All that you have is your soul (Tracy Chapman).

Wednesday 1 March 2006

An Apology (of sorts).

My very good friend, H, who reads this blog, rightly commented this morning that in my "Jew Teacher" posting, I should not have used the sort of language I did, to describe some of the children I teach. I have therefore replaced the offending word with numerous asterisks.

Today, yet another member of our staff (a lovely lady who works down the hallway) was assaulted by one of these little ***** (see H, I'm being careful) and if that wasn't bad enough, she then had to endure one of the lovely Year 10's I teach laughing in her face, after she had been accidentally wacked across the neck with a tennis ball.
Apparently, he found her misfortune extremely funny.

The attack that the preceded the accident was the fourth such incident against a member of staff in the last month or so. The little darlings are getting more violent by the day and we, both the teaching and non-teaching staff are really beginning to wonder as to when our turn will come (don't worry mum, I can take good care of myself).

As I wrote, a while back, I had a Year 7 kid take a swing at me last term. Had he hit me, I might have endured a broken jaw (oh c'mon, let me bit a little dramatic here!) or probably more likely, a bloodied nose. The problem is that I don't know where I stand if I then thump him and as a result, risk the chance of being prosecuted for this action of self defense.

I agree that violence breeds violence and so, in fighting back, I am only spurring the kid on. However, does this mean that I have to worry that if I do defend myself from what could be a seriously assault, I could lose my job?

I am sorry I used that derogatory term to describe the children I teach. I should have just called them 'hoodlums'. At least then, I would be reporting a more accurate picture of the kind of children - yes children - I/we are living with.

Then again, the most frightening thing to come out of all this, is that the children of today will be the parents of tomorrow.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Surely you must receive training about these situations?

Bradley