Posted on 06/24/2010 9:48:15 AM PDT by bs9021
Teacher’s Self-Defense Manual
Malcolm A. Kline, June 24, 2010
An interesting flip side of the victimology that permeates public schools is that teachers are frequently expected to play the villain. One self-help expert who literally advises educators to turn the other cheek is Dr. Eric P. Hartwig.
“He is experienced and licensed as a Director of Pupil Services, District Administrator and a School Psychologist,” his web site tells us. “Presently, he is the Administrator of Pupil Services for the Marathon County Children with Disabilities Education Board and is the author and principle trainer on the Just-in-Time: Behavioral Initiative Project.”
“Dr. Hartwig has done extensive research on discipline, school violence, psychoeducational assessment and related special education issues.”
At a March 12, 2004 I was at an in-service conference with 1,100 teachers in Las Vegas, Nevada, Dr. Hartwig told the crowd, “If a student kicks you, bites you, or spits at you, it is your fault.”
“I was shocked by what he said, but what was even more amazing was that he wasn’t immediately tarred and feathered by the 1,100 teachers,” Jim Blockey writes in his book, Teachers…It Ain’t Your Fault. “Not only did the teachers allow him to continue, but only a few were upset enough to get up and walk out.”
“And even more amazing was the ovation he was given when he finished.” Blockey, who has taught in Las Vegas public schools for 20 years, is the source of the above vignette.
He also shared some choice quotes from Dr. Hartwig’s literature. For example, in a handout titled “Discipline and Behavior Issues,” Dr. Harwig states that teachers must be “well-adjusted, warm, and accepting.”
“In addition, he must be able to take it,” Dr. Hartwig concluded....
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
ping
This is exactly the experience my wife went through last semester. She was assaulted by students seven times and the district's attitude was it was her fault. This is an extremely violent school with fights every day and most of the teachers just sit there and let the fight happen. My wife isn't the kind to just stand there. She is looking for a private school to teach that now or she will go back to private piano and vocal coaching.
Has our nation fallen down the rabbit hole or walked through the mirror? Did we sip from the bottle that said, “Drink me!” Up is down and down is up?
7 assaults? Has it really become that bad? I thought I understood the times, but that is incredible.
That bad and worse, this is a middle school in a medium sized town in Texas. Some of these middle school students are bigger than her (the one that finally made her say enough is enough was 6’3”, he backhanded her right in the face).
I was in shock every time I went up there how bad it was and most of the other teachers and administration didn’t seem to give a damn (or were worse). It was like an asylum with no guards, the teachers were just there to babysit until the bell rang. Anytime a teacher tried to take control, they were pushed out.
It is hard to blame the teacher when the administration makes so much bureaucracy in the discipline process it is impossible to do anything and if they do follow the process, they get in trouble for rocking the boat. Add into that the lawsuit crazy parents and you can imagine the situation they are in.
(here is an idea of the discipline process at that school (even for a fight) First: Ask the student to stop the action. Second: Separate the student from the action (without making physical contact or entering student’s personal space). Third: Call the parent. Fourth: Fill out a discipline form that should be filed with the office by the end of the day. Fifth: Call the office for assistance (only after the parent has been called and the proper forms have been filled out..) IF the teacher fills out a discipline form or calls the office without talking to the parent (leaving a message or no answer is not an excuse) the teacher is written up for breaking protocol. This even applied to “immediate” discipline issues like fights. )
My wife has studied Krav Maga for years and could put down a man twice her size without a thought. I am really shocked she didn’t take down the 6’3” kid who backhanded her but she knew the way this school was, she would be the one arrested and sued (has happened before, another teacher’s career was ruined because of it).
Public School administrators are all radical leftists or they don’t get the job. Their agenda is to completely destroy the educational process, because then the kids WILL grow up to vote Democrat, and support the destruction of the United States. It’s that simple, and that deadly. Leftists would burn down the entire planet to get the votes and control they want, and vicious administrators controlling codependent teachers is a huge part of their plan.
That’s horrible. I hope you can afford to get her out of there as soon as possible.
She is out of there now. She told them she wasn’t renewing her contract (after she did that, the administration treated her like hell). She is looking for a private school position now but she also can teach private voice and piano lessons from home and do pretty well. The pay difference isn’t that big of a deal considering she was spending half her salary on supplies for the students and curriculum (that is a whole other story).
The problem with our public schools isn’t teacher unions, unwed multiple-baby spewing welfare moochers, or money woes. The problem is we have allowed our government to kick God out of our schools, and we are reaping what we sowed.
My reply to this thread is best expressed in an older post from another related thread:
For the last several years (of my 20+ in the field) I've been teaching AP American Government, Economics, (those two are parts 1 & 2 of the same course. Each is a semester. Then I also teach Psychology and Sociology. Same deal. Each is a semester. I always use my experiences in the army to make a connection with my students. I find it serves me very well in several areas. First they pay much better attention and second it keeps discipline extremely well.
For the last 16 of my 20+ in the system I have split between two inner city high schools. The most recent 6 years has been at the tougher of the two.
Two years ago a teacher got jumped outside his classroom in school, for the offense of confiscating an iPod from a kid, he had his jaw broken in three places. After it happened ALL my kids wanted to ask the same question:
"Mr. _________ are you now 'scared' to come to work?" To which I reply thusly:
~small sigh~ "Look, folks: I'm too young to die and too old to take an A$$ whuppin' so.... I'm just gonna KILL YA." (Shocked looks doesn't quite fill the bill, but close). The comments in return are always couched in a low whisper and they go: "Yeah, we all sorta figured you'd say that."
I have been "tried" too. Not so much in my current inner city high school, but in my former inner city high school a kid took a swing and I put him on his back very hard. I study Aikido and it has helped me numerous times over the years. Love it because it requires zero physical strength to be deadly effective if your technique is correct. But when I was recruited for my current post to start teaching Psychology, I left mid year much to the wails of discontent from the kids. I went over to the new school to do a short recon one day just before the end of Christmas break. I got stopped by security on the grounds. Told them my name and they whooped. They all said I'd fit right into the new combat zone and I'd have no problems, either. Said all my current kids had called their buddies at the new school. Told the new guys this: "Ya got an awesome teacher coming in. Treat him GOOD. If you give him any crap, he'll kill you D-E-A-D." Okay, I thought it was a little bit overly dramatic, but it's been effective. The story always seems to find it's way to the next class coming in, lol.
A close friend of mine is a principal for a grade school in southern California. He has been part of suits against him or the school most of his career.
Ok...I just can't let this pass. Please describe for me what a government school would look like if you, personally, could put God back in the government schools.
Would it resemble the government high school I attended in the 1960 with a sprinkle of prayer and a scripture verse in the morning followed by a completely atheistic and secular curriculum for the remainder of the day?...Or...Would it look like the Catholic education that I enjoyed from first to tenth grade?
If we are to put God back in the schools ( without offending Him by being lukewarm) then the only rational and practical way to do that is by closing the government schools and completely privatizing universal K-12 education.
To give you an idea of what a non-lukewarm education would look like the following is a small description of my Catholic education:
In Catholic school we blessed the hour with prayer. If we heard a siren, class was stopped and we prayed for the safety of those involved. Classes were suspended for a week each spring during a week long spiritual retreat with daily Mass and local religious speakers who came to speak throughout the day to the students. During discussions of literature and social studies our religious leaders and scriptures were openly quoted and used for moral and ethical examples. In science and math we were reminded that it was our duty to learn as much as possible about the natural world since it reflected God's glory. We were to use our knowledge and talents to bless the lives of others. We attended “Stations of the Cross” every Friday afternoon during lent and were encourage to “give up” something important to us during that time. Church attendance was required on Sundays and attendance was taken. If anyone was sick they were included in our prayers. The rosary was recited at regular intervals. The feast day of our school was a special day. Our church hymns, specific to our religion, were are regular part of all school programs.
Do you get the idea?
From the very first day, that government schools opened in the mid-1800s the Protestant religious content of the schools were already generic and lukewarm. ( We know what Christ does with the lukewarm.) It had to be in order to accommodate the voting majority. It has been downhill since. It was **PLANNED** that way. Please remember that Mann and Dewey were secular humanist socialists.
By the time my grandmother ( born 1894) and father ( born 1913) were in government school, the schools were already godless in their worldview with a sprinkle of prayer and scripture in the morning. Yet...I will admit that the influences of their largely Christian teaches did temper somewhat their secular humanist worldview classes. In no possible way could their anemic religious exposure within their government schooling compare to the religious education enjoyed by my Catholic grandparents and mother.
Let's say we did put God back in our government schools. Can you imagine what it would be like? We would have bored atheistic teachers rolling their eyes in contempt, and sighing and clicking their tongues in disrespectful dismissal. Can you imagine the lesson taught?
There is a solution:
Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education.
Yes, indeed, we are reaping what we have sowed. The seeds were planted with the first government schools in the mid-1800s and children were fed a lukewarm and generic Protestantism....and...It's been a downhill slide into atheistic secular humanism ever since. Mann and Dewey planned it that way from the beginning.
No, but maybe we wouldn’t have 7, 8, and 9 year old students bringing guns and knives to school. And just maybe some of the parents would turn back to God and stop abusing their kids.
The only possible solution is to get government out of the education business and to get our nation's children enrolled in private schools.
At their very best, when God was included in the government schools, the fare offered up was a generic and lukewarm Protestantism. By my grandmother's day, even that was essentially gone ( although tempered by her Christian teachers).
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