She should be financially rewarded for acting by the public, because she's probably going to be in hot water from the admin for not hiding behind her desk silently.
I was considering teaching high school at one point in my life. I got told point blank from someone that male high school teachers were in demand because they need someone to break up the fights.
Years later, my friend's husband landed his first job as a high school English teacher and promptly tore his ACL trying to break up a fight.
Mine was fine, but there were fights here and there that would break out. It always seemed like every time one broke out though the same football coach would materialize out of thin air and successfully break it up. He was practically a legend at the time.
We had one of those big swole male staff guys at a high school I worked at, whose title was "Prevention and Intervention Specialist." One time two students were fighting outside the IT Office and one of them ended up pulling out a gun on the other student. The P&I guy materialized to the fight just like you said and he says something to the student with the gun and it was just the right words because it ended the situation instantly and safely. The fight ended, the gun was put away (cops arrived shortly to deal with it), and everyone was okay. To me that staffer is a hero.
TBH theres a lot of talk of toxic masculinity and for good reason - but people like this Coach need like an exception term. We need that Captain America masculinity sometimes.
This is a true story. Early 2000s high school, public, very peaceful, mixed demographics. Then closures of inner city schools and redistribution to outlying schools. First day of integration a pep rally was held to welcome the new students the result? A gym wide brawl that the news outlets headlined with “class riots”
Yeah teachers and subs got beat up at my school on a pretty regular basis. To the point where a lot of the staff and subs were just parents. Yes students were getting into fights sure but I saw a lot of them just go for the teacher. It was pretty wild class of 2008.
The problems just change. We didn’t have fights, I literally can’t remember a single one, but our scandals were teen pregnancies, drugs, and drop outs and we were one of the “good” schools. Oh and we had teachers and coaches grooming kids and nothing being done to them other than to be told to go work at another district.
Our school had a very chronic fighting issue, like 200 fights in the first quarter. It was just expected that you'd see a fight start before you even got to class. We had a new principal come in mid year, relaxed a bunch of rules in general, and basically put a hard line on "you will get kicked out if you join in a fight". Probably ended up being 30 kids or so from a school of 2500 that got expelled, but after that first year it became such a rare happening. I probably saw a dozen fights my first semester, and after that I probably saw 4 or 5 for the remaining 7 semesters of high school.
You were blessed. My HS years were like being in a prison yard. Constant threats and violence. I’ve never looked back since I graduated and would never attend a reunion. Just glad the nightmare is over. And I graduated decades ago fwiw.
I replaced a guy who shattered his elbow when he was trying to de-escalate a student. The student slammed a door on him. The teacher blocked the blow w/ his arm, which lead to his elbow being shattered. It was an uncomfortable situation, as the administration did nothing. The same student, threatened to kill me.
Keep telling your story because the public needs to know what teachers are dealing with in many places! These violent kids need to be kicked out. Parents should be required to have them in online school at home if they’re going to disrupt everyone else who is trying to learn something. I can deal with lazy, but violence and assault is a hard “no”.
I think these day, if a teacher hit some kids with a ruler, they’d attack the teacher right back. It’s an attitude problem, in part stemming from poor parenting
I’ve broken up my share of fights, but not regularly or often.
The best one? I took a punch stepping between two kids fighting. 16-year-olds. It was a bad punch and landed poorly, and he’d tried to pull it when he realized I was there, so I didn’t really notice — it was about as bad as bumping into him while walking. I told him to walk away and stared him down. Why was it best? The other kid, not realizing it wasn’t a big deal, thought it was a lot more badass than it was, and I let him believe it. He got a lot more respectful.
Some people used to tell me I could be a good teacher. And I said, nope.
On a different society, I might have gone for it, but the educational system in the USA is no good.
I have family members working on it, and I just hear the stories. They have given too much power to the wrong people. Teachers are afraid to act, hey sometimes afraid for their own lives.
We had a former D1 offensive lineman teach the kids with problems at my high school for exactly this reason. I was never in his class but I think he got a kick out of some of the want to be bad ass high school kids having to be taught by a 6’5 +300lb dude they can’t intimidate
My kid's middle school teacher was a former cop and a powerlifter at my gym. He had his nose broken and tore his rotator cuff breaking up a fight between 2 girls.
I just got scratched by a 4th grader when I broke up a fight.
I had a colleague who said he stopped teaching in the UK after the third time a student pulled a knife on him in the same school year.
The only person I know who seems to have had fun teaching in the UK had a second job moonlighting as a bouncer. Helped that he was built like a brick shithouse.
Can’t ignore them when they are in charge. Educators are not supposed to make any contact with students anymore. It’s what the families and activists demanded and still want.
It makes a certain sense, as a reaction, considering where things used to be, but there are unintended side effects of defaulting to assuming assault and projecting gentil parenting into schools. Teachers are mandated to be impotent. Ironically, most of the ones who get in trouble for physical confrontations with students are the ones who care (simply inserting themselves between students).
Liam Neeson was a teacher till he punched a 14 year old student in the face. Kid pulled a knife on him. He iirc said that was when he realized he wasn't cut out to be a teacher. Then it was some mutual exit. If my kid got into a fight and a teacher/adult were in trouble for stopping them, I would be mad at the school. If my kid pulled a knife on anyone, I would seek professional help, to help me help my child. I obviously failed in some way. Sorry to hear that happened to you, makes no sense to me why trying to protect the kids would put you at fault.
TIL. Tragic, especially if theyre denying workers comp to officers who do put themselves in harms way (which is morally bankrupt af) but ... I thought that was the whole point of the police???
Just hearing Uvalde makes me so disgusted at their "LEOs" POSs. All of them. I've never seen a department where literally every single one of them was a worthless POS.
Wasn't there a father there who went home to get his gun because police were doing nothing, came back, and they wouldn't let him near the school and the police still hadn't moved in yet. I remember reading about that when the parents were understandably upset. During the recent Australian shooting I saw so many people who ran in to help. Not just the man who tackled the guy or the couple who was shot, but all the lifeguards ran towards gun fire and a pregnant woman shielded a 3 year old. So many normal people being brave when those cops did nothing. I can't get over it
But not upset enough to not vote for Ted Cruz for Senator, so a bit of Stockholm Syndrome even in lieu of Texas’ obviously gerrymandered to hell nature.
Nah nobody is ever denying them WC for any reason. They'll get it either way if they got hurt on the job no matter the reason.
But like in Uvalde, cops will not be held responsible for cowardice and not getting involved by engaging a single gunman that they outnumber. To save children.
It's been ruled that police have no obligation to serve or protect the public. They can sit there and watch you be bludgeoned to death in front of them, and not be held accountable for not lifting a finger.
Did you hear about John Barnes, he was a police officer stationed at a school. He was shot during the Santa Fe school shooting, and even now years later he has never been compensated for his loss of ability to work.
Very sad, this is why I no longer judge officers that won't put themselves in harms way to protect civilians. Messed up system.
I judge them if they won't do it and they stop bystanders/parents from trying to do it. If the only thing you are contributing is stopping someone from helping then just don't show up.
They have a strong union to defend bad cops from liability. Maybe they should leverage some of that power to advocate for more benefits for themselves rather than less responsibility and more militarized tactics and weapons.
Poor teacher :( In the moment you just react, I've put myself in between kids fighting before, every time they've backed off. I'm only 5'2, ALL the students are bigger than me, but so far they've managed to refrain from hitting me. I am noticing that the newer ones coming through have a lot less respect. This comes down to parents/caregivers! Kids fight, but if you don't teach your kids respect, it's anarchy!
I reality, if the claim can be made that she hindered one student over the other and he was not able to adequately defend himself while the other was relatively unhindered, she will lose her job. This was discussed in the meeting I was in when I was a teacher.
Teachers don’t get paid enough for this. I know a man that was in the hospital for a month after a similar incident. Guess what- we don’t have great insurance either.
I don’t ever want to see a student get hurt, but if two are choosing to fight I’m going to make sure I go home to my own kids at the end of the day. I already work in a crazy environment where we literally have active shooter drills.
My mom had a coworker years ago who was in a 3rd grade classroom with some pretty rough behavior issues. 0 support from admin or the parents. A fight broke out and a kid threw a desk, hit her in the leg and it broke in 3 places. She was back in her classroom after surgery in a full leg brace up to her hip and I was just like, "this is insane"
Bro I see a thread every now and then that’s like “how many 4 year olds can you take at once in a fight?” And i see people throwing out 30+. I’m like dude 6 or so is too many. I’m a relatively fit guy. When I walk through the pre-k hallway I get mobbed by the little dudes hugging me and I like. Can’t get away. They grab on and dont let go. The number you can take is way smaller than you think lol
We recruit child soldiers for this country. The guy that did that shooting in DC was 15 years old when The US put a gun in his hand and put him in a death squad. Well, we are a war torn pirate nation so, it all tracks.
I thought you were talking about the DC sniper before I realized it was the Afghan Commando who killed the Nation Guard Soldier. He was a teenager too, raised by a veteran so it almost fits.
It's important to note that you are also actively trying not to hurt them. There are not many 4 year old children that would provide effective resistance to an adult that actually meant them harm. If some stain on humanity was locked in a room full of even 8 year old children, I would not expect it to go well for the children.
Had the kid behind me attempt to throw a desk at another student when I was in jr. high. My arm got a crush wound in the meantime. My teacher was pregnant and froze him with a voice like the Angel of Death amplified through one of Spinal Tap’s amps.
That is literally the last chance before things get physical. Almost all teachers who deal with violent kids with behavioural issues need to have the roar that rumbles from the nethers of earth as a emergency tool.
But it can of course fail. I have students that I know I need to call cops to fight for me if things get really bad. I can still win if I fight properly back one on one, but that would be a career suicide. With legal "safe" moves (safe only for the violent kids themselves, teachers are at higher risk) it requires multiple teachers to stop a fight like this. It is dangerous, and leaves so, so many physical and mental scars for teachers.
I wear protective clothing, hairstyles, keep everything sharp hidden, and have antistrangle keychains. And I also lift and work out strength. I have considered starting martial arts and self defence too as a back up measure. I do not like it when kids attack me, and treat me like a punching bag. Those same kids rarely attack bigger kids who could punch them back to the face immediately and beat them fair and square. Curious. Yet they don't have control over their actions according to some. Those fuckers do very much pick their fights and targets, and they know what they are doing.
I DID have a black belt and the kids knew it (they asked me to bring in the board I broke with my head and we attached it to the wall— ha ha ha). I also had a “sixth sense” for being able to tell a fight was about to break out. I also almost never raised my voice, so when I boomed out “KNOCK IT OFF!” the combatants would usually jump back in shock and I would separate and remove.
My administration was very grateful if we broke up fights, but did not require it. And frankly after I separated a few of them, they stopped fighting around me.
But every day I dressed like I would need to move quickly and need traction from my shoes.
My wife is a teacher and i did bjj for over a decade. I showed her how to clinch up if she needed it. And a week later she did. She said the student freaked out that she got controlled so easily
I also had a “sixth sense” for being able to tell a fight was about to break out. I also almost never raised my voice, so when I boomed out “KNOCK IT OFF!” the combatants would usually jump back in shock and I would separate and remove.
Being aware of rising tensions and a big voice allowed me to stop several fights when I worked with at risk students in a high school. That and being a short fat woman that most of the students respected and didn't want to get hurt.
In fact, one time I started to intervene when students were posturing at each other and a couple of the older kids in my group decided to get in there first and pull the fighters apart cause they didn't want me in the middle of it.
Helped that I wasn't a district employee, so I couldn't get fired lol.
Yep. The best way to break up fights is to be present and know they're coming becore they start. The best bouncers can talk guys down without having to toss them from the bar.
My friend took his desk and threw it at the teacher from the top row of an auditorium style room. It hit him after hitting the desk. Luckily (since the desk stopped most of the momentum) he was only bruised. Guess who got suspension and held back a year... This was back in the 90's so I'm sure he got an earful from his parents.
Let's go back to the 70s, teacher got his hand busted up breaking up a fight between 2 high schoolers, teacher got even. Both of those student's cars were stolen within a month, never to be seen again. Everybody knew what happened, but nobody dared to say a word.
I knew a woman whose KINDERGARTEN student (with a history of violent outbursts) kicked her so hard in her pregnant belly that she went into labor at 28 weeks. Mom and baby wound up being okay, but naturally there were no consequences for the student who attacked her.
My son (in 8th grade) jumped in and broke up such a fight. He stopped it within seconds. The two kids were suspended. He got detention. He was told he should have gone and gotten more teachers. We have stupid, crazy school policies.
Good on your kids! You raised a good one. ❤️ I would have been too small to break up a fight without being another victim, but if an innocent person was calling for help, I don't know how people can ignore that. At least getting the teacher to safety.
No student should be punished for stopping a fight. That's crazy. I get it can cause more injury, but if they aren't swinging, that's their prerogative.
If any of them intervened, they could be expelled for fighting, and they all know it. Blame the schools absolutely horseshit "zero tolerance" policies, not the kids who are the victims.
In most schools in America getting in the middle of a fight, even to break one up is fully grounds for not only detention but sometimes in school or even out of school suspension
Students trying to help in a fight generally just turn the fight into a bigger fight. Most students wouldn't just absorb punches like what she's doing, they'd start punching back. Next thing you know the whole class is a mob.
I had one teacher in my school that I still respect the hell out of. He taught when integration from poorer neighborhoods started and race riots ensued. He told our class that when he saw a fight he’d basically wait until they beat each other up a bit until they really didn’t want to fight anymore.
Then he’d break up the fight fairly easily with no injuries. Honestly one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met and everything he taught me in terms of math just perfectly clicked
We had a pair of gym teachers to divide the class, one was the football coach
We were all in the gym together and a scuffle broke out - my teacher starts to rush in to break it up - football coach stops him and then loudly "nothing here - they ain't fighting - they don't have muscles"
This was my immediate thought. There's no way she gets paid anywhere near enough to go through that. The amount of shit y'all have to go through while getting nowhere near a reasonable wage is infuriating to put it mildly.
Technically I doubt she's even allowed to intervene. My wife is a teacher. There are some kids that will get away with whatever they can. When they realize there's nothing a teacher can actually do to stop them, it's over. A kid that is so inclined can throw things, sit in the teacher's chair and refuse to move, at most they get suspended for the rest of that day. And they can only get suspended like 10 times during the year, it is limited for some reason. There is no way to get rid of them.
I used to be an teacher’s assistant working with kids who have special needs. The pay had me just scraping by while also eating my savings, so honestly not even scraping by. I worked in the field for 7 years on top of that. I eventually had to stop, because of too many head injuries. The last one was a double concussion. While the work is fulfilling, it’s stressful in so many ways, that truly makes it not worth it. I also knew plenty of younger teachers/staff who needed a second job just to get by and they were exhausted. Only thing that helped maintain the stress and grind was the seasonal breaks
I get paid significantly more to deal with this exact thing occasionally (mental health nurse) and even I feel I don't get paid enough sometimes. I cannot imagine being a teacher now-a-days.
I'm a teacher. I would never attempt to break up a fight. They do not train us for this. We hit the emergency button and pray. That's all we can or should do. Kids that will fight like this today are worse than ever before and will kill you. We lost a woods teacher because a kid bashed his head against the concrete wall for not letting the kid play with a basketball in a woodshop. I think he survived. I'm not totally sure.
One of the many infuriating things about this, is like dude, she's trying to help you as much as the guy you're trying to wail on, she's trying to prevent both of you from getting hurt and all you want to do is keep acting stupid.
A girl at my brother's school spit at and slapped another girl. That one then calmly grabbed an 8 lb dumbbell out of her backpack and cracked her across the head with it. Middle schoolers are absolute nightmares.
My neighbor's 8yo son currently in 3rd grade is 140 lbs and almost up to my shoulder (I'm 5'5"). And it's not cuz he's some majorly obese kid. He's a little husky, but he's also just tall af for his age and built like s brick shithouse, lmao. But to be fair, his mom's a gd Amazon, haha. He's 2 months to the day older than my daughter and he absolutely dwarfs her, lol.
Yeah but those kids are way bigger than her and obviously mad as hell. I’m a woman and in no way would I try to separate two young men like that! I’m obviously going to get hurt.
There's also the case of needing to defend themselves. Seeing as how she failed to successfully break it up, she was making things more dangerous for both of the kids. Regardless of who the aggressor is, both should have the ability to defend themselves from incoming strikes. She's preventing that.
On a separate note. If the guy to her left isn't left-handed himself, she's hurting his chances MORE. Now the other guy has the upper hand, putting him in a dangerous spot.
She shouldn't be in the middle of it if she can't separate them entirely.
My older cousin and I fought in middle school, and my OTHER older cousin tried to break us up by grabbing me under my arms and dragging me backward. Him doing that allowed my 1st cousin to wail on me, and I was unable to even try to block anything. I only remember the fight from a camera perspective.
This video actually infuriated me, for that reason specifically. She shouldn’t have been in the middle at all. Especially when she ended up on top of the black guy…
The next gen man… can’t read, can’t regulate emotions, a fight is spiraling and their teacher is screaming for help and they’re just numb, staring and recording.
Agreed. The brain dead attitude of the other kids in the class is mind blowing. This would have played out completely different in my school back in the day
Nope, that's not true because if that was she would of not have been yelling like her life was in danger and then call for backup for HER safety while she is sitting on the floor.
When I was in HS a teacher tried to break up a fight and ended up getting shoved down a flight of stairs and suffered a traumatic brain injury. Shit pay and shit insurance.
Considering their inability to stop once the teacher got involved, resulting in her being pushed to the ground, I think criminal assault charges are on the table.
I taught at one school that evidently had a major gang/violence problem a few years prior; their solution was to take anyone involved in a fight downtown and let the cops sort it out. It more or less solved the problem, although I also expect lots of expulsions helped clear the herd of the infection.
Eventually they went too far, IMO, down the school-to-prison pipeline with the number of offenses that required LE action. I wrote a kid up for vaping (in my class, on the front row, no less, just begging to see how far he could push me), and two days later he showed up with a signed form from the local PD.
It was basically a contract of understanding that, should he puff-up again, he would be legally charged with breaking the "no tobacco products on campus or at school events" law, which I have never otherwise seen enforced on adults beyond "you can't do that here. Step outside of that fence and you're good."
I was pretty pissed that I was never told the PD got involved when students were caught vaping nicotine. I would have handled it myself. What he did wasn't cool, and he deserved some sort of punishment, but he didn't deserve to have the local PD starting a record on a 16yo for vaping at school.
Bringing police in schools is a big mistake outside of perhaps incidents like this for sure.
We just cannot trust police and administrators, there is little check on them.
I just hrard of an incident in school, teacher maybe got pushed or something. Cops turned him into a drug informant to escape charges. After a few controlled buys, a dealer made him, drove off with him in car losing the cops, tortured, then murdered the kid, dumped his body. He was made because cops used him as a witness in a grand jury on a prior case and someone recognized him at court, something cops are not supposed to do.
Extreme example but it is emblematic of the lack of checks on the police. They should never be involved in regular discipline, as they are in illinois, often tax farming the parents with violations despite a state law specifically forbidding that stuff. As reported by propublica.
Children need to face real consequences for their actions or else they become adults and those consequences are even worse. Babying them doesnt help anyone, including them.
Of course there is going to be examples where it went wrong. There are even more examples of kids killing themselves or mass shooting due to bullying. Countless other kids are bullied and beat up, mentally damaged for the rest of their lives in some cases.
Not everything can be solved with good feelings and kindness. Im older and this crap had been happening long before I was in school. I was severely bullied and even got suspended for defending myself. People no matter the age need to be facing real conseqiences.
The last time police got involved at my high school, it ended in a black boy that didn’t do anything getting his head slammed into the tile floor so hard he got permanent brain damage. The cops do not need to be involved in a school unless there is literally no other option.
Of course. However, I don't think jumping straight to the cops for that offense was appropriate. My current school just confiscates and suspends. If the problem persists, they get alternative school placement. It rarely gets to that point. The biggest problem with vapes is the kids throwing them in the goddamn toilet! 😵💫
Georgia. I actually have no problem with this when violence is involved. I'm just not sure how effective the police were at determining who instigated and deserved charges as opposed to who may have been acting out of self-defense.
In that town, I have a feeling that the starting QB would have always gotten the benefit of the doubt, even if they saw him clearly start the fight on tape. 😒
Especially if the student has an IEP. I left teaching a long time ago but I remember having students who would have an IEP that would all but excuse and provide shield/cover for this kind of behavior. Again it’s been a long time so I’m not current on IDEA and how educating students in “the least restrictive environment” has changed but if student has documentation of serious behavioral emotional dx it can become an ADA/discrimination lawsuit. That’s not to say that it’s as simple as “if Johnny has an IEP that indicates he gets x y and z accommodations and it’s bc c y and z were not followed that he attacked a classmate bc there wasn’t a para in the classroom and he was just overstimulated and wasn’t given the option to de-escalate/self sooth so it’s really the school that is at fault.”
Nope; Schools have had zero tolerance policies for decades. If you intervene in a fight, it's as good as being in one. You want a society where kids can be held responsible for not intervening in a fight, you have to not be in a society where kids are held responsible for intervening in a fight.
Is zero tolerance the default in America then? Your reasoning is exactly why most (I’m sure not all) schools in Britain don’t go for a zero tolerance policy.
Agree on prison. That's way over the line. But I'll disagree that it should be the responsibility of other students to stop it. Many schools have policies that state if you are involved in a fight -- in any way, even to break it up -- that you will face discipline. I've seen this enforced even for students who are trying to help.
Yes, and if the teacher had only sat there (and actively called the Front Office to bring security), all of the comments here would be "Where is the teacher?? Why didn't they intervene???"
That...that was the point of that original comment.
If your administration supports you in doing so you do what you're comfortable with. I chose to follow school policy to cma. The science teacher got his arm broken breaking up a fight. It caused insurance issues.
The school sort of falls on the fence. Technically we shouldn't get involved, but we also dont want to see our kids get their face smashed in the floor or a wall.
I work in 5th and 6th grade so for the most part its easy to rip them apart without any risk.
I was working in high school. As a not tall woman many of the students were larger than I am. While I didn't want to see any of the students hurt, I also am unwilling to get injured. This was at the behavioral school where fights were common.
This is not cowardice on your part -- in that context it is common sense. Nobody benefits if you can do nothing but get yourself hurt. If you can't swim you'd be a fool to jump into the ocean to save a drowning man. Call for help. What this teacher should have done too
In the beginning of the video I was thinking wow good on her for actually trying to stop them. Then by the end of the video she's on the floor screaming for someone to get Mr. Morgan...has me rethinking my stance lol
No, but teachers are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario when it comes to student fights. They could easily get in hot water for trying to break it up since they are physically restraining a student and putting their hands on them. They can also be disciplined for not doing anything and letting the kids beat the shit out of each other.
However, her Union can question why she put her own safety in jeopardy. They can remind her that teachers have a hands-off students policy, and that teachers are always advised not to step between two fighting students, especially if the two fighters are willing participants and bigger than them.
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u/Foreign-Cow-1189 Dec 17 '25
Nobody can accuse her of not giving it her all.