You f@#!@#! whore!
B@#!@ do not start.
You have no f@#$%!^ clue what I'll f^$%@# do to you if you talk to him again.
I didn't f*&^%$# sleep with him, slut!
Upon hearing this I turned around mortified. On my second day of substitute teaching, I was given the responsibility of monitoring about 200 students in Rundlett Middle School's second cafeteria, alone. Middle school lunch duty is arguably the worst job substitute teachers receive. A fight only exacerbated the situation.
As a rookie, I had absolutely no idea how to break up a physical dispute. The two girls were leaning over a table, making it impossible for me to step in between without either climbing up on the table or physically pulling one of the students away from the altercation. I was not about to climb on the food-filled table, and touching students is absolutely against the rules. I was in somewhat of a quagmire.
Rewind seven years.
Whack, whack, whack slammed the first grader's pencil on the desk. "This is stupid, I don't want to do it!" screamed Allison. It took three adults over an hour and a half to get twelve students to take what should have been a simple 20-minute math quiz. Later on in the day, I discovered that moving a group of six-year-olds to another classroom was an exceedingly arduous task. Little Johnny refused to get up off the floor.
There is absolutely no way to talk a first grader off of the floor who does not want to get up. Time-outs are ineffective. The children can simply say "no," and there is nothing a teacher can do to make the misbehaving student actually take their time out. "Go take a time-out" is simply met with "I don't want to." One cannot threaten a first grader with anything worse. They are too young to understand the repercussions of a lower grade or a suspension, and a teacher is left without a venue to enforce authority.
These observations based on my experience as a substitute teacher were corroborated by my conversations with a variety of teachers. Every year, teachers' authority deteriorates. Could you imagine trying to teach a class where a child could say, "I don't want to listen to you, I'm not taking a time-out, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it." Now could you imagine three-quarters of the class saying that and being forced to sit back, powerless?
I propose returning to the good old days. That is to say, perhaps we should bring back the ruler. If I could have led just one of the middle school girls away from the table, the fight would have almost immediately ceased. Instead, I had to get an administrator come and talk them away from each other while the rest of the lunch room slipped into chaos. If the teacher could have simply given Allison a firm but reasonable slap on the wrist with a ruler, I am willing to bet that the classroom atmosphere would have been more conducive to test taking. If the teacher were allowed to grab little Johnny's arm to pull him off of the floor, moving students from classroom to classroom would probably not take away so much from learning time.
I know there are a plethora of premonitions regarding physical contact with students. Psychology studies have shown children who were spanked show more aggression on the playground. Perhaps slapping kids' wrists with rulers will lead to more teen violence and other problems. However, certain private schools allow teachers to contact children if they refuse to follow instruction.
One could argue that the difference in socioeconomic status contributes to the difference in how the children react to the punishment. However, it does show that it is possible to have kids turn out alright even though they were subjected to a slap or two on the wrist. My elementary school always had the threat of the paddle if anyone really misbehaved. We rarely did. Generally speaking, the worse the punishment, the less likely one is to rebel.
Other problems are also foreseeable. How can we be certain that the teachers will only perform reasonably firm slaps or pulling without become excessively violent with the students? To be honest, I do not know.
I recognize many are totally against any sort of physical punishment because of the possible effect it has on the children. I am not simply saying we should spank and slap kids and all of the problems will be solved. Any physical punishment needs to be reasonable, controlled, and properly administered. There is potential for negative repercussions on aggression studies and other future behavior. That is a potential cost.
However, there is also a benefit, which I believe outweighs the cost of the utter disorder I experienced day in and day out. Order could be reintroduced to certain classrooms where it is otherwise unattainable. There are particular situations in a school where authority is impossible to assert without using physical contact.
On a final note, I would like to point out that my wish for teachers to be allowed to administer limited physical punishment via a slap on the wrist or pull an obstinate student off the floor does not stem primarily from my frustrations with substitute teaching. At the end of the day, the first grade teacher whom I aided was utterly exhausted. I witnessed a woman tired and disheartened from an inability to control a classroom. Her lack of authority prevented her from doing the one thing she wanted to do most: teach.