A couple of days ago, I committed myself to pause my commenting on education articles, but I'm going to break that promise here because this is an incredibly important topic that doesn't get...
Exemplary
A couple of days ago, I committed myself to pause my commenting on education articles, but I'm going to break that promise here because this is an incredibly important topic that doesn't get enough discussion. I won't give "a take" for this, and I don't even know that what I type will be particularly cogent, but I think it's important to consider this topic in light of what it looks like from an on-the-ground perspective.
For as much as I complain about my job, the absolute hardest part is the empathetic burden of students who are dealing with intense pain and trauma. It is devastating to watch kids suffer, and we see it all the time. A child whose behavior has escalated to the point of restraint is a child who is hurting. Sometimes their outburst is an attempt to communicate. Sometimes it is an attempt to hurt back. But it's always because of something that is hurting them, and they are acting out because they don't know how to handle it any other way. Sometimes there simply isn't any other way.
It sounds selfish to talk about this from my perspective, as I am in no way attempting to co-opt their struggle, but it also takes a unique and often little-addressed toll on anyone who works with kids. While an individual child knows their individual pain, we meet that pain with empathy, and we do it repeatedly, student after student, year after year. I still remember the first student I had who I knew was being abused at home. Calling it heartbreaking doesn't do it justice--it's so much worse than that. Your heart doesn't break when you confront the worst of humanity--it simply stops. It's one thing to know about human cruelty in the abstract, and it's another thing entirely to see its tiny young target every day for third period math class. I would go home from work and cry, but that response runs its course quickly and then you don't cry anymore. You simply stop. I watched her do the same thing in school, and I completely understand why.
As you keep doing this job, you keep seeing it. At some point you lose count of the damaged students you've had, and at some point further than that your view of humanity shifts to accommodate for the fact that people are far more cruel and uncaring than we think. It's not that you want to believe this, but it's the only way to explain the fact that broken kids keep showing up in your classroom. They shouldn't be there not because they should be somewhere else but because kids should never be broken like that in the first place. They're supposed to be kids. Children. And someone has taken that away from them.
The only way you can make peace with the continual parade of maladjustment and sadness you find sitting in your desks is to come to the conclusion that we live in a fucked up world with fucked up people who would actively choose to hurt or neglect children. And there are more of them out there than you would think. This is the most difficult lesson that teaching has taught me. It gets even more difficult when you realize many of them probably experienced the same thing growing up. It's easy to hate a child abuser. It's a lot harder to think they, too, were once a child, and we know that broken children often grow up into broken adults. I'd like to think so many of my students are better now, but the truth is that I worry about who they've become.
In an ideal school, all of these students would get the therapy and support they need, but we as a country promise an education, not a recovery. Furthermore, not all students that have outbursts have been abused. Mental illness is also a huge factor. Some students also wouldn't meet the threshhold for "abuse" according to a legal or even societal definition but are nonetheless forced to live daily in an situation that doesn't fit them or their needs. Sometimes it even punishes them for it. This is also a form of abuse, though it'll rarely get called that. We are simply not currently equipped to meet the needs of some of our population, and we refuse to allocate the resources to do so. Those students suffer as a result, and that suffering can lead to acting out.
Regardless of the circumstance or justification, the simple fact of the matter is that, if a student is having a severe outburst, it's clear that something is severely wrong. If you've never witnessed one, consider yourself lucky. The hardest part of it isn't that a child is having difficult behaviors--the hardest part is deciding whether to tune in to your empathy or turn it off entirely, and neither one feels right. Is it better to watch a kid hurt and live, yourself, in the reason why, or is it better to watch them hurt and feel nothing at all? Do you intervene and try to help, or will you only make it worse? All of this gets compounded to a much more significant level if there's a threat. What do you do when there's the potential for harm? To themself? To others? To you?
I don't love using fiction to illustrate the real world, but I'm going to do so here simply because I think that this clip does a particularly valuable job at showing what a difficult, messy situation this kind of thing can be for everyone involved. I unfortunately couldn't find a better quality version of it, so the linked video has some encoding and audio issues, but it is nevertheless still watchable. I'll also give an obligatory content warning: it's a hard watch, and I don't recommend it unless you're wanting to witness the type of meltdowns I've discussed in this post. It legitimately brings me to tears.
I link it here because it's directly relevant to the article at hand, as the clip features an example of a team restraint (though this is at a group home, not a school). What it captures that many discussions of restraint don't is how emotionally charged and perilous the situation can be for everyone involved, and how they are fed by far more than momentary behavioral choices. In hindsight and in aggregate, restraints get treated like they're clinical, calculated interventions--given out in the same premeditated and dispassionate way a teacher might give out homework. Instead, they're almost always the result of tense, fraught situations with antecedents months or years in the making. The linked scene captures this tension better than I can explain it, and I hope it can help someone understand the human element underneath this news article. This is not an easy topic, and it does not have easy answers. My heart goes out to everyone involved.
While I am not a teacher myself, and not qualified to say anything about restraints or help you work through your moral dilemma, I can't help but feel the need to point something out. I think...
While I am not a teacher myself, and not qualified to say anything about restraints or help you work through your moral dilemma, I can't help but feel the need to point something out.
people are far more cruel and uncaring than we think
we live in a fucked up world with fucked up people who would actively choose to hurt or neglect children
I think that's the wrong perspective to take from all that without consciously making sure to include the word "some" in front of "people" in those statements, since as bad as the individual students' situations you encounter may be, when you deal with hundreds of student per year it's, statistically speaking, inevitable you will encounter some of those cases of abuse and neglect. And while they may be heartbreaking, make you feel powerless, hopeless, helpless, and linger with you a long time, I would still wager that abused and neglected kids are still only a tiny fraction of those you taught... so to lose faith in humanity because of the actions of such a small minority of parents seems an overreaction.
I'm 100% with you on it being a sad situation overall and wishing our education systems had the capacity and obligation to do more than simply educate though, as mental wellness is a sorely lacking component in most. I myself was bullied relentlessly in junior high which eventually triggered a "brief reactive psychosis" event (nervous breakdown) as a result that I still haven't fully recovered from 20+ years later. :/
I'm really sorry to hear this. I know this isn't a salve, nor is it intended to be one, but I will say that bullying is one area that I feel American education has really improved in. Some of this...
I myself was bullied relentlessly in junior high which eventually triggered a "brief reactive psychosis" event (nervous breakdown) as a result that I still haven't fully recovered from 20+ years later. :/
I'm really sorry to hear this. I know this isn't a salve, nor is it intended to be one, but I will say that bullying is one area that I feel American education has really improved in. Some of this is because the culture at large has progressed, but a lot of it has also been direct and calculated efforts to make schools safer and more affirming for our students. We still have a long way to go, and in many ways the bullying front simply left our doors and took hold online instead, but I can say that I am proud of how my students treat one another--particularly those who are different and are from categories that have historically faced large amounts of discrimination. It doesn't mean everything is perfect, but things are a lot better than they used to be.
With regards to your other point, I think it's worth noting that I was trying to convey my lived experience rather than some universal truth. Those are some of the thoughts and phases I went through as I grappled with the emotional realities of my job. If I take a step back and speak outside of my narrative, rather than from within it, I don't genuinely believe everyone is awful, and I still have faith in humanity at large. That said, I'd be lying if I said that teaching hasn't darkened that significantly, bringing it much lower than it used to be. While some of that darkness is directly attributable to child abuse, looking at all people through that lens alone is, as you mentioned, a bit unfair. It's easy to overstate its importance simply because of how abhorrent it is (though I feel obligated to mention that it's still far more common than most people realize). The real demotivator for me was poverty. Poverty was akin to widespread child abuse that no one addresses as such, and it's so common and pervasive that it's accepted as inevitable, or--much worse--deserved.
Yeah, bullying in school is taken much more seriously in Canada these days too. I was unfortunately just unlucky to grow up in a time where it wasn't really seen as a problem and teachers/school...
Yeah, bullying in school is taken much more seriously in Canada these days too. I was unfortunately just unlucky to grow up in a time where it wasn't really seen as a problem and teachers/school admins largely looked the other way (or even worse, felt it was somehow valuable or a necessary right of passage).
If I take a step back and speak outside of my narrative, rather than from within it, I don't genuinely believe everyone is awful, and I still have faith in humanity at large.
Ah, okay. That's what I was hoping. It's good to know you haven't completely lost faith. :)
Poverty was akin to widespread child abuse that no one addresses as such, and it's so common and pervasive that it's accepted as inevitable, or--much worse--deserved.
Agreed about the severity of poverty as an issue, but I don't think it's generally accepted as inevitable or deserved, at least here in Canada. We have significantly less of a "rugged individualism" and "personal responsibility" vein running through our cultural ethos than the US though.
I haven't read (or listened to) the NPR article yet, but when I read the headline I found it rather familiar. In 2016 in New Zealand there were articles about schools using seclusion rooms where...
I haven't read (or listened to) the NPR article yet, but when I read the headline I found it rather familiar. In 2016 in New Zealand there were articles about schools using seclusion rooms where they lock children.
This article says the school might need to expel the special needs student if it cannot keep using seclusion rooms. And this is the other article I found.
A couple of days ago, I committed myself to pause my commenting on education articles, but I'm going to break that promise here because this is an incredibly important topic that doesn't get enough discussion. I won't give "a take" for this, and I don't even know that what I type will be particularly cogent, but I think it's important to consider this topic in light of what it looks like from an on-the-ground perspective.
For as much as I complain about my job, the absolute hardest part is the empathetic burden of students who are dealing with intense pain and trauma. It is devastating to watch kids suffer, and we see it all the time. A child whose behavior has escalated to the point of restraint is a child who is hurting. Sometimes their outburst is an attempt to communicate. Sometimes it is an attempt to hurt back. But it's always because of something that is hurting them, and they are acting out because they don't know how to handle it any other way. Sometimes there simply isn't any other way.
It sounds selfish to talk about this from my perspective, as I am in no way attempting to co-opt their struggle, but it also takes a unique and often little-addressed toll on anyone who works with kids. While an individual child knows their individual pain, we meet that pain with empathy, and we do it repeatedly, student after student, year after year. I still remember the first student I had who I knew was being abused at home. Calling it heartbreaking doesn't do it justice--it's so much worse than that. Your heart doesn't break when you confront the worst of humanity--it simply stops. It's one thing to know about human cruelty in the abstract, and it's another thing entirely to see its tiny young target every day for third period math class. I would go home from work and cry, but that response runs its course quickly and then you don't cry anymore. You simply stop. I watched her do the same thing in school, and I completely understand why.
As you keep doing this job, you keep seeing it. At some point you lose count of the damaged students you've had, and at some point further than that your view of humanity shifts to accommodate for the fact that people are far more cruel and uncaring than we think. It's not that you want to believe this, but it's the only way to explain the fact that broken kids keep showing up in your classroom. They shouldn't be there not because they should be somewhere else but because kids should never be broken like that in the first place. They're supposed to be kids. Children. And someone has taken that away from them.
The only way you can make peace with the continual parade of maladjustment and sadness you find sitting in your desks is to come to the conclusion that we live in a fucked up world with fucked up people who would actively choose to hurt or neglect children. And there are more of them out there than you would think. This is the most difficult lesson that teaching has taught me. It gets even more difficult when you realize many of them probably experienced the same thing growing up. It's easy to hate a child abuser. It's a lot harder to think they, too, were once a child, and we know that broken children often grow up into broken adults. I'd like to think so many of my students are better now, but the truth is that I worry about who they've become.
In an ideal school, all of these students would get the therapy and support they need, but we as a country promise an education, not a recovery. Furthermore, not all students that have outbursts have been abused. Mental illness is also a huge factor. Some students also wouldn't meet the threshhold for "abuse" according to a legal or even societal definition but are nonetheless forced to live daily in an situation that doesn't fit them or their needs. Sometimes it even punishes them for it. This is also a form of abuse, though it'll rarely get called that. We are simply not currently equipped to meet the needs of some of our population, and we refuse to allocate the resources to do so. Those students suffer as a result, and that suffering can lead to acting out.
Regardless of the circumstance or justification, the simple fact of the matter is that, if a student is having a severe outburst, it's clear that something is severely wrong. If you've never witnessed one, consider yourself lucky. The hardest part of it isn't that a child is having difficult behaviors--the hardest part is deciding whether to tune in to your empathy or turn it off entirely, and neither one feels right. Is it better to watch a kid hurt and live, yourself, in the reason why, or is it better to watch them hurt and feel nothing at all? Do you intervene and try to help, or will you only make it worse? All of this gets compounded to a much more significant level if there's a threat. What do you do when there's the potential for harm? To themself? To others? To you?
I don't love using fiction to illustrate the real world, but I'm going to do so here simply because I think that this clip does a particularly valuable job at showing what a difficult, messy situation this kind of thing can be for everyone involved. I unfortunately couldn't find a better quality version of it, so the linked video has some encoding and audio issues, but it is nevertheless still watchable. I'll also give an obligatory content warning: it's a hard watch, and I don't recommend it unless you're wanting to witness the type of meltdowns I've discussed in this post. It legitimately brings me to tears.
I link it here because it's directly relevant to the article at hand, as the clip features an example of a team restraint (though this is at a group home, not a school). What it captures that many discussions of restraint don't is how emotionally charged and perilous the situation can be for everyone involved, and how they are fed by far more than momentary behavioral choices. In hindsight and in aggregate, restraints get treated like they're clinical, calculated interventions--given out in the same premeditated and dispassionate way a teacher might give out homework. Instead, they're almost always the result of tense, fraught situations with antecedents months or years in the making. The linked scene captures this tension better than I can explain it, and I hope it can help someone understand the human element underneath this news article. This is not an easy topic, and it does not have easy answers. My heart goes out to everyone involved.
While I am not a teacher myself, and not qualified to say anything about restraints or help you work through your moral dilemma, I can't help but feel the need to point something out.
I think that's the wrong perspective to take from all that without consciously making sure to include the word "some" in front of "people" in those statements, since as bad as the individual students' situations you encounter may be, when you deal with hundreds of student per year it's, statistically speaking, inevitable you will encounter some of those cases of abuse and neglect. And while they may be heartbreaking, make you feel powerless, hopeless, helpless, and linger with you a long time, I would still wager that abused and neglected kids are still only a tiny fraction of those you taught... so to lose faith in humanity because of the actions of such a small minority of parents seems an overreaction.
I'm 100% with you on it being a sad situation overall and wishing our education systems had the capacity and obligation to do more than simply educate though, as mental wellness is a sorely lacking component in most. I myself was bullied relentlessly in junior high which eventually triggered a "brief reactive psychosis" event (nervous breakdown) as a result that I still haven't fully recovered from 20+ years later. :/
I'm really sorry to hear this. I know this isn't a salve, nor is it intended to be one, but I will say that bullying is one area that I feel American education has really improved in. Some of this is because the culture at large has progressed, but a lot of it has also been direct and calculated efforts to make schools safer and more affirming for our students. We still have a long way to go, and in many ways the bullying front simply left our doors and took hold online instead, but I can say that I am proud of how my students treat one another--particularly those who are different and are from categories that have historically faced large amounts of discrimination. It doesn't mean everything is perfect, but things are a lot better than they used to be.
With regards to your other point, I think it's worth noting that I was trying to convey my lived experience rather than some universal truth. Those are some of the thoughts and phases I went through as I grappled with the emotional realities of my job. If I take a step back and speak outside of my narrative, rather than from within it, I don't genuinely believe everyone is awful, and I still have faith in humanity at large. That said, I'd be lying if I said that teaching hasn't darkened that significantly, bringing it much lower than it used to be. While some of that darkness is directly attributable to child abuse, looking at all people through that lens alone is, as you mentioned, a bit unfair. It's easy to overstate its importance simply because of how abhorrent it is (though I feel obligated to mention that it's still far more common than most people realize). The real demotivator for me was poverty. Poverty was akin to widespread child abuse that no one addresses as such, and it's so common and pervasive that it's accepted as inevitable, or--much worse--deserved.
Yeah, bullying in school is taken much more seriously in Canada these days too. I was unfortunately just unlucky to grow up in a time where it wasn't really seen as a problem and teachers/school admins largely looked the other way (or even worse, felt it was somehow valuable or a necessary right of passage).
Ah, okay. That's what I was hoping. It's good to know you haven't completely lost faith. :)
Agreed about the severity of poverty as an issue, but I don't think it's generally accepted as inevitable or deserved, at least here in Canada. We have significantly less of a "rugged individualism" and "personal responsibility" vein running through our cultural ethos than the US though.
I haven't read (or listened to) the NPR article yet, but when I read the headline I found it rather familiar. In 2016 in New Zealand there were articles about schools using seclusion rooms where they lock children.
This article says the school might need to expel the special needs student if it cannot keep using seclusion rooms. And this is the other article I found.