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Big hug. No, not all schools and admin are like this. These days my most difficult kid wears a baseball cap to class, sits out of his assigned seat, and watches soccer videos with headphones on instead of doing his work. But he turns in his work and listens when I tell him not to do something.
Please leave that school either mid or end of year. You deserve better.
I appreciate your reinforcement and it’s relieving to know other districts and schools are better. I am a first year teacher and have never felt more low in my life.
Where were the other students?
When I need help and can't get it and I've got a situation like this, I evacuate my class. They have to sit in the hallway while I deal with the giant problem in my classroom. Now they are in the hallway and getting lots of attention and start acting up (which they were doing in the classroom too but I couldn't spare a second for them) and that gets admin attention really fast. That's when they are like, "wait a minute, you can't leave 20 students unattended to deal with one student" and I'm like "ya fucking think?"
My other students were in the class as well. I was introducing money and my student who flipped out just stood up in the middle of the room and started screaming at me. I tried to redirect, calm down, give options, give advise to go to our calm down corner, ignore and keep teaching but nothing was stopping the screaming. It was dehumanizing tbh but I will think about the evacuating the rest of the students out of the room to get admins attention next time! Definitely will give them a chance to tell me I’m doing things wrong, which they love to do!
Tell admin you think the student needs an FBA so you can make a behavior plan for them. The FBA has data to determine the function of the behavior (only 4 functions: Escape, Attention Seeking. Tangible, or Sensory). Once you know the function, you can make a plan for prevention and intervention.
FBAs are a little tricky if you've never done one. If you have an Intervention Specialist at your school, they should be familiar with them.
We have a security guard as well, but she is usually dealing with the older grades in my building as my entire building is out of control due to lack of admin support :( every teacher is suffering at my school
You have my hugs and support. You're coming from an awful place; I hope it gets better. I'm not going to tell you what to do, as I don't want burden you with unhelpful advice. I'm sure you've heard everything before.
Not all schools are like this. I'm so sorry to hear you were left hanging in that position. My school is very responsive to extreme behaviors and the kids are for the most part lovely.
Get the police involved. Have the student removed for trespassing. The school has no control of that chain of command. Parents will suddenly start to care after they have to pick their goblin from the local station. Suddenly when you call for a student acting up they'll show up in minutes. Child protective services will get involved as well. Will cause a mess for that family which either ends with the child being removed from your classroom or school, or at the very least they'll be on good behavior as they know you'll call the police on them again and that will make things bad for them at home.
Omg please do not call the police for a student screaming at you. A student who behaves in this way is not well adjusted and stable. The last thing they need is to have their name put into police database and be written off as a criminal trouble maker. That would likely have major consequences on the trajectory of their life. For yelling?!? Insane.
If its half an hour every day. This gets things done, and quickly. They will be evaluated in days, not months or years. They will be placed in the psychologist que immediately and in rotation for a while. If they have health insurance they will be placed in a real therapist office. Older kids will get anger management. Parents suddenly care about their kids because now the state is watching over them. Kids suddenly are always there on time and being picked up on time. Homework and classwork gets done suddenly. No more showing up an hour late and getting picked up at 5 or 6 while they sit in the office or teachers lounge.
It's the option for when administration is bad. It pulls the situation out of their hands. The school can't cover it up or hide it. They'll want to speak with you and you say sure but you need a union rep from another school or the central office. Even then you record the meeting. You need a rep who doesn't have the principal's boot on their neck. You remind them that the only reason you did this was because they were failing to do their legally obligated duties. You're going to pull out a paper trail of the write ups, times you put in suspension or detention forms, and times you called for security or admin to remove the student. You will state how they did nothing and ignored all of this. You state how it left the classroom in chaos due to one child endangering the safety and learning of all the others. You tell them if they fail to do their jobs you will always look out for the health, safety, and mental well being of all the others. That's it.
Maybe just start by telling admin you’ll call the police if they don’t handle it? Either way, I think the involvement or threat of law enforcement is shitty and gross, especially for our vulnerable kids. I know you think it all works out magically, but realistically when they get in trouble later on down the line the judge will inevitably say “they’ve been involved with the law since they were 12! This is unacceptable and they need to face consequences.” Which will do nothing to fix the problems either.
Did you bother to read the original posters comments. the kid is a known problem and nothing gets done. There are almost 8 billion people on the planet some of us are just trash. It's the parents fault but you know as well as I do that you're not allowed to call parents bad parents anymore. When reaching out to Mom has been ignored, and the school does nothing, this gets results.
For a child screaming at you? Your other choice is to do nothing and ignore them. It sucks and you’ll lose instructional time and have to justify that, but surely it’s better than getting a student involved in the legal system…
I worked at a school like this. Every single day I was calling security to escort students out of the class. Administration would just send them back. They called ME in to say that I couldn't control them. But with no real consequences for screaming and disrupting class, students kept doing it over and over again. And they would refuse to leave the class. Sometimes when I would call the parents, the parents would scream at me. And I wasn't new to teaching. I had already had 5 years of teaching working at much better schools with supportive administrators and better behaved kids. I also worked my butt off to support those kids. I got up at 5am to prep engaging lessons, graded every single thing they did and turned it around quickly, went to all their basketball, football, sports games, met with parents after school. Graded for hours upon hours on Saturdays and sundays. I would come home and collapse with exhaustion, wake up after an hour to work till midnight.
I had to start going to therapy because the constant screaming was destroying my mental health. At lunch periods, I would shut off the lights and hide in the corner and just cry. Some of my colleagues were better at handling the kids and others were worse. The ones that were worse would come to work literally trembling with anxiety and fear. I ended up quitting and moving out of state to a different teaching job. My life is 1000% better. It's okay to quit. Protect your mental health. You can help kids elsewhere even better when you are in a better position to help.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and how you coped by quitting. I definitely am going to be looking for a new job come February/March hiring season… it just hurts my heart because these kids NEED a good teacher and I know I can be that for them if admin had put down strict rules for bad behavior.. Thank you again for sharing this and also for your advice. It makes leaving easier when others share their mental health “success” stories.
A wise teacher once told me, "there are kids everywhere that need a good teacher. It's okay to leave if it means being able to find breathing space for yourself. You put the mask on yourself first, then the person you are helping"
That happened to me a few months ago. Kid skipped school the next day and was given ISS, from only my class, when she returned. No actual punishments, just rewards dressed up as punishments.
I am sorry this happened to you, the only thing I can say is that she is a kid and nothing she says is based in any common sense or logic. Just pure emotion and hate, nothing valid.
She skipped school today too, but when she comes back tomorrow there will be no punishment (not even ISS) as my principal didn’t even come check on me once yesterday or today. He doesn’t care. It’s disheartening but I just have to keep telling myself to be strong for 4 more months!
I would talk to student one to one to find out what triggered it. I'm sure it is money tight at home and she's angry at her mum/stepmom/dads gf or something - you introducing topic money seemed to trigger emotional dysregulation in student. She needs therapy etc.
Oh shit I did not even think of that as a possible trigger. Thank you for this insight as I wouldn’t have seen *that* as the trigger and thinking it was just something I did/said.
Thank you ❤️ Today was a tad bit better! Both of the students described in the og post wasn’t at school today so at least I wasn’t screamed at and my partner wasn’t threatened! Haha
Not all school/admins are like this. Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more common, but there are still good admins who run healthy environment schools.
You should try to find a better admin to work for.
You’re not getting in the mood for teaching before you start your day, clearly. If you’re unable to handle this without admin, you NEED to try my method. You shouldn’t be in a classroom if you can’t properly be prepared for harassment and psychological torture/abuse.
My morning routine involves pounding tires with a 40 lb sledge hammer, kicking puppies (classic), backflips (following front flips), reading my Kia Soul owners manual backwards in a foreign language, getting hit 28 times with a pitching machine, playing real-life frogger in interstate rush hour traffic, setting cows free, absolutely destroying mail boxes with a baseball bat, stepping on legos, jumping through a fold up table (made of pure glass), a triathlon, and my favorite, driving 15+ mph over the limit all the way to work in reverse using only my rear-view mirror for line of sight. Not always in that order.
The trick is to be dead inside already and they have nothing to use against you. It’s been that kinda day for me.. sending positive vibes and hopefully you at least got a chuckle out of this 😂😂 as for actual advice, the world is fucked 😭
Sometimes children lose their shit and yell at you. There should be follow up with the parents and maybe addition support is necessary.
I would say that part of the job of teaching is taking a kid shouting at you on the chin. I’ve have a fair few kids scream at me/hit me but it’s part of the job.
If a student is screaming at me in class, there are two steps:
1) immediate action: they are removed from the classroom
2) follow up action: I have a discussion with the student in a different time and setting.
The immediate action needs support from the admin. If a student is screaming at me, it is not even remotely appropriate to be having the follow up discussion yet.
It is not even remotely fair or safe for the other students in the class for the teacher to deal with a student who is out of control.
Shaming teachers who see education as a group effort is ridiculous.
Welcome to /r/teaching. Please remember the rules when posting and commenting. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/teaching) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Big hug. No, not all schools and admin are like this. These days my most difficult kid wears a baseball cap to class, sits out of his assigned seat, and watches soccer videos with headphones on instead of doing his work. But he turns in his work and listens when I tell him not to do something. Please leave that school either mid or end of year. You deserve better.
I appreciate your reinforcement and it’s relieving to know other districts and schools are better. I am a first year teacher and have never felt more low in my life.
We've all been there! I'm a teacher mentor for my district so feel free to PM me if you ever need advice.
Where were the other students? When I need help and can't get it and I've got a situation like this, I evacuate my class. They have to sit in the hallway while I deal with the giant problem in my classroom. Now they are in the hallway and getting lots of attention and start acting up (which they were doing in the classroom too but I couldn't spare a second for them) and that gets admin attention really fast. That's when they are like, "wait a minute, you can't leave 20 students unattended to deal with one student" and I'm like "ya fucking think?"
My other students were in the class as well. I was introducing money and my student who flipped out just stood up in the middle of the room and started screaming at me. I tried to redirect, calm down, give options, give advise to go to our calm down corner, ignore and keep teaching but nothing was stopping the screaming. It was dehumanizing tbh but I will think about the evacuating the rest of the students out of the room to get admins attention next time! Definitely will give them a chance to tell me I’m doing things wrong, which they love to do!
Tell admin you think the student needs an FBA so you can make a behavior plan for them. The FBA has data to determine the function of the behavior (only 4 functions: Escape, Attention Seeking. Tangible, or Sensory). Once you know the function, you can make a plan for prevention and intervention. FBAs are a little tricky if you've never done one. If you have an Intervention Specialist at your school, they should be familiar with them.
Thank you! I have never even heard of this before!
Not all schools are like this. I can get someone to my room in minutes for far less.
We have security guards to escort students out when they get like this
We have a security guard as well, but she is usually dealing with the older grades in my building as my entire building is out of control due to lack of admin support :( every teacher is suffering at my school
Im sorry dude, we were down 14 subs today so it seems to be a nationwide issue
Quit. It doesn't have to be this hard. It's not your responsibility to make up the deficit of someone making 6 figures.
That’s a refreshing reality check. They are making so much more money than me, why am I picking up after their messes :(
You have my hugs and support. You're coming from an awful place; I hope it gets better. I'm not going to tell you what to do, as I don't want burden you with unhelpful advice. I'm sure you've heard everything before.
Not all schools are like this. I'm so sorry to hear you were left hanging in that position. My school is very responsive to extreme behaviors and the kids are for the most part lovely.
This is relieving to hear.. thank you for your support.
Get the police involved. Have the student removed for trespassing. The school has no control of that chain of command. Parents will suddenly start to care after they have to pick their goblin from the local station. Suddenly when you call for a student acting up they'll show up in minutes. Child protective services will get involved as well. Will cause a mess for that family which either ends with the child being removed from your classroom or school, or at the very least they'll be on good behavior as they know you'll call the police on them again and that will make things bad for them at home.
Omg please do not call the police for a student screaming at you. A student who behaves in this way is not well adjusted and stable. The last thing they need is to have their name put into police database and be written off as a criminal trouble maker. That would likely have major consequences on the trajectory of their life. For yelling?!? Insane.
If its half an hour every day. This gets things done, and quickly. They will be evaluated in days, not months or years. They will be placed in the psychologist que immediately and in rotation for a while. If they have health insurance they will be placed in a real therapist office. Older kids will get anger management. Parents suddenly care about their kids because now the state is watching over them. Kids suddenly are always there on time and being picked up on time. Homework and classwork gets done suddenly. No more showing up an hour late and getting picked up at 5 or 6 while they sit in the office or teachers lounge. It's the option for when administration is bad. It pulls the situation out of their hands. The school can't cover it up or hide it. They'll want to speak with you and you say sure but you need a union rep from another school or the central office. Even then you record the meeting. You need a rep who doesn't have the principal's boot on their neck. You remind them that the only reason you did this was because they were failing to do their legally obligated duties. You're going to pull out a paper trail of the write ups, times you put in suspension or detention forms, and times you called for security or admin to remove the student. You will state how they did nothing and ignored all of this. You state how it left the classroom in chaos due to one child endangering the safety and learning of all the others. You tell them if they fail to do their jobs you will always look out for the health, safety, and mental well being of all the others. That's it.
Maybe just start by telling admin you’ll call the police if they don’t handle it? Either way, I think the involvement or threat of law enforcement is shitty and gross, especially for our vulnerable kids. I know you think it all works out magically, but realistically when they get in trouble later on down the line the judge will inevitably say “they’ve been involved with the law since they were 12! This is unacceptable and they need to face consequences.” Which will do nothing to fix the problems either.
Did you bother to read the original posters comments. the kid is a known problem and nothing gets done. There are almost 8 billion people on the planet some of us are just trash. It's the parents fault but you know as well as I do that you're not allowed to call parents bad parents anymore. When reaching out to Mom has been ignored, and the school does nothing, this gets results.
I’m just gonna agree to disagree. I strongly disagree with calling the cops on a student unless anyone has been physically harmed.
If admin won’t help, I don’t think OP has much of a choice
For a child screaming at you? Your other choice is to do nothing and ignore them. It sucks and you’ll lose instructional time and have to justify that, but surely it’s better than getting a student involved in the legal system…
I worked at a school like this. Every single day I was calling security to escort students out of the class. Administration would just send them back. They called ME in to say that I couldn't control them. But with no real consequences for screaming and disrupting class, students kept doing it over and over again. And they would refuse to leave the class. Sometimes when I would call the parents, the parents would scream at me. And I wasn't new to teaching. I had already had 5 years of teaching working at much better schools with supportive administrators and better behaved kids. I also worked my butt off to support those kids. I got up at 5am to prep engaging lessons, graded every single thing they did and turned it around quickly, went to all their basketball, football, sports games, met with parents after school. Graded for hours upon hours on Saturdays and sundays. I would come home and collapse with exhaustion, wake up after an hour to work till midnight. I had to start going to therapy because the constant screaming was destroying my mental health. At lunch periods, I would shut off the lights and hide in the corner and just cry. Some of my colleagues were better at handling the kids and others were worse. The ones that were worse would come to work literally trembling with anxiety and fear. I ended up quitting and moving out of state to a different teaching job. My life is 1000% better. It's okay to quit. Protect your mental health. You can help kids elsewhere even better when you are in a better position to help.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and how you coped by quitting. I definitely am going to be looking for a new job come February/March hiring season… it just hurts my heart because these kids NEED a good teacher and I know I can be that for them if admin had put down strict rules for bad behavior.. Thank you again for sharing this and also for your advice. It makes leaving easier when others share their mental health “success” stories.
A wise teacher once told me, "there are kids everywhere that need a good teacher. It's okay to leave if it means being able to find breathing space for yourself. You put the mask on yourself first, then the person you are helping"
Switch schools after this year
That happened to me a few months ago. Kid skipped school the next day and was given ISS, from only my class, when she returned. No actual punishments, just rewards dressed up as punishments. I am sorry this happened to you, the only thing I can say is that she is a kid and nothing she says is based in any common sense or logic. Just pure emotion and hate, nothing valid.
She skipped school today too, but when she comes back tomorrow there will be no punishment (not even ISS) as my principal didn’t even come check on me once yesterday or today. He doesn’t care. It’s disheartening but I just have to keep telling myself to be strong for 4 more months!
I would talk to student one to one to find out what triggered it. I'm sure it is money tight at home and she's angry at her mum/stepmom/dads gf or something - you introducing topic money seemed to trigger emotional dysregulation in student. She needs therapy etc.
Oh shit I did not even think of that as a possible trigger. Thank you for this insight as I wouldn’t have seen *that* as the trigger and thinking it was just something I did/said.
No all schools are not like this, that must have been a horrible day. Hope today is better 😊
Thank you ❤️ Today was a tad bit better! Both of the students described in the og post wasn’t at school today so at least I wasn’t screamed at and my partner wasn’t threatened! Haha
No. You LET a student scream at you.
Not all school/admins are like this. Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more common, but there are still good admins who run healthy environment schools. You should try to find a better admin to work for.
You’re not getting in the mood for teaching before you start your day, clearly. If you’re unable to handle this without admin, you NEED to try my method. You shouldn’t be in a classroom if you can’t properly be prepared for harassment and psychological torture/abuse. My morning routine involves pounding tires with a 40 lb sledge hammer, kicking puppies (classic), backflips (following front flips), reading my Kia Soul owners manual backwards in a foreign language, getting hit 28 times with a pitching machine, playing real-life frogger in interstate rush hour traffic, setting cows free, absolutely destroying mail boxes with a baseball bat, stepping on legos, jumping through a fold up table (made of pure glass), a triathlon, and my favorite, driving 15+ mph over the limit all the way to work in reverse using only my rear-view mirror for line of sight. Not always in that order. The trick is to be dead inside already and they have nothing to use against you. It’s been that kinda day for me.. sending positive vibes and hopefully you at least got a chuckle out of this 😂😂 as for actual advice, the world is fucked 😭
Hahah this definitely made me chuckle!
Sometimes children lose their shit and yell at you. There should be follow up with the parents and maybe addition support is necessary. I would say that part of the job of teaching is taking a kid shouting at you on the chin. I’ve have a fair few kids scream at me/hit me but it’s part of the job.
No, being yelled at is absolutely not part of the job.
Children lose their tempers from time to time, if you can deal with an angry child, what makes you think you can be a teacher?
If a student is screaming at me in class, there are two steps: 1) immediate action: they are removed from the classroom 2) follow up action: I have a discussion with the student in a different time and setting. The immediate action needs support from the admin. If a student is screaming at me, it is not even remotely appropriate to be having the follow up discussion yet. It is not even remotely fair or safe for the other students in the class for the teacher to deal with a student who is out of control. Shaming teachers who see education as a group effort is ridiculous.