LJ Idol - Week 7 - Brouhaha

[applespice]

In my line of work, you can almost always see a fight coming. With very few exceptions, high school students (well, people in general I suppose, though my experience with fights is pretty firmly entrenched in the high school setting) follow a prescribed set of rules before getting physical. The idea is to catch them at it and squash the drama before the blood and hair start flying.

1. Trash talk. This starts slow, and is the hardest to catch because half the time trash talk is barely different from the way students usually address each other. "Bitch" and "motherfucker" are common endearments, so teachers have to train themselves to pick up tiny differences in tone and body language. Or, you know, at least look away from the open Ebay page on their computer. As retorts get snappier and the students start to move out of their seats, we move to phase two.

2. Posturing. Posturing is your typical personal space violation. Students in the posturing phase move closer to their opponent, often leaning in very close to their face or touching them in small but annoying ways - flicking hair, pulling at clothes, or swatting lightly at shoulders and chest. Trash talk continues, but is more aggressive and is obviously hostile. Naturally, this leads quickly to...

3. Escalation. At this point, shouting is imminent. Gone are the subtleties of the argument - the combatants are now screaming obscenities at each other. What may have started as a game is now deadly serious (or at least minor injury serious). Girls toss their heads like wild horses, clap their hands for emphasis, and raise their voices to a pitch hardly decipherable to human ears. Boys push at each others' chests, lunge forward aggressively, and move into fighting stance. If you, the teacher, have allowed it to get this far, you're basically fucked.

4. Melee! It's on now! The last chance you have of avoiding bloodshed is if other students get involved and restrain their friends or if you buckle on your balls and jump in between the opponents yourself. This does not always work, and I would suggest not getting in between two girls unless you're willing to take some physical damage. It's a nearly universal truth in teaching that while boys will usually calm down if a female teacher stands between them, girls have a longer fuse and a bigger payload, so by the time they come to blows they are going to keep at it until they draw blood no matter who gets in their way.

Keep in mind that the minute other students realize a fight is going on, 90% of them will completely lose their minds and race to the scene, causing a maelstrom of adrenaline and cell phone cameras, so you need to move fast if you plan on breaking it up. At this point, your best recourse is to call down for a principal and the school resource officer. They live for this, so don't feel too badly for imposing on them.

5. Fallout. The fight is over, but now you have to deal with the drama it has left in its wake. If it all went down in the hallway during class you may be able to salvage your lesson, particularly if you managed to keep your students safely ensconced in the classroom while you busted things up. If it happened during passing period, you will have to endure high spirits and a deep interest in blow-by-blow analysis for at least half of your class period - longer if any of your students knows one of the combatants. If it happened in your classroom, you might as well give up now. There is no way the students are going to want to back to reading Act III of The Crucible after they've just watched two girls go at it cage-match style in the middle of the room.

Of course, if you actually had a fight break out in your classroom, things look pretty bad for you anyway. The key is catching things before they get that out of hand and crushing them under the steel-toed boot of authoritarian bitchiness. Of course, there are justifiable cases (gang rivalries, for example) where there is really nothing you can do, but most of the time a teacher's action or inaction is what draws the line between garden variety high school drama and a shitkicking beatdown.

Secretly, I get my own thrill from watching a fight go down. It's my chance to go into decisive, professional mode, and I get to pretend for a few minutes that I don't spend most of my day toiling away trying to fight eleven years of low expectations and second-rate administration with frustrating results. For just a moment, I get to bark orders, jump into a fray, and act as badass as I can probably hope to get as a high school English teacher.

Comments

[stormkitty.livejournal.com]

I remember one year in high school when two girls went at it in the hallway. There wasn't much in the posturing phase, it seems girls move through that a lot faster. Some poor college kid doing either his internship or a practicum or something (I didn't know much about the steps at the time) decided he was going to jump in and break it up. He came out worse than they did. This fight spanned the entire hallway and left in its aftermath hair (theirs), blood (likely his) and dented lockers. It was wild. And other than the college kid, the other teachers just stood off to the side and waited for it to calm down, then dragged the girls off to the principal's office.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Girl fights are always the worst, no joke. Boys just slug it out for a few minutes, but when one gets knocked down the fight is usually over. Girls will keep popping up for another hit every time. It's insane.

[stormkitty.livejournal.com]

Growing up in my neighborhood I was a tomboy and one of only two girls (in a neighborhood of about ten boys). So the guys would forget that I was a girl. The newest boy in the neighborhood wanted to start a fight with me one day and he did all the posturing and I just hauled off and hit him. He wasn't expecting a real fight and that startled him. He never told on me because all the other guys kept laughing at him that he got sat on his butt by a girl. :) I walked away because I'd made my point. lol.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

LOL! Serves him right!

What's funny about my school is that the guys are genuinely more afraid of the girls than the other guys. Everyone here knows that girls are serious business and you don't want to cross them!

[pixie117.livejournal.com]

This is so very true! I have seen it so many times!

[rougebaiser.livejournal.com]

I always found the fights to be the scariest part of my job when I was a teacher. We were actually taught how to restrain children without causing them harm (or harm to ourselves), among other damage-control techniques. My first day I remember one of the male teachers who taught next door saying "if anything happens, just scream my name and I will be in here in to stop them" and I had to, on my first day. One kid threw a desk at another and tried to stab the girl with a pen in the throat. Teacher training never prepared you for those things :) I admire people who can get through all of that and still like to teach/get time to teach.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

We've basically been told not to get in between them if they start fighting unless we're willing to take a hit (I'm not). Unless a student intentionally hits YOU, you can't press charges or bring any punishment down on their hyperaggressive asses, so it's best to just let the SRO handle it. Or a male teacher - that does usually work. Unfortunately for the English department, we have a whole... one male teacher. LOL.

What a crazy experience! And on your first day, damn.

[basric.livejournal.com]

And they say Nurses have it bad, let me tell you that you are the unsung heroes, there is not enough money you could pay me to do your job, give me a good old gun shot wound any day.
Bless you by whatever deity you worship.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Oh no way, you guys have it way worse! I couldn't imagine dealing with all of the stuff you see.

[basric.livejournal.com]

We'll agree to disagree. I could never do the job you do. All those hormones and the disrespect kids have for property, teachers, their peers and themselves . No you have it worse. I patch up mine and send them on their way never hopefully to be seen again. You have yours day after day month after month then a new batch in the fall. You need to be making twice what you make.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly wouldn't argue against a raise! ;)

[stationery.livejournal.com]

This is both hysterical and completely true. I admire teachers so much.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Aww, this warms my heart. At least someone appreciates us! :D

[michellerz.livejournal.com]

Oh, the lolz I had on this one. You have an impeccable way of describing exactly what went down almost every other day in my high school cafeteria.

and act as badass as I can probably hope to get as a high school English teacher.
Oh, who are you kidding, you're a total badass. ;)

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

;) Thanks! I'm a badass in my own mind, at least, and that's got to count for something!

[michellerz.livejournal.com]

Of course! ;)

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

I love how this reads like a manual. This was fantastic!

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I actually was just reading a book that discussed Japan's obsession with manuals in the mid-nineties, and that's what inspired the format. I'm glad it came across that way! :)

[the-vernacular.livejournal.com]

I really liked the format you wrote this in. It worked well for the entry.

I don't remember seeing any fights in my high school, believe it or not. Elementary and middle, yes, but I genuinely don't remember anything ever coming to blows in high school. Maybe I'm just remembering it through rose-tinted hindsight.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

The high school where I work has more fights than I would have thought possible coming in. When I went to school, I only saw maybe a couple of fights a year - here there are multiple fights every week. It's crazy.

[alliana07.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember fights in high school. Ours would inevitably happen in the cafeteria. I'd be sitting there with my friends eating, and someone would yell FIGHT!!! and next thing I know, EVERYONE is getting up and RACING over there screaming... except me and my 3-4 friends who would stay at our table eating and talking and occasionally glancing over, lol. We were 'weird'. :P

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

The cafeteria is definitely a favorite place - I don't know why, as it's full of faculty and usually presided over by at least two assistant principals and the SRO, but I guess kids can't resist the urge to put on a show.

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

What an education I just got! I am way too old to have had any of this tolerated when I was in high school. Just saying a bad word out loud would have got you sent to the principal's office. In 3rd grade, I had my hands slapped with a ruler for passing a note in class. Of course, in today's society, that nun could have been charged with assault.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

My school experiences were much the same, though admittedly in high school I was in advanced classes and far less was tolerated there than in a regular classroom. It definitely blows my mind what kids are allowed to get away with now, though. The problem at the school where I work is that sending them to the principal's office usually doesn't yield any results unless the kid did something obviously inexcusable, like swear at the teacher or attack someone. Crappy administration just leads to crappy behavior from the kids, and it's a vicious, never-ending cycle.

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

Wow. You have my respect, admiration and sympathies!

[awriterswindow.livejournal.com]

Love this. I could see the phases of this on some worksheet they hand out to teachers (which I'm assuming you made up, but for all I know it could be on a handout somewhere!), with you filling in the blanks. Not sure if that makes any sense. It was like you were educating us on what you'd learned through your experience. I enjoyed it.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that there is some kind of handout about this - teachers love handouts! I've got a million of them, carpeting my car's floorboard and various tote bags.

Thanks!

[nialyind.livejournal.com]

I laughed at this, even though I probably shouldn't have. You just did such a great job detailing how many ways things can go wrong. :)

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's a crazy thing. Laughing would be a pretty fair reaction!

Thanks! :)

[edith-jones.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading this entry. I have heard similar descriptions from my husband, who is also a high school English teacher :) I hope you enjoy your Christmas holiday away from the classroom.
-Allie.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hope your husband enjoys his break, too - have a wonderful Christmas together! :)

[wyliekat.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. It makes me want to kick arse like an English teacher. ;-}

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Haha, thanks! Kicking ass is what I fantasize do!

[gildedage.livejournal.com]

I really liked the style you chose. I love reading about your teaching experiences.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) I'm glad that there's someone out there that hasn't been bored to death with my teaching stories... YET!

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

I like your description very much :-)

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[nishi-kaze.livejournal.com]

Aw, but who wants to read Act III of The Crucible ANYway? :)

Hilarious depiction of a not-so-hilarious occurrence, I love the detached Jane Goodall "Gorilla Documentary" tone of reading student interactions.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

I do!! Though I may be the only one...

Sometimes I do feel like some kind of researcher into bizarre animal behaviors, it's true. Thanks!

[so-small.livejournal.com]

I remember all the fights in high school, and they pretty much followed those five steps.

Fights are also one reason why I could never handle being a teacher.

[applespicy.livejournal.com]

You know you're in trouble when fights become a perk to the teaching experience. The kids are right... I am evil.

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Out here, there's a Step 3.5, which is "kick off shoes/take off shirt" if guy or an especially tough girl, or just "kick off shoes" if girl. That's the place to step in and stop things if you're going to, at least (as I mentioned) out here.

[nyxocity.livejournal.com]

This takes me back to high school. Man, I remember those days. I never gave much thought to the teachers that had to deal with it, though. Just one more reason to give you huge kudos for the job you do.

Nicely told!

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

Do you get a lot of fights at school? I went to an all girls high school, and we hardly ever had fighting. Emotional battering we had plenty of, but not physical manifestations.

[majesticarky.livejournal.com]

Seems like fighting has gotten worse over the years. We had our fair share in HS, and I went to a very low-performing school, but not multiple fights a week like you had to deal with! I also liked the manual format of this. When it got to the "Melee!" step, it made me laugh. Of all the hardships teachers have to put up with, you wouldn't think breaking up fights would be a major one like it seems to be.

[locknkey.livejournal.com]

If you, the teacher, have allowed it to get this far, you're basically fucked. lol!

I loved the tone of this. :)