psychologists or even therapists. We do not have training in these fields, yet somehow we are supposed to cure all children of their psychological, behavioral and social problems. Teaching alone already requires more hours than is given in any day. I can’t figure how to add meeting everyone’s expectations on the list. I too need to cook meals, wash dishes and clothes, vacuum and dust; what wouldn’t I do for a little sleep!

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