Sacrifice

I have a lot of feelings on this topic.
As teachers we sacrifice all day erryday.
What do we sacrifice you ask?
Well here is a short list:
-bladders, peeing once a day is really not good....
-sanity, if one more student asks me how to do the thing i JUST EXPLAINED THREE TIMES Ill snap
-money, money that we don't have we spend on classroom supplies, decorations, target dollar section and snacks
-sleep, I have legit woken up in the middle of the night before in a cold sweat over something that has happened at school
-health, if one more kid sneezes on me and THEN covers their mouths I'm checking myself into the hospital for an extended stay

However that's not the sacrifice I want to talk about today. I want to discuss when we decided it was okay to sacrifice the safety, mental health and education of the majority of a classroom for the "good of" one student.

This subject is so touchy because as teachers we have vowed to do whatever we can for all of our students....but how far does that go? I have been seeing this a lot lately where one student can destroy a classroom. What do I mean by destroy? Oh I mean legitimately destroy. Throw chairs, tip desks, rip things from the walls and when they are done with the room they move on to the hallway where they wreak havoc on book bags and projects that have been hung on the walls.

Here is where my issues come in.
We preach about students with trauma and how we can help them which I am all for. But do we realize that those students who are destroying things and hitting other students daily and whatever are creating an environment of trauma for the rest of the class.

We are sacrificing the education and safety of 22 for 1...

Students are afraid to be at school because they don't know when they're going to get slapped or punched by another student. They aren't sure when to expect a chair to be thrown through the classroom or a desk to be flipped. They are on edge all day because at any minute those students could snap and create a trauma filled environment.

Am I saying that we need to ship the "bad kids" off immediately? No! I don't think any teacher would say that. But our system of "consequences" are complete shit....sorry I cussed but it makes me really fired up. Students that have substantial behavioral issues need help with fixing their behaviors, I get that, but they also need consequences.

Letting them go to a room and play with a bunch of toys and bounce on balls after they have just destroyed learning for 20 other students in their classroom is NOT OKAY! Do they need a structured environment to get that angry energy out? Sure! But after that there must be a consequence that we stick to. This is a consistent issue that I have seen in so many schools. One student can hit and punch students and teachers all day every day and there is literally no consequence because they are a student who has been identified as having witnessed trauma in their life. Then another student does that and BAM they're sent home....how is that consistent?

Kids aren't stupid....they pick up on that....if we want to fix behaviors we need to figure out a system that treats kids with kindness, compassion and expectations. It is okay to have high expectations of our students....in fact teachers are required to have high expectations for their students academically so why can't we have high expectations behaviorally too?

I clearly don't have the answer...but something needs to change because it is not working. Ask any teacher...they'll agree...