Keeping Teachers Safe

I had two moments in my first year of teaching.

One was the moment when two students stood up and squared off to fight, and before the smarter part of my brain could intervene, I stepped between them. They were both a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than I, and they were damn sight more used to using fists to hammer out conflict.

The other was the moment when a student from another class period entered my room and stood chest to chest with me, describing in considerable detail how he was going to beat the shit out of me. Then he left, and I made it through the rest of the period before sitting down, shaking, at my desk. It ended okay; at the end of the day, he came back and sat down and talked to me at length about what was bothering him. But I kept the door to my classroom closed and locked for decades, and, weirdly, I have never, ever forgotten the date.

That was the 1979-80 school year. Things have not improved for teachers. 

Every teacher has some stories about dealing with violence in school. Sometimes it's student-to-student. Sometimes it's an act directed toward a teacher, even as simple as throwing an object. Sometimes it's just the threat, a student who spits out some language accompanied by a look that tells you that given the wrong circumstances, that student would be coming at you.

There's a nightmare that I suspect pretty much all teachers have, where somehow you have lost control in the classroom and things are spinning out of control as you desperately, fruitlessly try to get a handle on it. There's the knowledge that you have to work past when starting out, the realization that if your classroom of students decided to ignore you and collectively shut down the class, there's nothing you could do to stop it. You learn to wield authority, but you're aware that it's a construct, an illusion that exists as long as you and the students find it mutually agreeable to maintain it. 

And more than that. I say all of the above as a 6'1" male. I can't quite imagine how a classroom feels for a diminutive female. A teacher in a classroom is uniquely vulnerable, and yet you cannot let fear grab ahold of you because it renders you useless, even dangerous, as a teacher. It's one of those things that they don't teach you in teacher school (but you with any luck learn from your student teaching co-op)-- how to be calm and confident and large and in charge all at the same time.

These days, you can't be a teacher without being aware of the threat of violence. On top of the same old personal experiences, you hear (with shock) how young the attacker was, you see the news stories where the violence escalates and is rebroadcast on the net, you see the worst of the stories that escalate to actual murder. 

So it's not just the mass shootings. Those events get all the talk and generate the most shot, but teachers understand that these shootings are not disconnected balloons floating far above the earth, but the peaks of mountains of escalating violence.

Back in 2014, an American Psychology Association Violence Directed Against Teachers Task Force survey found that 44% of teachers reported an incident directed against them personally. A more recent iteration of that survey found numbers almost as high--and that was during the pandemic. Websites that usually focus on the wacky, fun side of teaching have published hard-edged articles about the issue. 

"Too Many Teachers Are Getting Hit, Kicked, and Punched by Students," writes the WeAreTeachers staff. "Student Violence Against Teachers Has Become the Norm and That’s NOT Okay" hollers the post at Bored Teachers. 

The issue exists at the intersection of many others, making it hard to implement. Like every single major issue in education, it requires balance between the many points of tension.

Fordham Institute, working from its own study, declares that "Lax discipline is bad for teachers," and they are not wrong. Teachers cannot do their best work in the midst of chaos. It is deeply demoralizing to work in a school setting where both you and your students know that no matter what they do, there will be no consequences. When folks argue that some level of discipline is needed to keep a school functional, they are not wrong. 

And it's not just to make teachers' lives easier; what is most annoying about that disruptive student is not the personal affront to teacher dignity, but the effect it has one the learning environment of every other child in that classroom.

But at the same time, these are students, children, and "school discipline" should not be some sort of pedagogical police state. "Break this child's will and bend it to my own," is not a viable strategy, not just because it's morally and ethically wrong, but also because a too-large part of the time, it simply won't work. 

People want to be heard. If they don't think you're hearing them, they will keep raising their voice till you hear them. When someone is yelling at you, that's a message for you. Every piece of student misbehavior is information about that student. 

However, it's also true that many schools have botched the rollout of programs like restorative justice. In the wrong hands, these are programs that reinforce an old bad lesson for students--just say the words the adults want you to say and you can go on about your business unhampered. 

And really, if there are SEL lessons to be learned at school, one of them has to be that struggling with your own load is not a free license to piss all over everyone else, and being in the classroom of someone who is not doing a great job is not a good reason to physically attack them. 

The issue is difficult because so many things can be true at once. A child can be a trauma victim who needs appropriate services. A teacher can be lousy at managing a classroom. A student can cause problems because he knows there will be no consequences for his bad behavior. A school can have a bad learning environment because students run roughshod over teachers, and a school can have a bad learning environment because the adults impose a tyrannical culture of compliance. 

And all of this happens against the background of a culture in which it's okay to denigrate and disrespect teachers, to accuse them of being groomers, teaching "filth," hating children and their country. And that is happening in a country in which it's increasingly acceptable to deal with people you disagree with by trying to obliterate them, either figuratively or literally, violently. Schools exist downhill from society and the culture at large; everything happening in society eventually ends up in schools. 

What can help? The biggest line of defense preventing violence against teachers is administration. Take teacher concerns seriously (and if you have a teacher who is demanding your happen too often, take that seriously). Be clear, proportionate, and consistent with student consequences, and keep those separate from labeling and pigeonholing children as "bad." Watch your teachers' backs. Prioritize making your school a safe space for everyone. Embrace solutions that work, not just those that feel good (throwing the book and just having a talk can both feel good). If you are over thirty, recognize these are not the times you grew up in. 

Parents can help, and some do, and some won't. Teachers can help, often, but not always. 

And policy makers can help mostly by not reducing the issue to simple solutions, which starts by admitting that the issue exists and that it needs to be worked on and not simply exploited as another way to kick the public education football around.