It was during the last week of my practicum class and I had observed a student throwing a chair in the cafeteria as well as many other teachers that had seen this. I wasn’t sure that if I should approach the student or let a teacher take care of it. I looked up and saw a teacher walking towards the student. Before the teacher got to the student, the lunch bell rang and he headed for the door and left the cafeteria. I then saw the teacher go after the student.
I started to walk back to my classroom and when I got to the top of the stairs, I saw the student and the teacher talking. The teacher told the student that he needed to go see the principal and that she would go with him. He was outraged and started to swear at the teacher. At this point I started to walk over to them because the teacher was a little lady. He then took off down the stairs before I made it to them. I asked her if she needed help and she said she was fine. I then watched them go to the principal’'s office. In this situation what do you do as a practicum student?
Question from Dr. Theresa . . . In this situation, what do you do as a teacher if you were in the exact same situation?
5 comments:
I think in this situation you need to respect the other teacher's authority. It might make the other teacher appear unable to handle the situation if you butt in while they are talking to the student. What I would do though is stay within ear shot to make sure the situation does not escalate out of control and the teacher does not get accused of anything that did not happen by an unhappy student. If I was the teacher I would probably ask another teacher to help me so that I covered myself, unless it was a student who confided in my often and trusted me over other teachers. If a student was yelling swears at me I would do my best to stay calm and calm them down as well. In this situation, the principal's office is necessary.
I think you need to have your mentor teachers back at all times. You cannot possible judge this situation over only three weeks worth of observation. You also cannot afford to ruin the professional ties that you don't even have yet. Keep quiet on this one, its not your place to act.
As a practicum student, I would have probably just layed low and hung around to make sure everything went okay. If things started to get out of hand, then I would approach the two or go and get the principle. As a teacher, I believe the "little lady" handled the sitation correctly. She did not allow the student to get away with it, and she got him to the office. It may be hard to say anything back when the student curses at you, but they are only digging themselves into a deeper whole. The teacher does not want to go down to the level of the student, where they may get in trouble. I thought the situation was actually handled really well on both parts.
The student needs to be talked to. Maybe they need to go talk to the councellor or to someone in the office. The student obviously needs a chance to fume and get their frustrations out. If you can talk with the student see what's up, or coem to them ater after they've cooled off and really figure out what's going on. mmediately if they are causing harm you need to get them away from students.
I Think this situation is different for every person. Even though I am just a practicum student I am not the type of person to just let someone get away with something like that. I would have approached the student immediatly and made it very evident that I needed to talk to him. After that I would have walked him to the principals office and passed him off from there. If you just let that student take off where ever they please they could take more violent actions and hurt somebody.
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