Behavior Modification

In a column entitled “Teacher speaking out about beating,” Rick Badie (columnist for the Atlanta, GA, US, Journal-Constitution describes his reaction to a terribly unfortunate incident in which a middle school teacher was injured by a student. Here are the first few paragraphs of his column:

The swelling has subsided, but her head still throbs.

Her nerves are shot. She feels hot and cold sensations in her mouth. She needs new glasses. Her old ones got broken in the attack.

Janie Fair says she was standing in the hallway of Lilburn Middle School. She didn’t see the 12-year-old girl approach her side. The seventh-grader yelled insults and called the teacher names. She punched Fair four or five times.

It was a beatdown.

“I had a ballpoint pen in my right hand,” Fair told me Monday. “I took my left hand and pushed her away from me and tried to restrain her. Another teacher jumped in, grabbed her and took her to the office.”

Last Wednesday, Fair became the county’s poster child for teachers who get assaulted by students. Physical attacks against teachers, or school employees, apparently are rare in Gwinnett.

Mr. Badie goes one to explain his repulsion to this event and his concern about the lack of discipline in schools. There are very many comments on this post. It’s worth reading not just Mr. Badie’s calmly reasoned view, but the more inflammatory comments.

Let me know if you see any that offer constructive recommendations.