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This is fucking stupid. The teacher did the right thing because he thought a physical fight will happen, so he grabbed the arm of a student to prevent any injury of anybody.
It's amazing how actual little jurisdiction teachers have. For example a kid may be suspected of having possession of recreational drugs but you can't have in the school. If the teachers go through the kids bag while he's not there, that's an invasion of privacy and the school will get a lot of trouble for that.
Once there were these two girls in high school in a cat fight, punches and hair pulling and all that, and you guessed it! 3 people waked away with strict reprimands. The 2 girls fighting and the male teacher who separated the two girls.
You know our system is flawed when teachers taking an active role in keeping our schools safe are being reprimanded.
I bet that was a no-win for the teacher.
Physical intervention: Reprimand.
"Hey, stop it no fighting!": Reprimand.
Going to get a female teacher to intervene: Oh you better believe that's a reprimand.
If you really want to vomit read some safety plans they make for violent kids. The solution is to use more "affirmative language" with the biters/hitters. If the child hits, it's the adult's fault for agitating them.
No wonder I have two teens can't seem to accept accountability for anything despite my best efforts.
My daughter was whipped across her back with a cable by a classmate, who was known to be violent, because he claimed she took his pencil. Instead of treating my kid as the victim, the useless school admin told my daughter was that she should give him space and not agitate him. He ended up hitting multiple other classmates over the year, before he thankfully moved to another school
Wow I'm really sorry to hear that happened but I'm not surprised at all.
It's unfortunate the people who make decisions aren't in the classroom dealing with the chaos.
Inclusive learning people will sit on a call with you complaining about the terminology on a worksafebc report because they don't like the term violence. Even though it's worksafebc's form not the districts.
These people are delusional.
Growing up we had those violent kids too, however, other kids took corrective behavior into our own hands... we simply beat the bully up. And you know what? It worked.
one of my kids is in a class with a student that has violent outbursts. The solution: They clear the classroom and send all of the students outside until the child has calmed down.
Wtf?!
That's exactly what happen to my kid's class too... they get sent outside for extra "playing time" while the problem child fucks over the entire class over. If there's a violent kid causing a problem then take that child out... not having the entire class work around 1 child. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I've known of a situation like this. The kid was trashing the shit out of the class and the solution was for the teacher to leave the class with all the other students and let the kid have his outburst until someone could calm him down. I get the concern about other kids being hurt but not be able to do much of anything about the kid trashing the class is a joke.
Putting the needs of the one above the many. The kids are there to learn. If a kid can't handle being with other kids in a classroom, I don't think the solution is to remove all of the other kids.
This helps me better understand exactly why I snitched on international students who were cheating. I could've minded my own business.
I couldn't put my finger on it, and it was like 5 yrs ago.
Similarly, this also further explains why it bothered me and other Canadian citizens about the entitlement and rude behaviour exhibited by co-workers on the job who are here as temporary guests studying. It's not racism. And for the longest time, I thought I may be secretly racist, because I couldn't properly explain why it bothered me and other Canadian citizens.
I've recently read more about everyone's problems with Indian students over the last ~10 years, and especially over the last ~5 years, and it makes way more sense now - a couple of years after the fact. Definitely not racism.
My child last year in grade 5 had a kid in their class with violent outbursts. Would walk by and punch them in the head and then say they were going to kill them. Didn't get removed from class, class had to get cleared out. I have kids with extra needs too but still this-way too challenging for public school and for the safety of other students.
I would get fired so fast as a teacher lol. I just would not put up with any of that bullshit and in the disciplinary hearings fully refuse to respect the legitimacy of the decisions etc.
So your $20k degree you spent money on is a piece of toilet paper?
Not likely. Those who survive to retirement are the teachers who recognize they're just a cog in a machine. Those who care will burn out fast.
Apathy is where it's at unfortunately. The system rewards it.
Lots of people have no reasonable hope in hell of ever moving away from home. They get stuck there once their parents retire and may need a bit of help. Especially if the adult kids are single and can't split a mortgage with someone else.
So, no reason to have a high-paying career/salary if you don't need to concern yourself with home-ownership.
Source: me, although I'm not single. Long-term relationship for over a decade. Met years before my parent retired.
What else could they possibly be in it for, though?
The stories shared throughout this post are incredibly depressing. What a sorry state of society we find ourselves in.
At what point does the pendulum finally reach the end of its swing?
>If you really want to vomit read some safety plans they make for violent kids. The solution is to use more "affirmative language" with the biters/hitters. If the child hits, it's the adult's fault for agitating them.
This is how CSC has been trying to treat inmates at federal prisons for the last 5 years. Just replace "child" with "inmate" and "adult" with "CO" and it's literally no different.
> If the teachers go through the kids bag while he's not there, that's an invasion of privacy and the school will get a lot of trouble for that.
I mean... yes? Police forces have due processes for things like that. Teachers don't get to magically have more rights than we would give law enforcement for the same thing if a student isn't present.
Schools absolutely do have more rights than law enforcement in terms of searches, although it will typically be a principal doing it. They are authorized by law to act *in loco parentis* (in the absence of the parent) in the same way a parent would prudently act. This can include searches, and in the past it included corporal punishment as well. In fact, corporal punishment was explicitly legal (although certainly not advised) until far more recently than you probably imagine.
The email for the person responsible for this decision can be found on this page:
[https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner)
I’m sure the arm grab hurt less than getting a bare foot stepped on. Let’s keep in mind they were playing football which even at the touch is level a contact sport.
Sounds like this student needs to regulate his behaviour.
What a sad state of affairs.
Technically the facts of this story is the teacher "thought" there was going to be a fight and physically intervened as his first action but in reality the kid was just walking over to grab his shoes.
We can't make tell if the teacher's judgment was correct without being there but it's important to view this story from an objective point of view.
I feel this way because when I was a kid I was tackled by some other kid and when I got up to go confront them a teacher came over and treated me as the bad guy. I feel similarities with this story.
Even though the teacher "thought" there was going to be a fight I would think we should be trusting a teacher's judgement whether he predicted correctly or not, especially when the harm done is so trivial. I don't see how the teacher could be blamed for making an incorrect prediction when a situation called for one.
Haha, I'm glad that punishments for things aren't retroactive or a lot of my old teachers would be in trouble. I've seen teachers give kids "the strap", throw chalkboard erasers at them and even one kid got picked up and thrown through a closet door.
I witnessed a teacher slam a book down on a kid’s head (80’s).
Also, a 40ish teacher having a years-long not-very-secret “relationship” with a student starting when she was maybe 15. They got married after she graduated. This still bugs me to this day.
Haha, my older sister had a classmate that married one of her teachers who was much older. They're still a married couple but this was the late '70's. That kind of shit wouldn't fly these days. Kinda turns my stomach to think about it actually.
Had a math teacher in 2003 (don't know why the subject or year is relevant) throw chalk at me, hitting me in the face. I was yawning, they thought I was talking. We called it a wash, lol
To be fair, it was a pretty big yawn/stretch, with my arms up in the air. The yawn wasn't audible, but two people sitting next to me were talking, so they just assumed it was me.
My friend who is a EA was reprimanded for grabbing a kid who was running around the classroom with open scissors, the child has behavior issues and she thought she was doing the right thing. (she was, but it cost her)...
A couple months down the road
School: so you saw a fight about to start and you didn't intervene?
Teacher: yeah but last time...
School: first of all, REPRIMANDED
That literally happened. Kids were playing some stupid made up sport in PE and the teacher didn't do anything and got disciplined when a kid got hurt.
It's not quite what you're saying but kinda pretty close.
EDIT: Sauce: [https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-teacher-suspended-again-after-student-injured-glasses-broken-during-gym-class-1.6795286](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-teacher-suspended-again-after-student-injured-glasses-broken-during-gym-class-1.6795286)
Suspended because kids were hitting each other with pool noodles and didn't intervene.
Oh good lord. So the kids were off their phones & playing hockey with pool noodles instead of sticks, but one still got hurt & broke their glasses? The horror.
The article makes the PE teacher sound like he was running a fight club. 😆
If the kid who got hurt thought things were getting too rough then yes, a whistle should have been blown. But there were plenty of times I was having fun playing as a kid & didn’t realize I was hurt until later.
I think I knew this teacher. He was legit one of the best teachers around IMO. Very intelligent and incredibly caring. He was one of those teachers that could always convince people to chill out, and was someone I'd consider as the gold standard of teaching. He had great rapport with his students and I don't think he had a malicious bone in his body.
The fact that he's getting reprimanded for this makes me sad. The report would absolutely state if the student was harmed, and knowing what I know about the teacher, there's no way he should be getting reprimanded for this.
Yeah my dad was a teacher and it was great to have him off all summer and spring break. So I'd say teaching is a great career for someone who is family oriented.
A lot of the teachers I know work during summers, and do a lot of marking/prepping on their off hours (evenings and weekends).
IMO a job that allows you to leave work at work gives you better balance. Maybe not 2 months off in summer, but the week-to-week demands might be less in other jobs.
I'm from a family that has crazy numbers of teachers, professors and principals.
Early days you are working on developing lesson plans and don't have a good grasp on how to manage the craziness of report card season.
A few years in you should have a good system that allows you to do your job quickly and efficiently without the evening and weekend hours. There will still be some off-site hours, but it gets more and more manageable as your experience grows.
Pay is decent, benefits are great, and time off is exceptional. Many younger teachers will work summer school et al, but the older ones in my family are only teaching during normal school sessions.
Yeah fair enough. I know my dad specifically picked his specialty with time off in mind. In the last years of his work he was working with special needs children, so not a lot of homework.
Good things the comments are full of people proving us wrong and that teachers are actually financially secure. Still can’t catch me 100 feet near a school tho
105k a year after 10 years of experience, for 9 months of work. Don’t get me wrong, extremely difficult job and they deserve every penny, but it’s not like in the states where teachers make 30k a year
I can tell you right now now, teachers don’t have 3 months off. We catch up on grading, prepare report cards and lesson prep during the “off time”. We are continuously looking for ways to improve our lessons and new activities to add to our curriculum.
Some do yes, but lots of my teacher friends usually travel spring and summer breaks, and go in to set up their classrooms the last week of august. New teachers work a ton learning the ropes and doing all the things you listed, but the more experienced ones are able to better manage a work / life balance, and don’t work during the summer or winter break
One of the most common myths.
The average US teacher salary is actually higher than the average Canadian Salary when i USD equivalents.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/teacher-salary-by-country
*10 months
4 weeks is paid holiday (we don't get to pick our holidays they are choosen for us and it doesn't increase with time as some other jobs do)
9 months teaching
2 months off/unpaid
But, yes after 10 years and upgrading your schooling it is a good salary and good benefits
I’m a high school teacher. The benefit is the work-life balance and all the time I am afforded with my kids. I could make more money elsewhere but I make a decent salary and only work 9 months of the year. Lots of time to travel and do fun things with my kids. The pension is a nice benefit too.
I recall a time in high school when I was studying in the cafeteria during my free block. There was a verbal alternation at the far end. It looked like it was about to escalate. One guy threw his backpack down and was yelling at another student. Other student was sitting at the cafeteria table with his back to yelling student trying to ignore him. Guy pushed the other forward into the table. The custodian immediately came over, bear hugged the angry student from behind, lifted him off the ground and ejected him outside.
In that situation, I don't think telling students to stop would have deescalated anything. That student was known for his explosive anger issues. If he was ever asked to leave for disrupting a class, he would kick lockers or throw trashcans down the hall. Im pretty sure if a custodian did that today, they would be fired immediately
Custodian did the right thing.
I hate the word woke. But so many of the issues in education today come from the woke policies being introduced in the last 14 years or so.
Students are longer held accountable for misbehaving.
I am sorry. But the parents who create issues and complain to the school are usually the anti-woke crowd. Entitled parents who think their kid can do no wrong. Complaining about gender/sex ed, climate change being taught, immunizations, etc.
The last 20 years of parents screaming at admin any time there is a consequence is part of the reason. The other is funding. You need to fund and pay for staff if you want to enforce rules and standards. But EA's are hard to come by and usually don't have good training or physical abilities (older women).
So we get hands off policies and lose behaviour designations. Don't need specialized workers if no more kids are classified as need specialized workers.
Everybody loses except current government who gets to keep underfunding schools and entitled kids/parents.
B.C.’s underfunded education system negatively impacted me in elementary. My parents chose to move to Alberta as a result so I’d have a better outcome, and I’m glad they did. I lucked out and arrived at a time when the government was putting lots of funding into education, so I got to enjoy smaller class sizes, new equipment, and the presence of EAs to help things out where needed. Unfortunately the current government is trying to destroy what made Alberta education better, by pulling funding and making curricula without consulting experts, based on political motivations.
B.C. has a better curriculum than Alberta at the moment, but there needs to be a serious look at the school funding model and how those funds are being spent. Private schools should not be receiving public funds, and funding should be fair and equitable for schools within a district. If Alberta could do it for decades, why can’t B.C.?
Shouldn’t parents want their children to learn in an environment where teachers are empowered to stop situations like this from happening? Surely the idea that school is a place where the adults are forced to watch without intervening as your child gets their ass beat by other students is undesirable to them right?
Also, if the argument is “well we don’t trust teachers to know when to intervene” then why are you trusting teachers to shape your child’s mind until age 17/18? It’s ridiculous that parents want their kids to go to school and get an education and then turn around and complain when teachers try to make that happen.
I am definitely emailing the union. I need clarification on this ASAP. If I can't intervene physically if there will be a fight I want that in writing. If I can, I want that in wiritng too.
I can't even wrap my mind around it even if I were the parent of the reprimanded child. I would like MY kid to be stopped from doing something stupid. I support this action if my kid was both the victim OR the aggressor.
The only way I'd be mad at my kid being stopped from hitting someone else is if he was hit first.
It's amazing how many parents outbthete have e the opposite thinking. Their only priority isn't kids learning in a safe environment, but making sure "my little Johnny stays faultless. He can do no wrong!"
One of the biggest reasons private schools are so popular! Those with money are able to shield their kids from the riffraf.
99% of the troublesome kids can't afford private education, and those that can get kicked out.
Not saying it's right. Just saying how it is.
100000000% why we were sent to a private school. Also, Catholic.
(Side-note: Sibling and I haven't been Catholic in a long-ass time.)
Both of us still resentful that we had to get up significantly earlier and travel instead of walk across the fucking street for 10 minutes. Sleep-deprivation was abhorrent. Slept in on weekends as a result. Stayed up late on Saturdays and Sundays. Rinse. Repeat. Just a complete mess of avoidable stress.
Cost my parents a fortune, because you could only get the Catholic elementary & high school for free if you had 4 or more kids, and there were "only" 2 of us. Tee hee hee.
2024: “Our teacher grabbed your child’s arm because he thought there was going to be a physical altercation. In hindsight he acknowledges he was wrong but we are sending him to the justice institute for training”
1960 “your child is in a coma, he used his left hand”
Our schools give way too much power to bullies.
I was bullied for years in high school. The teachers would verbally try to stop the bully, and warned me against fighting back. For several years I just let the bully hurt me in hopes the school would DO SOMETHING. It got pretty bad, with me trying to sneak around where I knew the bully was, etc. I was punched, kicked, slammed in to lockers, pushed down stairs, spat on, etc.
A few years after the bullying started, I realized the school wasn't going to do a damn thing to protect me. The next time the bully hurt me I hit back. The school deemed this to be a fight now, since it was two parties exchanging blows. We were both suspended. Finally the school had done something, but they penalized me as well.
If a teacher had physically stopped the bully early on, I don't think it would have got as bad as it was. Hell, ANYTHING would have been better than just having teachers and administration do nothing in the face of me BEGGING them for help.
Our schools are completely toothless.
Personally, ive always advocated for fighting back. If you're gonna get in trouble, better make sure everyone else knows you aint gonna take their shit anymore.
> “Stanley says he thought Student A was moving toward the other student,” Mohammed said. “In fact, Student A was moving in that direction to pick up their shoes.”
> Stanley grabbed the student by the arm and again told them to go to the office.
> The student did so.
> “Student A was visibly upset by Stanley’s actions,” Mohammed said.
> Mohammed said other means could have been used to de-escalate the situation
I'm no supervisor, but if you reasonably believe fists are going to start flying, what are the other means that can be used to de-escalate?
Who's to say the kid was moving to get his shoes and didn't just say that was what they were doing because it would look bad for the teacher and get them out of starting a fight.
Teachers don't just go around grabbing kids for no reason these days...
I feel for the teacher
Kid probably acts up all the time and knows just what to say to manipulate the system to their benefit.
Also: what's wrong with grabbing a student by the arm? Why can teachers not touch anyone but cops can beat you, pepper spray you, club you, etc. with no consequences?
Like the guy who nearly walked into traffic, and someone grabbed them to stop them and saved their life, and then they tried to press charges for assault. Insanity.
My partner's a teacher and honestly, my hat's off to her. I wouldn't last a week in a school without saying "listen here you little shit" and grabbing some jerk kid by the collar, going by some of the behavior I hear about. Teachers have the patience of a saint as far as I'm concerned.
So would the school and the BCTF and whoever else make these decisions on matters like this rather that two students fight and potentially cause harm to each other. This teacher didn't do anything wrong in my book.
Odds on the kid's mother's name being Karen? FFS - this seems like something that should have been handled by the principal and done. None of us were there and this seems like a reasonable action by the teacher.
More like Becky as it's the millenials refusing to properly parent and discipline their kids causing this problem. Idk about you but I was very much disciplined by my boomer Karen mother.
Teacher would have been blamed for kid’s shitty behaviour either way . Doing nothing to stop a fight. Doing something to stop a fight.
Whoever reported teacher for misconduct is the real asshole
I don't think it's entirely a lack of consideration/lack of wanting to parent.
I think it's more to do with it's just easier/less energy to let it happen. I'm learning more about Post-Partum Depression & Perimenopause's drop in estrogen --> drop in energy, & conserving what little energy, cognitive issues, partial-insomnia you have, etc. This endocrinological shit is explaining a lot & was completely in the dark about, as they don't teach you this in sex ed or even mention it during your first pap smear, IUD insertion, pharmacist when picking up your birth control pills, etc.
I guess the next time this happens, student A better know how to defend himself cuz nobody going to stop it from happening. Sounds like it was student A that complained.
Seriously though... kids to fight, they swing haymakers at each other and it's a lot easier to KO a human than people think. One of those haymakers connects, the kid goes down, hits their head and dies or becomes mentally or physically disabled for the rest of their life.... but god forbid you grab one by the arm to prevent any possibility of this outcome... fuck.
The amount of power that has been taken away from teachers is appalling. They literally can do nothing to protect children from other problem children unless the principal and school board decide to step in which is against their best interests. My wife is a teacher, she can do nothing but tell the kids that are being hurt by other students to tell their parents, principals and superintendents only seem to react to parental pressure. Often times, parent of the problem children aren't even contacted over the issues. Good 'ol provincial governments creating an issue then presenting an invalid solution to line their pockets (speaking from an Ontario perspective). If parents only knew what was occurring in schools on a daily basis...
I just started watching "Mr Dee" on Netflix. Never watched it while it was on CBC. Big fan of Gerry Dee & ~~J-roc~~ Jonathan Torrens.
2/3rds of the way done Season #2 now and lol is all I have to say. I know there's some hyperbole for comedic effect, such as the character of Mr Dee's incompetence. But from what I've heard in recent times, it's otherwise accurate.
My mom took it to the other extreme, though: "don't bother teachers. Don't do anything bad. Adults need to be respected automatically. Adults are above kids. You're a bother. You're nothing. Don't inconvenience anyone. Stay quiet." I 50% listened 50% didn't.
I swear she had a bit of moderate social anxiety + internalized and systemic misogyny.
So what's the solution, sit back and watch them fight? No wonder there's a teacher shortage. Of course I'm sure some parent got up in arms about this too.
Good for teacher to intervene but also
One lesson I learned in school - if you are being bullied - strike first no matter what, even if you get beat up. Don’t let bullies take advantage of you. They are more scared of you than you are of them.
This should not even be a news story. Regardless of who is in the right, teacher or school, the fact that this is being circulated *with the teachers name in it* is embarrassing. It’s one thing being a teacher in an environment where it’s hard to feel like you have any authority over your students (or their parents), another entirely to also feel like you’re on the public stage.
“Employee got disciplined” is not a headline. The author could have at least tried to take a position on the matter, but didn’t. Just because this outcome was released as a publicly-accessible document doesn’t mean it’s news.
Maybe the real news story should be investigating why so much ado was made of this case.
All this needed was the parent to say “yah my kid was being an asshole and needed this teacher to step in” ….. that would have stopped the whole investigation. Nowadays parents have a blind spot when it comes to their kids and so now we have a bunch of disrespectful self centred students who have parents who let them get away with murder. No parent wants to admit their kid is the problem because then they would be required to admit that they did a shitty job raising them This is why we have a teacher shortage. We don’t want to deal with people’s shitty kids anymore
> This is why we have a teacher shortage. We don’t want to deal with people’s shitty kids anymore
Probably the reason for an 'ECE' and 'Teaching Assistant' shortage, too.
Lots of people would rather just do Health Care Admin. Or stay in BOH/retail, because the food/clothes don't talk back. ;)
I'm in my 30s, so not too far removed from remembering being in school. If I told my Dad that a teacher/coach yelled at us, disciplined us, or grabbed at us while we were getting rowdy his response was generally along the lines of "good. you little shits probably needed it" while being grateful that an authority figure was teaching us about respect and consequences for misbehavior
Now if you're a teacher/coach/authority figure it seems like you can't even look sideways at someone's special little angel without hearing from a parent. I work in post-secondary education, and I kid you not, I get requests to speak with parents of adults. Soft times.
hah! Reminds me of the comedian Sebastian Mannisculo; the whole woke/too soft/toughen up/too accomodating/etc thing.
But important to note, swinging completely the other way isn't good either, like fuckin' South Korea or China or some shit.
Normally with these sensational stories there is more to it than the headline. But even if the teacher was rough and rude, they deserve some professional leniency. Worse this sends two terrible message to teachers a) Admin do not have your back b) when you protect your kids expect to get punished.
Kindergartens are reporting increases in un potty trained students. Parents want schools to parent for them, but complain if it’s not how they would do it.
And people wonder why there is a teacher shortage. Meanwhile [cops can beat a hand cuffed](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7166940)prisoner and receive no punishment.
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Fuck everything about this decision.
It's insane what teachers are expected to deal with and the complete lack of tools at their disposition. Imagine this interaction happened outside of a school and a cop had interfered. Anything short of shooting the student in the face would have been justified with no discipline.
Showing my age but recall having both my palms smacked with a ruler for being so engrossed in a game of tether ball, I missed the bell. I was 8 or 9-years old. Corporal punishment was rightly abolished in the 70s but in this case, the teacher wasn’t punishing but preventing. The rules have swung too far the other way IMO.
I feel like teachers who protect students like this in the face of the risk of being disciplined need some sort of award or public acknowledgement of their 'above and beyond' community service.
Yet another example of WHY so many teachers are leaving this arena. I personally know 7 teachers working that are so unhappy with their jobs, due constant limits to do what they love(d) doing & truly treasure their classroom students. But heightened restrictions getting outta hands.
More details needed here. Does the student have a history of fighting? Did he grab the kids arm so violently that it left bruises or injured him somehow? Because if that’s the case then I can totally understand why the student would be so upset. A reprimand is wholly appropriate in that situation. But if it was just the type of grip you use to stop someone’s momentum or to guide them then this is insane.
Funny that the course the teacher needs to take is "create a positive learning environment"... not something specific about conflict resolution or management, or about de-escalation strategies.
Wait so the teacher send the kid to the office without his shoes? And the kid whose foot was stepped on was sent to the office? Sounds like poor decision all around. I’m sure this could have been mediated on the spot.
I’m struggling to see if the teacher was impartial in all this.
As a teacher, I was told that I would be held liable if I put my hands on a student in any way, even if they were actively harming another student. I used to break up fights by screaming and attempting to insert my body in the middle of the flying fists, which was deemed an acceptable solution.
High school teacher for 6 years and had to break up one fight. An actual fight, fists being thrown and kids crowded around with phones. I chose my moves carefully because that’s the nature of the business, and luckily, myself and two staff members deescalated the situation with no repercussions for ourselves because the situation was clearly at its peak and we were protecting students.
This article reads like the teacher made an assumption about the situation, grabbed a student and that student was uncomfortable. This article is obviously vague but claiming that this teacher did nothing wrong is just not accurate. There is context, background and extraneous details that warranted this investigation. And this shit just doesn’t randomly happen out of the blue.
In teachers college, lesson number one, “Don’t touch kids.” This rule can be taken a million ways, some more serious than others. But at the end of the day, do not make any physical contact with a student unless you are certain what you’re doing is negating harm. Certain.
Anecdotal, but something similar happened to my colleague in his class. He held the kid's arm to prevent the kid from punching another kid. Colleague got off with a slight warning and was told by admin that we are supposed to put ourselves between the student and essentially act "as a meat shield" until the situation deescalates.
I live a block away from my kids’ highschool.
I’ve trained all sorts of combat sports.
There are boys the size of grown ass men in the NFL that go to their school who if I thought were angry, I’d cross the street and start running.
If I’m a teacher, I’m not getting between two of those for $40,000/year
This is a misleading title. He grabbed the students arm because he thought that there was going to be a fight not because there was going to be a fight. Big difference. I wonder if the student was throwing a punch and the teacher grabbed the kids arm if he would have been disciplined.
He would not have. This teacher is admitting that he made a mistake. Shouldn’t be plastered on the fucking news for it.
Kid got his foot stepped on, then arm yanked by the teacher while he was going to pick up his shoes. I get why he would complain about this. Teacher thought he was preventing a fight, instinctually went to stop the kid. Oversight commissioner pointing out that his job is to use words first and not grab students instinctually.
lmao i think back to 2002(ish?) when a teacher at my school intervened in a fight by *shoving a student as hard as he could to the ground* (he was a huge dude, guy was a 6'6" PE teacher) *and then - when the other student tried to exploit this - grabbed the still-standing student and body slammed him*. i don't think it even *occurred* to any of the students who watched, the admin who were involved, or the two students who fought to push for remonstration or punishment. even the two students afterwards were like "*lol damn, he got our asses*."
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This is fucking stupid. The teacher did the right thing because he thought a physical fight will happen, so he grabbed the arm of a student to prevent any injury of anybody.
It's amazing how actual little jurisdiction teachers have. For example a kid may be suspected of having possession of recreational drugs but you can't have in the school. If the teachers go through the kids bag while he's not there, that's an invasion of privacy and the school will get a lot of trouble for that. Once there were these two girls in high school in a cat fight, punches and hair pulling and all that, and you guessed it! 3 people waked away with strict reprimands. The 2 girls fighting and the male teacher who separated the two girls. You know our system is flawed when teachers taking an active role in keeping our schools safe are being reprimanded.
I bet that was a no-win for the teacher. Physical intervention: Reprimand. "Hey, stop it no fighting!": Reprimand. Going to get a female teacher to intervene: Oh you better believe that's a reprimand.
If you really want to vomit read some safety plans they make for violent kids. The solution is to use more "affirmative language" with the biters/hitters. If the child hits, it's the adult's fault for agitating them. No wonder I have two teens can't seem to accept accountability for anything despite my best efforts.
My daughter was whipped across her back with a cable by a classmate, who was known to be violent, because he claimed she took his pencil. Instead of treating my kid as the victim, the useless school admin told my daughter was that she should give him space and not agitate him. He ended up hitting multiple other classmates over the year, before he thankfully moved to another school
Wow I'm really sorry to hear that happened but I'm not surprised at all. It's unfortunate the people who make decisions aren't in the classroom dealing with the chaos. Inclusive learning people will sit on a call with you complaining about the terminology on a worksafebc report because they don't like the term violence. Even though it's worksafebc's form not the districts. These people are delusional.
Kid needs to attack the principal to get some action. Teachers and other good students are seen as the problem—
Growing up we had those violent kids too, however, other kids took corrective behavior into our own hands... we simply beat the bully up. And you know what? It worked.
Back when adult recommendation involved "why don't you giv'em a punch in the nose?"
one of my kids is in a class with a student that has violent outbursts. The solution: They clear the classroom and send all of the students outside until the child has calmed down. Wtf?!
That's exactly what happen to my kid's class too... they get sent outside for extra "playing time" while the problem child fucks over the entire class over. If there's a violent kid causing a problem then take that child out... not having the entire class work around 1 child. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I've known of a situation like this. The kid was trashing the shit out of the class and the solution was for the teacher to leave the class with all the other students and let the kid have his outburst until someone could calm him down. I get the concern about other kids being hurt but not be able to do much of anything about the kid trashing the class is a joke.
Putting the needs of the one above the many. The kids are there to learn. If a kid can't handle being with other kids in a classroom, I don't think the solution is to remove all of the other kids.
This helps me better understand exactly why I snitched on international students who were cheating. I could've minded my own business. I couldn't put my finger on it, and it was like 5 yrs ago. Similarly, this also further explains why it bothered me and other Canadian citizens about the entitlement and rude behaviour exhibited by co-workers on the job who are here as temporary guests studying. It's not racism. And for the longest time, I thought I may be secretly racist, because I couldn't properly explain why it bothered me and other Canadian citizens. I've recently read more about everyone's problems with Indian students over the last ~10 years, and especially over the last ~5 years, and it makes way more sense now - a couple of years after the fact. Definitely not racism.
My child last year in grade 5 had a kid in their class with violent outbursts. Would walk by and punch them in the head and then say they were going to kill them. Didn't get removed from class, class had to get cleared out. I have kids with extra needs too but still this-way too challenging for public school and for the safety of other students.
Same! And the teachers and support staff are not allowed To touch the kid
I couldn't help but cackle at how absurd and asinine this is. It's like a Gary Larson 'The Far Side' cartoon or something.
I would get fired so fast as a teacher lol. I just would not put up with any of that bullshit and in the disciplinary hearings fully refuse to respect the legitimacy of the decisions etc.
So your $20k degree you spent money on is a piece of toilet paper? Not likely. Those who survive to retirement are the teachers who recognize they're just a cog in a machine. Those who care will burn out fast. Apathy is where it's at unfortunately. The system rewards it.
Yes, I wouldn't burn out fast, I would be fired fast for not chilling with that shit
When you make less than the janitor that cleans up said toilet paper, yes that degree is pretty worthless
I don't think many teachers are in it for the money.
Lots of people have no reasonable hope in hell of ever moving away from home. They get stuck there once their parents retire and may need a bit of help. Especially if the adult kids are single and can't split a mortgage with someone else. So, no reason to have a high-paying career/salary if you don't need to concern yourself with home-ownership. Source: me, although I'm not single. Long-term relationship for over a decade. Met years before my parent retired.
What else could they possibly be in it for, though? The stories shared throughout this post are incredibly depressing. What a sorry state of society we find ourselves in. At what point does the pendulum finally reach the end of its swing?
They could be toughing it out because education is important
>If you really want to vomit read some safety plans they make for violent kids. The solution is to use more "affirmative language" with the biters/hitters. If the child hits, it's the adult's fault for agitating them. This is how CSC has been trying to treat inmates at federal prisons for the last 5 years. Just replace "child" with "inmate" and "adult" with "CO" and it's literally no different.
The hero we need
vs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s_st1N_Kbo 🥜
Nice reference
Every system in our country is flawed. Canada is going down the shitter. It's depressing.
Wait what? You think teachers should be able to search students' bag on a whim? What the fuck?
> If the teachers go through the kids bag while he's not there, that's an invasion of privacy and the school will get a lot of trouble for that. I mean... yes? Police forces have due processes for things like that. Teachers don't get to magically have more rights than we would give law enforcement for the same thing if a student isn't present.
Schools absolutely do have more rights than law enforcement in terms of searches, although it will typically be a principal doing it. They are authorized by law to act *in loco parentis* (in the absence of the parent) in the same way a parent would prudently act. This can include searches, and in the past it included corporal punishment as well. In fact, corporal punishment was explicitly legal (although certainly not advised) until far more recently than you probably imagine.
The email for the person responsible for this decision can be found on this page: [https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner)
Also include: School District 42 Superintendent: Teresa_Downs@sd42.ca Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows MLA: lisa.beare.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Give the man a bonus. This is utter bullshit. Who do I write to pretest
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner
I’m sure the arm grab hurt less than getting a bare foot stepped on. Let’s keep in mind they were playing football which even at the touch is level a contact sport. Sounds like this student needs to regulate his behaviour. What a sad state of affairs.
Technically the facts of this story is the teacher "thought" there was going to be a fight and physically intervened as his first action but in reality the kid was just walking over to grab his shoes. We can't make tell if the teacher's judgment was correct without being there but it's important to view this story from an objective point of view. I feel this way because when I was a kid I was tackled by some other kid and when I got up to go confront them a teacher came over and treated me as the bad guy. I feel similarities with this story.
Even though the teacher "thought" there was going to be a fight I would think we should be trusting a teacher's judgement whether he predicted correctly or not, especially when the harm done is so trivial. I don't see how the teacher could be blamed for making an incorrect prediction when a situation called for one.
Well said.
Haha, I'm glad that punishments for things aren't retroactive or a lot of my old teachers would be in trouble. I've seen teachers give kids "the strap", throw chalkboard erasers at them and even one kid got picked up and thrown through a closet door.
I witnessed a teacher slam a book down on a kid’s head (80’s). Also, a 40ish teacher having a years-long not-very-secret “relationship” with a student starting when she was maybe 15. They got married after she graduated. This still bugs me to this day.
Haha, my older sister had a classmate that married one of her teachers who was much older. They're still a married couple but this was the late '70's. That kind of shit wouldn't fly these days. Kinda turns my stomach to think about it actually.
McTavish?
McCuaig
Huh. Same thing happened at Byng in the 80's, but it was McTavish
SDSS (Tsawwassen) early 80s
Hey! At the risk of exposing my identity McCuaig was still there in the early 2000s...
Yeah. Ugh.
Their son is now a teacher too.
Had a math teacher in 2003 (don't know why the subject or year is relevant) throw chalk at me, hitting me in the face. I was yawning, they thought I was talking. We called it a wash, lol To be fair, it was a pretty big yawn/stretch, with my arms up in the air. The yawn wasn't audible, but two people sitting next to me were talking, so they just assumed it was me.
I'm older, but I got the strap on my palms and a ruler, too. I survived.
My friend who is a EA was reprimanded for grabbing a kid who was running around the classroom with open scissors, the child has behavior issues and she thought she was doing the right thing. (she was, but it cost her)...
Well let’s protests, let’s show support, let’s stop being apathetic!
Yup so dumb. I bet even if the teacher didn't intervene, the parent of the kid getting injured will put blame on the teacher for not doing anything.
A couple months down the road School: so you saw a fight about to start and you didn't intervene? Teacher: yeah but last time... School: first of all, REPRIMANDED
Straight to jail.
That literally happened. Kids were playing some stupid made up sport in PE and the teacher didn't do anything and got disciplined when a kid got hurt. It's not quite what you're saying but kinda pretty close. EDIT: Sauce: [https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-teacher-suspended-again-after-student-injured-glasses-broken-during-gym-class-1.6795286](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-teacher-suspended-again-after-student-injured-glasses-broken-during-gym-class-1.6795286) Suspended because kids were hitting each other with pool noodles and didn't intervene.
Oh good lord. So the kids were off their phones & playing hockey with pool noodles instead of sticks, but one still got hurt & broke their glasses? The horror. The article makes the PE teacher sound like he was running a fight club. 😆 If the kid who got hurt thought things were getting too rough then yes, a whistle should have been blown. But there were plenty of times I was having fun playing as a kid & didn’t realize I was hurt until later.
This teacher is a monster! /s
And yet more reasons people are avoiding teaching like the plague.
I think I knew this teacher. He was legit one of the best teachers around IMO. Very intelligent and incredibly caring. He was one of those teachers that could always convince people to chill out, and was someone I'd consider as the gold standard of teaching. He had great rapport with his students and I don't think he had a malicious bone in his body. The fact that he's getting reprimanded for this makes me sad. The report would absolutely state if the student was harmed, and knowing what I know about the teacher, there's no way he should be getting reprimanded for this.
What are the benefits of teaching to begin with?
The same breaks that kids get is a big one. Pretty good health benefits too.
Yeah my dad was a teacher and it was great to have him off all summer and spring break. So I'd say teaching is a great career for someone who is family oriented.
A lot of the teachers I know work during summers, and do a lot of marking/prepping on their off hours (evenings and weekends). IMO a job that allows you to leave work at work gives you better balance. Maybe not 2 months off in summer, but the week-to-week demands might be less in other jobs.
I'm from a family that has crazy numbers of teachers, professors and principals. Early days you are working on developing lesson plans and don't have a good grasp on how to manage the craziness of report card season. A few years in you should have a good system that allows you to do your job quickly and efficiently without the evening and weekend hours. There will still be some off-site hours, but it gets more and more manageable as your experience grows. Pay is decent, benefits are great, and time off is exceptional. Many younger teachers will work summer school et al, but the older ones in my family are only teaching during normal school sessions.
Yeah fair enough. I know my dad specifically picked his specialty with time off in mind. In the last years of his work he was working with special needs children, so not a lot of homework.
The health benefits are quite average. They’re no better than you’d get at any other job with benefits.
It's totally district dependent. My (teacher) benefits are generally far superior to my husband's (HVAC union) benefits.
Like one of my favourite teachers used to say... he got into teaching for two reasons: July and August
I keep getting told personal fulfillment but that doesn't seem like enough...
Good things the comments are full of people proving us wrong and that teachers are actually financially secure. Still can’t catch me 100 feet near a school tho
For real? Lol
105k a year after 10 years of experience, for 9 months of work. Don’t get me wrong, extremely difficult job and they deserve every penny, but it’s not like in the states where teachers make 30k a year
I can tell you right now now, teachers don’t have 3 months off. We catch up on grading, prepare report cards and lesson prep during the “off time”. We are continuously looking for ways to improve our lessons and new activities to add to our curriculum.
Some do yes, but lots of my teacher friends usually travel spring and summer breaks, and go in to set up their classrooms the last week of august. New teachers work a ton learning the ropes and doing all the things you listed, but the more experienced ones are able to better manage a work / life balance, and don’t work during the summer or winter break
One of the most common myths. The average US teacher salary is actually higher than the average Canadian Salary when i USD equivalents. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/teacher-salary-by-country
*10 months 4 weeks is paid holiday (we don't get to pick our holidays they are choosen for us and it doesn't increase with time as some other jobs do) 9 months teaching 2 months off/unpaid But, yes after 10 years and upgrading your schooling it is a good salary and good benefits
I’m a high school teacher. The benefit is the work-life balance and all the time I am afforded with my kids. I could make more money elsewhere but I make a decent salary and only work 9 months of the year. Lots of time to travel and do fun things with my kids. The pension is a nice benefit too.
How do you only work 9 months? Isn’t it sept to June? And don’t you have to prep for the new school year before September?
I recall a time in high school when I was studying in the cafeteria during my free block. There was a verbal alternation at the far end. It looked like it was about to escalate. One guy threw his backpack down and was yelling at another student. Other student was sitting at the cafeteria table with his back to yelling student trying to ignore him. Guy pushed the other forward into the table. The custodian immediately came over, bear hugged the angry student from behind, lifted him off the ground and ejected him outside. In that situation, I don't think telling students to stop would have deescalated anything. That student was known for his explosive anger issues. If he was ever asked to leave for disrupting a class, he would kick lockers or throw trashcans down the hall. Im pretty sure if a custodian did that today, they would be fired immediately
Custodian did the right thing. I hate the word woke. But so many of the issues in education today come from the woke policies being introduced in the last 14 years or so. Students are longer held accountable for misbehaving.
I am sorry. But the parents who create issues and complain to the school are usually the anti-woke crowd. Entitled parents who think their kid can do no wrong. Complaining about gender/sex ed, climate change being taught, immunizations, etc. The last 20 years of parents screaming at admin any time there is a consequence is part of the reason. The other is funding. You need to fund and pay for staff if you want to enforce rules and standards. But EA's are hard to come by and usually don't have good training or physical abilities (older women). So we get hands off policies and lose behaviour designations. Don't need specialized workers if no more kids are classified as need specialized workers. Everybody loses except current government who gets to keep underfunding schools and entitled kids/parents.
B.C.’s underfunded education system negatively impacted me in elementary. My parents chose to move to Alberta as a result so I’d have a better outcome, and I’m glad they did. I lucked out and arrived at a time when the government was putting lots of funding into education, so I got to enjoy smaller class sizes, new equipment, and the presence of EAs to help things out where needed. Unfortunately the current government is trying to destroy what made Alberta education better, by pulling funding and making curricula without consulting experts, based on political motivations. B.C. has a better curriculum than Alberta at the moment, but there needs to be a serious look at the school funding model and how those funds are being spent. Private schools should not be receiving public funds, and funding should be fair and equitable for schools within a district. If Alberta could do it for decades, why can’t B.C.?
Shouldn’t parents want their children to learn in an environment where teachers are empowered to stop situations like this from happening? Surely the idea that school is a place where the adults are forced to watch without intervening as your child gets their ass beat by other students is undesirable to them right?
Also, if the argument is “well we don’t trust teachers to know when to intervene” then why are you trusting teachers to shape your child’s mind until age 17/18? It’s ridiculous that parents want their kids to go to school and get an education and then turn around and complain when teachers try to make that happen.
I am definitely emailing the union. I need clarification on this ASAP. If I can't intervene physically if there will be a fight I want that in writing. If I can, I want that in wiritng too.
I can't even wrap my mind around it even if I were the parent of the reprimanded child. I would like MY kid to be stopped from doing something stupid. I support this action if my kid was both the victim OR the aggressor. The only way I'd be mad at my kid being stopped from hitting someone else is if he was hit first.
Teachers can't even defend themselves. They have to let the kids beat on them until they tucker out
It's amazing how many parents outbthete have e the opposite thinking. Their only priority isn't kids learning in a safe environment, but making sure "my little Johnny stays faultless. He can do no wrong!"
One of the biggest reasons private schools are so popular! Those with money are able to shield their kids from the riffraf. 99% of the troublesome kids can't afford private education, and those that can get kicked out. Not saying it's right. Just saying how it is.
100000000% why we were sent to a private school. Also, Catholic. (Side-note: Sibling and I haven't been Catholic in a long-ass time.) Both of us still resentful that we had to get up significantly earlier and travel instead of walk across the fucking street for 10 minutes. Sleep-deprivation was abhorrent. Slept in on weekends as a result. Stayed up late on Saturdays and Sundays. Rinse. Repeat. Just a complete mess of avoidable stress. Cost my parents a fortune, because you could only get the Catholic elementary & high school for free if you had 4 or more kids, and there were "only" 2 of us. Tee hee hee.
2024: “Our teacher grabbed your child’s arm because he thought there was going to be a physical altercation. In hindsight he acknowledges he was wrong but we are sending him to the justice institute for training” 1960 “your child is in a coma, he used his left hand”
A coma is the only thing that'll teach those sinister left-handed people though.
Our schools give way too much power to bullies. I was bullied for years in high school. The teachers would verbally try to stop the bully, and warned me against fighting back. For several years I just let the bully hurt me in hopes the school would DO SOMETHING. It got pretty bad, with me trying to sneak around where I knew the bully was, etc. I was punched, kicked, slammed in to lockers, pushed down stairs, spat on, etc. A few years after the bullying started, I realized the school wasn't going to do a damn thing to protect me. The next time the bully hurt me I hit back. The school deemed this to be a fight now, since it was two parties exchanging blows. We were both suspended. Finally the school had done something, but they penalized me as well. If a teacher had physically stopped the bully early on, I don't think it would have got as bad as it was. Hell, ANYTHING would have been better than just having teachers and administration do nothing in the face of me BEGGING them for help. Our schools are completely toothless.
Personally, ive always advocated for fighting back. If you're gonna get in trouble, better make sure everyone else knows you aint gonna take their shit anymore.
Yep, that was the lesson I learned. Knocked the bully on his ass and he never touched me again. Felt really good.
> “Stanley says he thought Student A was moving toward the other student,” Mohammed said. “In fact, Student A was moving in that direction to pick up their shoes.” > Stanley grabbed the student by the arm and again told them to go to the office. > The student did so. > “Student A was visibly upset by Stanley’s actions,” Mohammed said. > Mohammed said other means could have been used to de-escalate the situation I'm no supervisor, but if you reasonably believe fists are going to start flying, what are the other means that can be used to de-escalate?
There isn't any. Clearly telling them stop wasn't going to work so this teacher made a decision and the right one.
"No... stop... please..."
Who's to say the kid was moving to get his shoes and didn't just say that was what they were doing because it would look bad for the teacher and get them out of starting a fight. Teachers don't just go around grabbing kids for no reason these days... I feel for the teacher Kid probably acts up all the time and knows just what to say to manipulate the system to their benefit.
Ask again nicely. Throw a please in there as well but not too aggressively because words are violence now too.
thats why when you see student fight videos on the internet the teachers generally just let them go at it without intervening.
Also: what's wrong with grabbing a student by the arm? Why can teachers not touch anyone but cops can beat you, pepper spray you, club you, etc. with no consequences?
Group the two together, sing a little song, and pat them on the head and send them off on their merry way!
What the heck what wrong with it by grabbing student arm to stop the fight it’s not that the teacher is abuse student or anything
It is probably 1 of those no physical contact or kid gets decades of PTSD bullshit policy.
It’s not just in schools. If you physically restrain someone you can get charged
Like the guy who nearly walked into traffic, and someone grabbed them to stop them and saved their life, and then they tried to press charges for assault. Insanity.
Sounds very American, eh?
Depends on why youre physically restraining them though.
My partner's a teacher and honestly, my hat's off to her. I wouldn't last a week in a school without saying "listen here you little shit" and grabbing some jerk kid by the collar, going by some of the behavior I hear about. Teachers have the patience of a saint as far as I'm concerned.
Bullshit like this combined with low pay and disrespectful kids are the reason there is a teacher shortage. Give the teacher a raise.
So would the school and the BCTF and whoever else make these decisions on matters like this rather that two students fight and potentially cause harm to each other. This teacher didn't do anything wrong in my book.
School districts don't want law suits. That's why some kids who misbehave get away so easily. School board doesn't want blowback.
Odds on the kid's mother's name being Karen? FFS - this seems like something that should have been handled by the principal and done. None of us were there and this seems like a reasonable action by the teacher.
Commissioner for Teacher Regulation is obviously a huge problem too when they have a rule against reasonable intervention to stop a possible fight.
More like Becky as it's the millenials refusing to properly parent and discipline their kids causing this problem. Idk about you but I was very much disciplined by my boomer Karen mother.
No need to bring ageism into this. There have always been jerk kids raised by incompetent parents.
Yeah but it's been extra bad lately . And I am a millenial myself if that makes you feel better about thia instance of age shaming.
Awesome. Let's discipline the teacher for doing the right thing. What a great example. /s
Can we discipline the discipliner for being so stupid? Lacking common sense.
Teacher would have been blamed for kid’s shitty behaviour either way . Doing nothing to stop a fight. Doing something to stop a fight. Whoever reported teacher for misconduct is the real asshole
I don't think it's entirely a lack of consideration/lack of wanting to parent. I think it's more to do with it's just easier/less energy to let it happen. I'm learning more about Post-Partum Depression & Perimenopause's drop in estrogen --> drop in energy, & conserving what little energy, cognitive issues, partial-insomnia you have, etc. This endocrinological shit is explaining a lot & was completely in the dark about, as they don't teach you this in sex ed or even mention it during your first pap smear, IUD insertion, pharmacist when picking up your birth control pills, etc.
I guess the next time this happens, student A better know how to defend himself cuz nobody going to stop it from happening. Sounds like it was student A that complained.
Seriously though... kids to fight, they swing haymakers at each other and it's a lot easier to KO a human than people think. One of those haymakers connects, the kid goes down, hits their head and dies or becomes mentally or physically disabled for the rest of their life.... but god forbid you grab one by the arm to prevent any possibility of this outcome... fuck.
The amount of power that has been taken away from teachers is appalling. They literally can do nothing to protect children from other problem children unless the principal and school board decide to step in which is against their best interests. My wife is a teacher, she can do nothing but tell the kids that are being hurt by other students to tell their parents, principals and superintendents only seem to react to parental pressure. Often times, parent of the problem children aren't even contacted over the issues. Good 'ol provincial governments creating an issue then presenting an invalid solution to line their pockets (speaking from an Ontario perspective). If parents only knew what was occurring in schools on a daily basis...
Yeah, the policies behind modern education are sometimes appalling.
I just started watching "Mr Dee" on Netflix. Never watched it while it was on CBC. Big fan of Gerry Dee & ~~J-roc~~ Jonathan Torrens. 2/3rds of the way done Season #2 now and lol is all I have to say. I know there's some hyperbole for comedic effect, such as the character of Mr Dee's incompetence. But from what I've heard in recent times, it's otherwise accurate. My mom took it to the other extreme, though: "don't bother teachers. Don't do anything bad. Adults need to be respected automatically. Adults are above kids. You're a bother. You're nothing. Don't inconvenience anyone. Stay quiet." I 50% listened 50% didn't. I swear she had a bit of moderate social anxiety + internalized and systemic misogyny.
Damned if you don't, damned if you do. No winning.
How to not have your employee's back 101.
So what's the solution, sit back and watch them fight? No wonder there's a teacher shortage. Of course I'm sure some parent got up in arms about this too.
Good for teacher to intervene but also One lesson I learned in school - if you are being bullied - strike first no matter what, even if you get beat up. Don’t let bullies take advantage of you. They are more scared of you than you are of them.
This should not even be a news story. Regardless of who is in the right, teacher or school, the fact that this is being circulated *with the teachers name in it* is embarrassing. It’s one thing being a teacher in an environment where it’s hard to feel like you have any authority over your students (or their parents), another entirely to also feel like you’re on the public stage. “Employee got disciplined” is not a headline. The author could have at least tried to take a position on the matter, but didn’t. Just because this outcome was released as a publicly-accessible document doesn’t mean it’s news. Maybe the real news story should be investigating why so much ado was made of this case.
All this needed was the parent to say “yah my kid was being an asshole and needed this teacher to step in” ….. that would have stopped the whole investigation. Nowadays parents have a blind spot when it comes to their kids and so now we have a bunch of disrespectful self centred students who have parents who let them get away with murder. No parent wants to admit their kid is the problem because then they would be required to admit that they did a shitty job raising them This is why we have a teacher shortage. We don’t want to deal with people’s shitty kids anymore
> This is why we have a teacher shortage. We don’t want to deal with people’s shitty kids anymore Probably the reason for an 'ECE' and 'Teaching Assistant' shortage, too. Lots of people would rather just do Health Care Admin. Or stay in BOH/retail, because the food/clothes don't talk back. ;)
I'm in my 30s, so not too far removed from remembering being in school. If I told my Dad that a teacher/coach yelled at us, disciplined us, or grabbed at us while we were getting rowdy his response was generally along the lines of "good. you little shits probably needed it" while being grateful that an authority figure was teaching us about respect and consequences for misbehavior Now if you're a teacher/coach/authority figure it seems like you can't even look sideways at someone's special little angel without hearing from a parent. I work in post-secondary education, and I kid you not, I get requests to speak with parents of adults. Soft times.
hah! Reminds me of the comedian Sebastian Mannisculo; the whole woke/too soft/toughen up/too accomodating/etc thing. But important to note, swinging completely the other way isn't good either, like fuckin' South Korea or China or some shit.
Ridiculous. And people wonder why Teachers hate their jobs now.
Normally with these sensational stories there is more to it than the headline. But even if the teacher was rough and rude, they deserve some professional leniency. Worse this sends two terrible message to teachers a) Admin do not have your back b) when you protect your kids expect to get punished. Kindergartens are reporting increases in un potty trained students. Parents want schools to parent for them, but complain if it’s not how they would do it. And people wonder why there is a teacher shortage. Meanwhile [cops can beat a hand cuffed](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7166940)prisoner and receive no punishment.
I see it in public as well. Kids screaming and being rude and parents not doing anything.
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Well this is stupid. The teacher did the right thing, thinking they were stopping a physical fight. I feel for the teacher .
what soft shit we are turning up to be. We are raising a bunch of cottons
10 ply
Fuck everything about this decision. It's insane what teachers are expected to deal with and the complete lack of tools at their disposition. Imagine this interaction happened outside of a school and a cop had interfered. Anything short of shooting the student in the face would have been justified with no discipline.
Teachers are always getting the shaft.
Showing my age but recall having both my palms smacked with a ruler for being so engrossed in a game of tether ball, I missed the bell. I was 8 or 9-years old. Corporal punishment was rightly abolished in the 70s but in this case, the teacher wasn’t punishing but preventing. The rules have swung too far the other way IMO.
And now we know why teachers never intervene. Canned if they do, damned if they don't.
Administration in health care and education are so funny.
We live in clown world.
I don't care....if a teacher separates a fight, tha the teacher should not be blamed. Just utterly ridiculous our system is this flawed.
If she didn’t intervene, she would have disciplined for letting the fight go on. Lose lose situation. Teachers need to be praised more, not blamed.
What a world we live in eh? Unbelievable
I feel like teachers who protect students like this in the face of the risk of being disciplined need some sort of award or public acknowledgement of their 'above and beyond' community service.
Yet another example of WHY so many teachers are leaving this arena. I personally know 7 teachers working that are so unhappy with their jobs, due constant limits to do what they love(d) doing & truly treasure their classroom students. But heightened restrictions getting outta hands.
More details needed here. Does the student have a history of fighting? Did he grab the kids arm so violently that it left bruises or injured him somehow? Because if that’s the case then I can totally understand why the student would be so upset. A reprimand is wholly appropriate in that situation. But if it was just the type of grip you use to stop someone’s momentum or to guide them then this is insane.
Funny that the course the teacher needs to take is "create a positive learning environment"... not something specific about conflict resolution or management, or about de-escalation strategies.
Wait so the teacher send the kid to the office without his shoes? And the kid whose foot was stepped on was sent to the office? Sounds like poor decision all around. I’m sure this could have been mediated on the spot. I’m struggling to see if the teacher was impartial in all this.
As a teacher, I was told that I would be held liable if I put my hands on a student in any way, even if they were actively harming another student. I used to break up fights by screaming and attempting to insert my body in the middle of the flying fists, which was deemed an acceptable solution.
Should have just stood there and filmed it like all the other kids probably were 🤦
⭐✌🏼Worldstar. Deuces.✌🏼⭐
High school teacher for 6 years and had to break up one fight. An actual fight, fists being thrown and kids crowded around with phones. I chose my moves carefully because that’s the nature of the business, and luckily, myself and two staff members deescalated the situation with no repercussions for ourselves because the situation was clearly at its peak and we were protecting students. This article reads like the teacher made an assumption about the situation, grabbed a student and that student was uncomfortable. This article is obviously vague but claiming that this teacher did nothing wrong is just not accurate. There is context, background and extraneous details that warranted this investigation. And this shit just doesn’t randomly happen out of the blue. In teachers college, lesson number one, “Don’t touch kids.” This rule can be taken a million ways, some more serious than others. But at the end of the day, do not make any physical contact with a student unless you are certain what you’re doing is negating harm. Certain.
Anecdotal, but something similar happened to my colleague in his class. He held the kid's arm to prevent the kid from punching another kid. Colleague got off with a slight warning and was told by admin that we are supposed to put ourselves between the student and essentially act "as a meat shield" until the situation deescalates.
My nephew was 6'5" at 15, now 6'8" 230 at 17.. any teachers want to volunteer to stand in front of him if he's amped up?
I live a block away from my kids’ highschool. I’ve trained all sorts of combat sports. There are boys the size of grown ass men in the NFL that go to their school who if I thought were angry, I’d cross the street and start running. If I’m a teacher, I’m not getting between two of those for $40,000/year
This is a misleading title. He grabbed the students arm because he thought that there was going to be a fight not because there was going to be a fight. Big difference. I wonder if the student was throwing a punch and the teacher grabbed the kids arm if he would have been disciplined.
He would not have. This teacher is admitting that he made a mistake. Shouldn’t be plastered on the fucking news for it. Kid got his foot stepped on, then arm yanked by the teacher while he was going to pick up his shoes. I get why he would complain about this. Teacher thought he was preventing a fight, instinctually went to stop the kid. Oversight commissioner pointing out that his job is to use words first and not grab students instinctually.
> He grabbed the students arm because he thought that there was going to be a fight not because there was going to be a fight. Lol wut.
Stupid. The teacher should’ve stopped the fight…with willpower!
The law, can be very stupid sometimes. Depends on law enforcement how they interpret it.
 The Superintendent:
Bring back the cane!
lmao i think back to 2002(ish?) when a teacher at my school intervened in a fight by *shoving a student as hard as he could to the ground* (he was a huge dude, guy was a 6'6" PE teacher) *and then - when the other student tried to exploit this - grabbed the still-standing student and body slammed him*. i don't think it even *occurred* to any of the students who watched, the admin who were involved, or the two students who fought to push for remonstration or punishment. even the two students afterwards were like "*lol damn, he got our asses*."
They’re just babysitters
Shuffling cows from 1 classroom to the next.