A few days ago
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I am a high school History teacher and got in trouble for not breaking up a fight. Details below,?

I currently, am a certified high school educator. The field of study in which I teach is Social Studies/History. OK last week on Thursday two kids in my 7th hours American History class got into a verbal showdown as so to speak, and then one took his textbook and hurled towards the other. They both began fighting, this is my first years teaching, and I’m 24, so I did not know what to do. I mean the boys were punches like mad men, choking, kicking, one even picked a desk up from behind him and threw it. I pressed the panic button and notified the office. Another teacher (female) came in to see whats was happening. She to pressed her panic button. Coaches came in to break it up. The principal fussed at me in his office soon after, and even after school while I was leaving out for the day he fussed at me for not breaking it up. I just feel I am there to teacher, not to be a referee. I didn’t wanna get hurt as those boys both big in size threw down very hard? Was I right?

Top 9 Answers
A few days ago
Anonymous

Favorite Answer

Unless you were ready to get punched, kicked and hurt, then I think that you did do the right thing, the panic button was there for the fights right? and anyother problems that cannot be handled, it is not your job to get in the middle of some fight, you reported it and it was stopped, you did all you could do.
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A few days ago
miatadiva2000
Surely you are not a teacher to be a referee in the literal sense; however you have a duty to protect the children and it sounds like they needed protecting (desks flying, etc). With that being said, you need to know your limits. If you knew that you couldn’t physically intervene in an effective and safe manner, your next best option was to get someone who could. It sounds like that is what you did. So you probably did what was best.

Now looking to the future, you must ask: is this the type of school where fighting occurs frequently? If so, you may want to reconsider where you are teaching because you could be putting not only students in danger, but also yourself by not being able to more quickly thwart the physical confrontations. Good luck.

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A few days ago
Captain Hammer
Explain to your principal that if you had tried to physically break up the fight, you, your principal, and your district would be getting sued by now. It’s possible that you should have done things diffently once the verbal showdown started; that is something you may want to discuss with more experienced teachers or others in your administration, but this should along the lines of “next time something like this starts, try doing this.” In other words, they should try and help you better deal with these situations in the future rather than just berating you for your actions or inaction in this case.
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A few days ago
jateef
Maybe the administration is fussing that it escalated to fighting within the classroom. Usually physical fights start off verbally. That’s probably when you should’ve stepped in and separated the kids. I usually pick out the kid who’s less angry/more likely to respond to me, and firmly send him packing. I’ll have a non-involved kid walk the angry kid to his/her counselor or VP. When the escort returns, send the other one to another spot – different counselor or VP. In my experience, the fight isn’t “over” yet, so the kids need some monitoring and guidance to deescalate the situation – otherwise, they’ll just pound on each other later.

In my ten years of teaching (in some pretty rough urban places), I’ve only had one physical fight in my classroom, which I wasn’t able to really prevent – because it started in the hall, and spilled into my room at the beginning of the hour.

There have been countless fights outside of my classroom – but regardless – you need to have a plan in place.

It’s your job to maintain order as much as possible, and protect the kids and yourself. What I mean by protecting kids — protecting the ones that *aren’t* fighting. This means crowd control. I would’ve ordered all the other kids to line up right outside my door, to protect them from flying desks and fists. Separate the audience from the fight.

I have broken up a few fights. It’s usually because there isn’t anyone else around (working in a really crappy situation), and it isn’t going to stop unless the teachers stop it… so I’ve needed to bear hug kids from behind and drag them off. Move them to separate rooms, and wait for help. But normally, I don’t have to break anything up. In fact, at the school I’m at now, teachers are expected NOT to break up fights – there’s a few staff (teachers, coaches, etc) that are trained in it – but the rest of us are on crowd-control duty.

So were you right? Well, you should have stepped in and deescalated the situation when it was verbal. When it got physical, you should have moved the innocent kids out of harm’s way.

But I’m sure you’ll have an idea what to do next time!

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A few days ago
Anonymous
No, you are not right. As a teacher, it is YOUR responsibilty to maintain stability in the classroom. When the students were just having a verbal arguement, you should have separated them. What else was going on in the classroom? Why were they allowed to get away with this behavior in your classroom in the first place? So, you say that you are a new teacher, but you had to go to school and observe in your practicums and you also had pass your student teaching. How did you maintain order then?

You should’ve stopped it before the physical fight began. If a physical fight does break out under your watch, yes, you need to step in and try to break it up. Don’t let your students walk all over you. You aren’t there to be their buddy.

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A few days ago
Deeda
Yes, you should have done something in order to try to stop the fight, so others would not get hurt during the fight. It is your responsibility to ‘referee’ kids.

Even though you didn’t want to get hurt in the incident, you could have yelled at them or shown some sort of discipline. If you don’t feel as if you should be in this position, maybe you should try teaching younger children in elementary classes that are less likely to get in fist fights. By showing authority, the class will see you as respectable and maybe next time when this happens, they will think twice about hurling books and desks at one another.

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A few days ago
Dangermanmi6
It really didn’t matter what you did you would be found wrong I personally feel you did the correct thing in pressing your panic button if for nothing else to get a witness in the classroom. Breaking up fights is one of the hardest and dangerous things a Police Officer can do and your not trained to do it. It is ALWAYS better to look like a live fool than a dead duck.

You did the CORRECT thing don’t sweat it.

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A few days ago
handymanmike
This is a debatable question….as the teacher, you are “the authority” in the classroom, and supposed to control such outbreaks, but if you feared for your own safety, its understandable why you didnt want to get involved.

Could you have controlled the fighting by just taking control through your voice, admonishing them for behaving inappropriately? Evidently you could not, because you didnt, which would indicate you do not have the authority in your class, which is something you should work on. Now the kids know they can do whatever they want, because you will not do anything to control them. And if you do not have control, who does? YOU are the adult, you should take control, and if you cannot through physical force, then do so through some other way

I would not want to be a student in your class, because I would not feel safe…if someone starts beating me up, you will not do anything to stop them or help me

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A few days ago
Southern Comfort
Toughen uop bud it will be okay. the old fart principal is just trying to make a point. Never get between the little thugs. Raise your voice and dispatch them promptly from the room. Either they will glare and sit down or walk out either way you are not the referee. My daughter is 5 ft. 23 and teaches 8th grade science in a portable classroom where she couldn’;t get help very quickly. So she sends them out!
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