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by strken
1114 days ago
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In my experience and I bet yours too, authority arises from respect rather than violence, but it is lost when an authority figure becomes the victim of violence without a sufficient response. I don't agree with the grandparent: tiny and physically unimposing women are absolutely able to keep the respect of a classroom. What you're missing, though, is the necessity of escalation at the rare times when students try to initiate violence. Having senior teachers around who can drop what they're doing and run into a neighbouring classroom is important, and it's important to have at least some big, burly, and/or male teachers in the mix as a last ditch way to stop a violent student. Rephrased: maintaining authority is easier with the backing of a system, and that system must make confrontation a losing prospect, otherwise it rewards aggressive and violent students by letting them do whatever they want. This is harder when 25% of the teachers at a school are men and none are near an incident. It's harder when the school bans effective punishment and response. It's harder when there's an established culture of disrespect. It's harder when students are legally required to be there and have no other alternatives. |
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I think when you've got to the point where your wrestling ability is a relevant criterion as a teacher, the system is already completely dysfunctional, and we need to take a broader look at the problems that young people face.
You can't put a bandaid on that by just trying to recruit muscular specimens, and hoping that they are also decent teachers. I had a physics teacher who was a great rugby player, and I can tell you, it was not good for my understanding of physics.