unruly students

washingtonpost.com

Teachers Weigh Stance in Student Clashes

By Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, May 21, 2002; Page A09

It was not a blow of any kind. Barely a touch, actually. Kenneth Bernstein says the the student intentionally walked into his hand, which the teacher had raised to emphasize his repeated request that the boy stop walking down the hall at Kettering Middle School in Prince George's County.

The student threw himself backward, saying Bernstein had shoved him. "Yeah, you pushed him," two of his friends said. They went off to the office to file a complaint. Bernstein wondered whether his career as a social studies teacher was going to end only two months after it began.

Like most educators, he was aware of a marked change in thinking about how to deal with unruly students. His accuser was guilty only of being out of class that day in the late 1990s, but even when faced with bloody fights on school grounds, teachers have become reluctant to do anything that might get them in trouble, and their two primary unions strongly reinforce that caution.

The 1999 booklet "Building Safe and Orderly Schools," prepared by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, makes 12 recommendations for breaking up fights -- all without touching the students. "If ignored, small acts of aggression can quickly grow to more violent aggression," the booklet cautions, but the most direct response recommended is, "In a strong voice, tell students that they must stop doing what they're doing." "Never get between students who are fighting," the booklet advises. Instead, educators are advised to "look to see if there are any weapons present," "make a mental note of the names of the onlookers," "document what happened" and lastly "support victims in any way you can -- get them any help they may need." The unions' booklet suggests that if a teacher wants onlookers to leave the area, using each student's name is best. "For example, 'Brian, go back to class now!' is more effective than saying, 'Everyone get out of here now!'" the booklet says.

Many Washington area rulemakers say such caution is unavoidable in a litigious and violent era. Teachers "need to be careful of their own safety," said Stephen L. Bedford, principal of Gaithersburg High School in Montgomery County. "I cannot require a staff member to physically break up a fight."

Robert W. Snee, principal of George Mason High School in Falls Church, said his school's safety plan states: "Do not physically intervene if physical harm can come to you."

But the trend irritates some educators, who say they will continue to intervene physically if there is no other way to help a child. "We have gone too far in protecting students' rights, and we should be able to break up any physical confrontations between students without repercussions," said Chuck McNevich, a physical education teacher at Carver Elementary School in St. Mary's County.

"I will not let any child for whom I have responsibility -- and under the law, that includes any child attending the school -- be at risk of physical injury," said Bernstein, who switched to a Northern Virginia school last year. "If the kids don't believe the adults will ensure they will be physically safe, why should they ever listen to us?"

That element of trust is crucial, said Pedro Noguera, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "If kids get the sense that the adults that work with them are unwilling or too afraid to intervene when there's a fight, it makes the adults irrelevant," he said. "They become useless, and kids begin to feel that those adults can't help them should there be an incident."

Local school regulations and policies seem to give teachers the right to intervene physically without fear of losing their jobs or being charged with assault. A D.C. schools spokesman said that there is an adult at each school responsible for removing "the student from harm's way," which may require breaking up fights. He said he knows of no cases in which an educator was punished for doing so.

According to the Virginia Code, rules against corporal punishment do not apply to educators who use "incidental, minor or reasonable physical contact . . . to maintain order and control" or who use "reasonable and necessary force to quell a disturbance or remove a student from the scene of a disturbance which threatens physical injury to persons or damage to property." The Maryland Code holds that educators "may take reasonable action necessary to prevent violence on school premises or on a school-sponsored trip, including intervening in a fight or physical struggle."

Determining whether an intervention was "reasonable," however, can mean expensive days in court, so many educators resist diving into the middle of a fight. Instead, they rely on verbal and psychological intervention. Bedford said he expects staff members "to try to stop the fight verbally and to attempt to get assistance." The George Mason High School safety plan recommends making "loud, diverting sounds" and using "clear commands" to the combatants.

Paul W. Smith, a teacher at Southeast High School in Lincoln, Neb., said, "My advice is to create an immediate distraction, such as swearing -- yes, swearing at the top of your lungs -- to draw the attention away from the fight and onto you. I've done it. It works!"

But not always, and the delay in breaking up a fight can exacerbate the dispute. Daniel Shea, principal of Quince Orchard High School in Montgomery County, has been dealing with teenagers for 27 years. He said the best approach is "to separate the fighters very quickly, remove them from the sight of the onlookers" -- who often urge more violence -- "and solve the problems in a conference room away from the scene." But increased sensitivity to legal and safety problems means that "it's best now to wait for assistance, deal with the fighters and prepare to handle the crowd."

In an odd way, school often serves to soften clashes that could become murderous, Shea said. "I know that students choose school to 'meet up' rather than the street," he said. "On the street, there's no one to stop the fight, weapons are present and the injuries are harsher. . . . They know it's safer to fight in front of me than it is away from me."

Still, teachers say their students know that quick intervention is unlikely and that they have the option of filing charges against adults if they think their parents will back them up. McNevich said the only solution is video cameras set up throughout each school.

The Kettering student's charges against Bernstein went nowhere because the boy had a bad reputation and even his parents did not believe him. But some students still take advantage of the fact that many teachers, faced with misbehavior or worse, think the safest thing to do is nothing.

And that can have a marked impact on learning. "If those are the rules, and the unruly kids know it," Bernstein said, "they can disrupt the better part of a class period until someone who can physically handle the student shows up."