When Do We Step In (And What Message Does This Send To Students?)

A week ago, I had the privilege of watching a spirit assembly at my Jr. High dyad school.  I became aware that there was an assembly scheduled when I heard the excited 8^th graders in our 1^st period history class talking about it.  There seemed to be a buzz or energy in the room that morning and the students couldn’t stop talking about how pleased they were that the assembly had shortened every class period throughout the day.  This made me remember when I was in Jr. High, and how my friends and I loved any school event (fire drills included) that took up class time and allowed us to goof around. When I inquired about the purpose for the day’s assembly, I was told that it was a spirit assembly and that they occur a few times per year.  It was obvious that the students enjoy these assemblies and it was fun to listen to them reminisce about past assemblies and make predictions about what silly antics would be planned for them.  There were rumors that teachers were going to be playing some sort of funny competition game against students.  This had the students guessing as to which teachers would participate and how well they would fare.  The students thought the idea of students vs. teachers was hilarious.  

The school wisely chose to have the assembly at the end of the day.  When it was time to dismiss for the assembly, I was pleased to see that they did so by class, excusing a few at a time via the intercom.  This is smart, as it prevents a stampede of excited teenagers that I experienced when I was that age.  In fact, when I was in Jr. High, they held their assemblies during the middle of the day and dismissed us all at once.  As a student, it was with exciting chaos that you dodged the throngs of other teenagers to find your friends, race down crowded hallways, and squeeze your way into the gym while there was still room on the bleachers. Ah, the good old days! In our school, the students sat in the claustrophobic bleachers while the teachers stood on the perimeter of the gym.  This meant that there was virtually no supervision happening in the bleachers, which my classmates always took full advantage of.  In my dyad school, the assembly was very well planned and monitored.  For the most part, teachers sat in the stands with their students.

 For this assembly, the talented student government members planned and facilitated the event. They began by challenging the students to see which grade could yell the loudest and could learn and perform silly dances best.  From my vantage point at the top of the bleachers looking down at the last row of students, I saw a typical mix of engaged seventh graders, competitive eighth graders, and a somewhat bored ninth grade class.  When the goofy dancing was over, all the students noticeably perked up when they were told that the next activity was a minute to win it game of students from the three grades and teachers all competing against each other.  Halfway through the game, a situation happening three bleachers directly below me caught my attention.  I observed a very large male student repeatedly punch a significantly smaller male student sitting next to him in the arm.  The larger student was laughing and the smaller student was visibly upset.  While I couldn’t hear what the smaller student was saying over the noise from the crowd, I could read his lips and saw that he was repeating the words “STOP!”  The more the one student yelled stop, the bigger the smile on the face of the other student became. From where I was standing, I could tell that the one student was hitting the other fairly hard because with each blow to the upper arm, the smaller student was cringing and was being pushed into the student of the other side of him. 

My first instinct upon witnessing this was to pull the one student away from the other.  What stopped me was that there was an older woman teacher sitting directly behind them.  In fact, her knees were touching the backs of both of the students in front of her.  I knew she could see what was happening inches from her face, but she seemed to ignore it completely.  I was shocked.  I waited a moment to see if she would step in and reprimand the one student for his hurtful behavior towards the other.  She didn’t.  In fact, the student doing the hitting kept looking back at her smirking, as he was punching.  Looking around, I could see that the staff members around me were all engrossed in the game below and hadn’t noticed this incident.  When It didn’t look like the student would cease hitting or that the teacher would step in, I felt that I needed to do something.  I decided walk down the bleachers and confront the students.   When I reached the students, I crouched down next to them.  I tapped the student getting hit on the shoulder and asked if he was ok.  He turned to me and with tears starting to well up, shook his head “no.”  I then leaned over him and tapped on the other student and motioned him to lean into me.   With my “dead serious mom face” I firmly asked him if he could control himself.  The student looked at me shocked.  He repeated “control myself?”  I nodded “yes.”  I then told him that his behavior is unacceptable and hurtful and if he couldn’t apologize and control himself he will need to stand up in the back with me for the duration of the assembly.  He looked horrified and embarrassed at the thought.  A moment later, he responded by saying that he could control himself and I watched him quickly apologize to the other student and then slide about a foot away from the boy he was hitting.  I was glad to see the other boy give me a half smile as he mouthed “thank you” to me.  As I turned to go back to my spot, I looked the teacher in the face and was surprised to see her sitting there, staring at me with an open mouth (probably wondering who I was and why I was stepping in).  Happily, the rest of the assembly was fun and fairly uneventful. 

After school that day, I explained to my cooperating teacher (who had been busy as one of the teachers chosen by students to play in the game) what I had observed.  I described the teacher and the students to him.  He knew the teacher as a full time physical therapy teacher and he knew the student doing the hitting, explaining that he was a student who tends to be physically aggressive.  I told him that I was surprised the teacher didn’t step in and I think that she may have been upset with me for doing so.  My cooperating teacher was also very surprised at her lack of action.  He told me that he would have done the same thing I did if he were in my shoes.  He also reassured me that regardless of what that other teacher had thought, I had made the right choice.   The next day, my cooperating teacher told me that he just happened to run into that PT teacher in the hallway.  He said he asked her about the incident and that she was surprised to hear that I was his intern.  He said she was quick to explain that both teens were students of hers and both had behavioral issues.  He said that she “implied” that was the reason why she didn’t get involved, saying that the one student hits and bothers other students all the time. 

While both teens may have behavioral challenges, I don’t think that should be used as an excuse to allow one student to hit another student.  Just because the student getting hit has behavior challenges also, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be protected from getting hit by a peer.  I don’t regret the decision I made to step in, and I still feel it was the right choice for me to make.  In all, the assembly was great, but it did leave me wondering about the responsibilities of teachers and the ways that they deal with students’ behavior issues in and outside the classroom.   

 ~ Christy