Discipline

On Wednesday I nearly quit. Why you might ask? Despite the fact that the year has been going swimmingly, Wednesday was the hair that almost broke this camel's back.

After science I was bringing my class through the hallway at the same time that the three other sixth grade classes were bringing their students through the hallway. A student from another class ran through the hall, hit one of my students, and they got into a fight. Then one of my students goes after the first kid and another fight breaks out. I try to break it up with the help of another teacher, and finally two security guards break up the second fight and bring the students downstairs to the dean's office. Five minutes later the two students come walking down the hall, saying that everything's okay.

Let me recap. There were two separate, full-on-rolling-on-the-floor fist fights and no action was taken. It was enough to drive me crazy.

I realized this kind of stuff happens all the time. But this time, I realized it had to stop. I had just come back from a meeting with one of the boy's parents in which she said that her son said he played around in school because he could get away with it. And she was right. So I took down the students from my class who were involved. The dean had heard that it was a classroom on classroom fight (even if it were does that make it okay?) I had to explain everything that happened and basically advocate for some sort of punishment. I left frustrated, but relieved that something was happening.

But at the end of the week not much had changed. I had sent letters home with both boys. Neither parent came. One mother's phone number had changed (since the day before). The other mother said she got the letter but that she was tired of coming up to the school. One student was recommended for in-school suspension (which is supposed start Tuesday). He was already supposed to be there this last Monday but they kept putting off the start of in-school (or the Focus Learning Center as we like to call it). Nothing has happened with the other student whose mother would not come up. What is frustrating about this despite that fact that students are getting away with fighting in school when they should be learning, is that, if their mother's had come, the students would be suspended. Because the mother didn't come, they get off scott free. It doesn't make sense.

And another hard things is realizing that what my students really need most is structure. But if I'm unable to provide significant consequences for big things like fighting, then off course things are going to get chaotic. And that doesn't serve the rest of my students either.

I find out later that that same day a seventh grade teacher with several years of experience leaves in the middle of the day because she's tired of the lack of discipline. She doesn't come back the next day or the next and no one knows is she's officially quit or not.

So after all this (and another situation with a fellow teacher getting threatened) I felt pretty justified in quitting if I needed to. I'm doing the best I can but have no support from the school. The school is not taking a stand in discipline and its making the school chaotic. In a staff meeting, instead of discussing wasy to improve things, our principal chastises teachers on Friday for their lack of classroom management.

I call up my TFA program director and tell her I'm on the verge of quitting. I don't want to, but I need some help. I end up talking to her for 45 minutes in which she doesn't give a lot of answers, but asks some good questions, including:

"What would you do if nothing changes on the school level? "

What would I do? I don't know. Actually, I do: stick it out. I realized that there's very little I can do to change the school. Sure I can say that this is an unreasonable situation and that I am completely unprepared to be in it. Its not fair--to my students or to me. But it is what it is. My quitting is certainly not going to make anything better.

Then today I talked to a fellow corps member at another school. Believe it or not her situation is probably worse. 34 third graders in a class, no consequences from the school for fighting. Two students pushed the principal and nothing happened. Wow. It really put things in perspective for me. No, these situations are not right and should we have to deal with them as teachers? Probably not. On the flip side, its not fair to these students either. I feel like there are lots of system-wide things that need to change and also if I (or other new teachers) were amazing classroom motivators, things would probably change. But for the time being I need to focus on planning the best lessons I can, calling the parents who do care, pushing ahead, and praying. Actually, make that lots of praying. Perhaps this summer there will be more time for a major re-haul of my classroom, and time to re-evaluate my placement.