Fighting and School Violence Should Not Be Tolerated

When you are a middle or high school public school teacher, events happen instantaneously, and you have to be equal to the task of confronting the challenge of an unexpected situation face to face. You never know when or where school violence will erupt; a teacher only knows that it inevitably will.

Teachers not only must be wary of being inadvertently injured by enraged “students” fighting in the hallway or the cafeteria, a peer might even wind-up becoming a threat to one’s physical safety. I recall one particular eighth grade Washington trip. As usual, I was chaperoning one hundred twenty eighth graders on the Hammonton Middle School’s annual class DC trip. We had just arrived back at the Mt. Vernon Motel after visiting the Jefferson Memorial. The nine chaperones were fatigued, but the “students” were still rambunctious.

Since the “children” had been well behaved, the school rewarded them with a pizza party in the motel’s Madison Room. Five of the Hammonton’ chaperones escorted the first half of “students” from the party back to their rooms, which were located in a remote section of the expansive motel. The other half of the entourage was later escorted to their quarters by three other chaperones and myself.

Another male teacher and I made sure all of our “students” had evacuated the Madison Room, and we brought up the rear of the second batch of sixty kids. Suddenly, a male chaperone from a Catholic high school class that had also been staying at the Tyson’s Corner motel came running over to us, screaming the larynx out of his throat.

“Are you in charge of those nasty kids on the other side of the building?” he hollered.

“Yes we are,” I answered. “There are five of our chaperones already over there.”

“Well, your kids are banging their fists on the walls and setting a bad example for my kids!” he angrily shouted with a crimson face. “You’d better get over there quick and settle them down or I’m gonna’ call the cops!” “Look,” I calmly replied, “I’ve been assigned to this group of sixty students. Our school has five very capable chaperones already over there to deal with that problem.”

Apparently, the livid fellow did not relish my explanation. He took a huge swing at my jaw. I ducked down just in the nick of time. His blow glanced off the top of my head and knocked my baseball cap off.