April 1, 2010

As of this date, I have yet to be contacted by administrators from the Trenton School District concerning an incident earlier this week, during which a student put his hands on me in a classroom. The following day, I was told I would not be able to teach until administrators review the incident. I choose not to share any details of the incident in this space at this time, but I do ask readers to share any insight on protocol and rules for teachers, salaried or substitute, when there is a confrontation during which a student puts his or her hands on an instructor on school premises. Should I be able to teach while this is being hashed out? Does my current status as a substitute teacher afford me representation from the teachers’ union in this situation? They are fair questions, since an administrator did admit to me they have “never seen a situation like this.”  If you are a teacher who has had this unfortunate experience, recount it for me. Professionally and personally, how were you affected?

Ironically, a class I taught recently read an article about the zero-tolerance approach some school districts in our country take in enforcing their code of conduct, and how many cities have their police departments train school security guards. In one instance, a student was handcuffed and hauled off to jail by police in front of her classmates for scribbling on a desk. Sounds terse, but it is that district’s rules. Even here in Trenton, you can’t miss the increased police presence in and around our schools, but I haven’t heard any cases of them taking their role to that level, though. Besides, it wasn’t the first time that student was disciplined for that act. My class unanimously agreed that punishment was over the top. Suspension, they felt, should have been the ultimate punishment for the student, nothing more. Even before my experience, I wondered how such stringent rules, and their enforcement by private or police-trained guards-who are not your friends-would go over in our city. Consider the rules in Trenton public schools prohibiting eating food and the use of cell phones and personal listening/gaming devices in classrooms. Ask a teacher in Trenton – upper elementary, middle, or high school, how many times they’ve had to ask a student to please put away the sunflower seeds, a cell phone, turn off an iPod, or been interrupted by the sound effects of a video game, all drawing the attention and laughter of the other students, whom that teacher is trying to educate. What should be the fate of the student who, after being verbally reprimanded for breaking one or more of these rules numerous times, then written up for the same things on another occasions, is caught yet again? I imagine our school district implementing that zero- tolerance, and the situation that would arise when a security guard is called to a classroom, and then attempts to confiscate whatever contraband. No words, just the guard(s) walking in and taking it. I can name at least 10 students, male and female, currently matriculating in the Trenton Public Schools who simply would not allow anyone who isn’t the police separate them from what’s theirs. How would you punish that student? Do you call the police? How do you punish that student now, without zero-tolerance?

If mine is a common experience among teachers that normally goes unreported, it explains why more than a few students laugh at you when you ask them politely to stop throwing the books at each other, to sit down, put the devices and sunflower seeds away, listen, try to learn and, if they have some difficulty comprehending the lesson being taught, ask for help, instead of suddenly rapping out loud, dancing or, sadly, getting up and walking out. In this culture that is rapidly gobbling the City of Trenton, that student learns early that a teacher who has been around a while won’t do anything that could result in any type of confrontation, nor will they spend the better part of a class trying to get one person to adhere to rules their parents should have impressed upon them before that first day of kindergarten. I’m realizing most teachers understand that, in these circumstances, they run the risk of losing the attention of those few students who wait, and sincerely want, to learn. It took this school year, substitute teaching mainly in one school, to learn that.  

I just wanna teach again soon. Some of those kids were starting to listen to me.

Skip Harrison is an educator, freelance journalist, and parent, who resides in Trenton, New Jersey.