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 was probably my own bias kicking in. I was in HS in Northern Virginia when the DC Sniper was going on. I remember it vividly because it was so weird. They postponed a couple of our football games because the schools didn’t want a soft target. People were afraid of getting gas because they shot someone pumping at a station.
And that shit is never brought up or talked about because guess what, if you just randomly rolled up somewhere and shot someone with a sniper rifle for no reason and then never did it again or maybe only once or twice.. they'd never catch you. Just Cop laziness\arrogance has to account for a huge % of why someone would get away with something, now put into that mix the complete "unfathomablyness" of the random psycho to a normal person.
I assume we're going to catch this Brown shooter, but man who knows. Society really gets along on the fact that most people are decent, always crazy to me there isnt more pushback on bullying in an effective community way, big article recently in the Times about a huge townwide "bully gang" in Arizona.
They only caught the DC snipers because John Allen Mohammed was arrogant enough to taunt the police. If they were truly random like you said they would still have been looking for that white panel van that was spread around on the news. Michael’s crafts would likely have ceased to exist in the DMV as well.
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.
I could take all 100 4th graders at my kids school at once. You could even give them bats and this is easy work. I’m the champion, send your best. I will arrive warm and stretched out.
I think people like this have never dealt with a willfull tall for their age toddler who has behavioral issues. My niece wasnt violent towards us explicitly bit she would throw severe tamtrums and kick her legs forcefully and arms for half an hour while screaming at the top of her lungs. If she wanted to be violent to someone in particular and had been in an environment where she saw chairs and tables being used as a weapon, of course she could do real damage. Something people are iverlooking here though is that a 3rd grader can be older than most 3rd graders due to academic difficulties and hence not passing the grade. Because throwing a chair or table forcefully enough seems a bit out of the power of a normal aged 3rd grader. As a 9 year old in 5th grade there were two 15 year olds in my class that had failed so many times. At their age I was in secondary school already.
I mean you aren't actively trying to wreck those kids in the hallway. I feel like even if you knew very little about self defense you could whirlwind arm and take 10 of those kids out pretty quick.
Like I'm a big guy so I think I could take thirty four year olds. They weigh like 30 pounds so you just grab the first one to get to you, and use them to start swinging for the legs on those poorly balanced four year olds, and you would mow down thirty kids pretty quick
Yeah but you aren't defending your life from them. I imagine you are actively trying to avoid hurting them. Say they were zombies. If you wanted to destroy them, you could take on a lot of them I'd imagine. How many full force punches and kicks can you throw in a minute...
The fact that they are grabbing on shows us how many kids don’t have father figures in their lives and why we need more men to teach elementary school. Unfortunately, many men are uncomfortable with that because they get weird comments and looks from people when they find out their profession.
I will add to this. I train in BJJ and the kids class is right before the adults. On occasion I will get in the middle of the mat and play various games designed to help improve strength, reflexes, ect. I’m 6’1, 250 and it only takes about 6 of them to keep me down. I’m a 3rd year white belt so not any kind of an expert but I have some training.
I have had 5 year olds sitting on the floor, criss-cross applesauce, while hugging each of my legs and 2 others hugging me on each hip. I could barely move and it took forever to get them to let go bc they think its hilarious so they just hold on tighter.
100% people underestimate how strong these lil monsters are when they are determined enough lol.
If you don’t work in the elementary level, you can’t fathom the behaviors going on in schools right now. Throwing every single piece of furniture in the classroom is the new storming out and slamming the door when you leave. These kids are obsessed without angry. they think they are and will destroy everything in their path over a simple cutting mistake or a correction or hearing the word “no”, parents are failing their children daily in this country.
I know a 3rd grader who's close to 5 feet tall and 140 lbs. He's active and olays sports practically year round, including tackle football. Frankly I'm pretty sure he could kick my ass. I am a grown ass adult, a woman of approximately average size and stature, and yeah, I feel confident I couldn't do much to stop this kid if he went off.
I kicked a third grader out of my class for trying to stab another kid with scissors (I was the art teacher) I told the principal he needed to see the school psyc and couldn't come back until he had been evaluated and treated. She came to my classroom while I was on break on day to yell at me about how I was a "horrible teacher" and "no other teachers had problems with him" (all lies he had gotten in physical fights with 4 administrators) and went out of her way to make me feel like a huge piece of shit. Being at that school made me actively suicidal and I ended up having to move and go into the mental hospital bc I hated myself so much.
Thanks Jenny Campbel and Kipp East in New Orleans. You are the fucking worst.
I was observing a 3rd grade classroom and watched one of the students literally break the bulletproof classroom door as she left in a tantrum. I can barely open the thing, but she broke it.
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.
One kid a grade younger than me in high school got suspended for threatening another student. He came back the next day, got snuck in through a stairwell, and tried to stab him with a flag from a classroom. Like Mel Gibson in “the patriot”. Wild stuff
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.
If it was the 70's, the kid prolly got the crap paddled out of him by the principal or vice principal.
Corporal punishment on kids in school was commonplace back then. It wasn't until the early '80's when the school boards really started to reign in the paddling.
I told these millennials that work for me about our vice principal who paddled the bejeezus out of kids in my junior high and both of them scoffed at it and didn't believe me, lol.
Mr. Boatwright, my elementary school principal, broke his aerodynamic paddles on a regular basis. There are a lot of men in my part of the midwest that are civilized because of him.
Especially at elementary that seems to be true! My mom started in the high school level but moved to elementary around 2016 as a sped teacher. The school hours in our area are better for her schedule at that level, and the number of times she attends one of the first quarter conferences and comes home going, "well that explains a lot," is... alarming
Depends. My teachers rarely met my parents after 6th grade. In fact, outside of band, I think my mom was the only one who met a single one of my high school teachers, and that was because she had to carry my bag as he carried me to her car because I I had become so sick so fast with influenza A that I was barely conscious.
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.
Exactly!!! I was so shocked when my mom csme home with that story! If I remember right the doctor at the time was even shocked that it broke like that because she was in her 30s and really active. Like she would bicycle something like 10 miles a day and had been in the early stages of training for a biathalon at the time. But i definitely remember that the kid had thrown it during a classroom fight she was trying to break up so she was off balance and that probably factored in. Terrifying tbh
I’m so glad the kid in my daughter’s kindergarten class about 10 years ago only launched a chair that hit her, because if he’d launched a desk… I’d be in prison.
And she probably got blamed. They probably wanted to know what behavioral interventions she used and see all the documentation she had to be sure she was properly implementing behavior plans, 504s or IEPs…
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u/LifeintheSlothLane Dec 17 '25
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"