I don't know what you're asking. Should you tell the truth in the meeting? Of course. Tell them exactly what everyone would have seen. You tried to wake him up and he threw an elbow at you and you shouted at him and HE GRABBED YOU and drove you toward the door. You struggled with him and stopped things before he got you out of the classroom.
Exactly what I said, and I think it worked.
The other question you seem to be asking is what sort of self defense training would have improved your ability to keep the student from manhandling you. You want skills that allow you to prevent your being hit or grappled successfully by someone that isn't trained and to do so without damaging them. That narrows the field and allows you to pick from what is locally available.
Right again. In a nutshell. Thank you.
Again, it's about control. You set the wheels in motion and gave up control of the situation by your first action (nudging him awake). Then you gave up the high moral ground by letting your anger show.
Nudging them awake is what many teachers do here. I see it all the time and there has never been this kind of reaction. That said I talked about this with some very experienced teachers at the other high school I work at and they concurred with what everyone else said; don't touch the students. I always thought so too but I was just doing as the others did. Now I know.
Getting angry definitely didn't help. I don't usually get angry easily but sometimes when I'm caught by surprise I do. This time the kid pushed the right buttons and it gave him an excuse to escalate. I worked with an office psycho a few wears back who use to do that. He would complain behind someones back and spread nasty rumors for a few weeks and then he would start pushing button to provoke anger, once the victim went ballistic everyone forgot about the provocations. He was so good at it he got our boss fired. (I think he wanted the job) He got me angry once and I realized what he was up to and refused to get angry again. His whole game plan fell apart when everyone saw how far he would go to provoke people. In this current situation getting angry just played into the kids game plan and it prevented me from making rational decisions.
So, for all those who say that sleeping in class meant that the student had been out gallivanting around rather than being studious, I guess you've never heard the term "worked my way through school".
Yea, I worked my way through university and that was pretty rough so I understand about being tired. I don't get pissed if a kid is so tired that he fells asleep but he took a swing at me with his elbow. It shouldn't have pissed me off but it did, my oops.
I went to a Catholic school and this was the teachers' modus operandi. The nuns believed that everyone there was going to get an education and no one was going to interfere with that process
I didn't appreciate their mission about me getting an education until I got to high school.
My college was an ex Jesuit college and the staff were mostly ex Jesuit teachers. I learned more in those two years than at any other time in my life. And same as you it sure made university easier. I wonder what the nuns would have done if a student took a swing at them?
They have cameras everywhere these days--EVERYWHERE--even in plenty of places 'most' of us would prefer they were not.
Why, with all the crap they're using 'OUR' tax money for, don't they have security/surveillance cameras in classrooms
That's an interesting thought. Awesome out of the box thinking dude. I'd still prefer less cameras tho.
I'm not a union guy, normally, but in this case - call your union.
No union. No benefits. No sick leave. No nothing. But I do have a wife two sons and a mortgage, and some private disability insurance. If little thugly breaks my jaw and I can't work it's big time trouble. That's why I need the self defense.
So anyways I thought about this all day and I think I came up with a strategy to deal with this kind of situation.
1) Never touch a student. (fine by me, didn't really want to touch them before, sure as heck don't now)
2) Don't get angry. (cause it's probably what they want and besides you are no longer thinking clearly) If I start getting angry it's time to back off and write everything down and bump it up to a higher level. Cause chances are I'm not going to do the right thing if I'm angry.
3) If I am attacked put my arms up and yell stop. That way it is hopefully obvious that I am not the aggressor. In a school environment defending yourself is a lose lose situation and will be used against you.
4)If it starts to get dangerous disengage. Getting dragged out into the hallway where there are no witnesses by a berserk teenager is about the worst option of all.
Please comment. And thanks for the advice. Any advice about disengaging arts would be much appreciated as well.
I had no idea until now how vulnerable you are as a teacher. I'm going to have to be much more careful.