School

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by cbruzdzinski

by cbruzdzinski

My friend who works at a public school is the person I interviewed. He preferred to remain anonymous. He is a history/ math long term substitute teacher.

At the school he works in, there are community groups bringing problems into the school. The beginning of the school year there were roughly 8-10 fights on a good day. Students fought staff, teachers, and fellow students. It is normally physically and/ or verbal. Many teachers have had to seek medical attention. Often, I try not to get physically involved but handle the more verbal issues and paperwork. Because we pull from every part of the county, there are a lot of outside issues. This is gang issues along with community aggression that often play a role in fights and who is fighting. This happens inside the classroom, on campus grounds, and during extracurricular activities which leads to expulsions and suspensions.

If I see the signs that something may happen, I am supposed to verbally tell them not to and tell administrators. While in a perfect world that would work, it often doesn't. We aren't supposed to be physically but sometimes we have no choice.

Create connections, have students explain what we have in common, make the school environment as calm, cohesive, and collaborative as possible. Give plenty of work to do and strong encouragement. Being open to hearing them and reminding them that they can use their words instead of their fists.

School wise, the principle is really good about sending home different letters and talking with parents about their kids and them fightings. Parents often care just as much as we do when it comes to the school and violence. Being transparent with parents, make sure they are up to date really helps with elevating the problems.

We need to end community groups, gang violence, and squash the beef that most students perceive they have. Actions have consequences so these kids are either going to keep getting beat up, arrested, or die because of their behaviors. Schools and communities are inheriting each other's patterns of violent.