So today, I was sitting in the teacher's lounge, getting ready to heat up my Healthy Choice Rotini, when I heard an enormous crash coming from the classroom next door. Sort of like a massive file cabinet imploding or, perhaps, a fight between Iron Man and the Hulk (what? The Avengers is coming out this weekend. Some people care about that. Not me, but some people). The other teacher and I take a beat, look at each other, then run for the classroom.
A side note: I am 5'2". Maybe. With my little boots on. H, the teacher with me, is very tall but quite thin. Blonde and from the Midwest. The other cheerleading coach. What I'm saying is, neither of us is muscle-bound. Neither of us is a formidable opponent.
In the classroom, we find a slightly alarmed substitute, and a girl in a rage, throwing desks at other students. Yup, actually picking them up and heaving them, mostly in the general direction of a very large boy, who is clearly taunting her, but it is a small classroom, and desks are rather unwieldy, so they're sort of flying everywhere. Apparently, I learn between screams, the boy spit on her. I don't know what provoked the spitting.
H grabs the desk-thrower, so I move towards the boy, putting myself between the two combatants and projecting (NOT yelling) that he needs to SIT DOWN NOW! SIT DOWN. RIGHT NOW. NOW. SIT. Sometimes, I am not the cleverest wordsmith when breaking up a fight.
This plan of attack is, predictably, ineffective.
As I am projecting (not yelling) and desks are flying by me, and I am standing between a rabid wild child and her potential prey (who is, still, yelling taunts at her and things like "say that to my face!" which I'm pretty sure she was doing, with both words and desks), I keep thinking, "This is it. This is the day I'm going to get hit." Possibly by a fist, possibly by a desk. I can't help but think that day is inevitable, based on my tendency to fling myself in the middle of warring teenagers.
Teachers should not break up fights for many reasons. 1-We are not taught the safe way to separate children. I know from some of my friends who are that there is a safe way to hold a child, so he/she cannot injure himself or others. I don't know how to do this. I break up a fight, and I hurt my back. Luckily, I have never hurt a child because if I do, 2- I could get sued. This is why I'm a member of the union, but still. It isn't something I want to risk. And 3- If the child hits one of us, even accidentally, that is it for him/her. Fighting another student generally gets a child a 10 day suspension (the max) but not an expulsion. Hitting a teacher or administrator is automatic expulsion.
And then, of course, 4- It is not my job, and I don't get paid enough!
Yet, if I see a fight, I can't help it. I jump right in, my little 5'2" self, and starting projecting (not yelling) my head off and puffing myself up like some kind of bearded dragon, hoping that children, like bears, might be scared off if I make enough noise and wave my arms (generally, they are not).
Long story short: today is not the day I was hit. A short eternity (probably about 1-1/2 to 2 minutes) after our intervention, the cops and the administrators came running in and, once there were more adults in the room than children, the fight was finally stopped. The perpetrators were hauled off. A small girl, who had been sitting at her desk calmly listening to her headphones for the entire encounter, looked up at me, sighed, and said, "I got spit on, too. May I go to the bathroom to wash it off?"
In unrelated news, I am considering taking a day off this week.
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