She had not anticipated the student’s reaction; kids hanging out in the hallway typically expect teachers to call them out. This time, though, things escalated quickly. Frighteningly so.

“I’ve never had a kid look at me like that,” the teacher told me, then self-corrected, “actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone look at me like that.” The encounter was brief, but intense. She continued, “He started yelling, aggressively denying any wrongdoing. Then he started towards me, flexing and posturing, maintaining that cold, menacing stare.” She went quiet for a second, then added, “I was truly afraid.”

Back in the classroom again

Miss P, has returned to the classroom after the covid pandemic. On that day, she had stepped out of her room for a quick bathroom break during her planning period. En route, she happened upon a group of students loitering in the hall. Before she even made it to the restroom, she found herself in the throes of conflict.

“Conflict” should be the wrong word. The whole thing should have been a forgettable interaction. But since the world shut down for two years and kids forgot how to be students, it’s hard to know what to expect. Plus, there are the cell phones. There are always cell phones. They impact everything, including the moment Miss P was relating to me. Stay with me.

Policy Shift

Since Miss P began teaching in 1985, no matter what state or which school, standard procedure for handling student conflict has been this: if you don’t know the student’s name, get it. Follow the student all the way to class if you must but get the name. Without the name, there is no way to correct the problem. Since Miss P did not know the child in question, asked him his name. When he refused to give it to her and then left, she walked along behind her.

Along the way, she encountered an administrator. We’ll call him Mr. InCharge–an individual who was in preschool back when Miss P began her career in education. Mr. InCharge promptly reprimanded Miss P, not the student who was still close enough to overhear the rebuke.

“Miss P! You cannot follow students,” Mr. InCharge exclaimed.

Trying to keep an eye on the student, Miss P rushed her response, “He threatened me. I don’t know him. I need his name.”

With great authority, Mr. InCharge explained that Miss P did not in fact need to get the culprit’s name thanks to the security cameras installed around the school.

Apparently, one of the fifty-eleven emails dropped into Miss P’s inbox during the first three weeks of school had included a change in policy regarding student misbehavior. Now adults were to go straight to the office to look through video footage, rather than engage in, ya know, conversation, in order to identify perpetrators.

Administrative Rationale

Seem excessive? Silly even? Well yes, but it goes back to the aforementioned cellphones.

Because nearly every single high school student in the United States is equipped with a handheld computer/video camera/phone/word-processor/voice recorder/social media manager/telephone, power dynamics in schools have shifted. Too often, administrative decisions are based not on what is best for the child; rather, they are made according to the path of least resistance. The result: adolescents now have considerably more control over school operations than they once had.

Miss P’s school had recently dealt with the fallout of a student’s video gone public. The video was taken out of context, but that was of no interest to the court of internet opinion. Administrators created the new protocol hoping to reduce the chance of videoing, social media lives, that kind of thing.

Rationale for Administrative Rationale

Why should educators care if they are filmed in action, you ask? “If they are not doing something wrong, then why do they care?”

Simple: Life is never that simple. Photo and video editing is so advanced now that a teen with a mobile phone has more creative latitude and technological capability than the entire motion picture industry did in its earliest days. (Caveat: I don’t actually know this for sure, but if you look back at the first movie ever made, you’ll agree with me that it at least seems true.) Plus, even unedited footage of some encounters can skew the truth dramatically. So, school administrators now consider this when forming policies. There’s a chance this is overcorrection, but that, at least in this circumstance, is irrelevant.

The outcome

Back to Miss P and the hallway incident. Due to the camera’s location and the student’s, the young man’s face was not recorded and thus the footage was unhelpful. So, Miss P and the administrator responsible for security matters, investigated further and identified him. Finally, Miss P could file the incident report so that the administration could locate, and then suspend, the student.

At last, two hours after she had stepped out of her classroom, Miss P got her bathroom break.

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So what?

This type of nonsense is far too common and contributes, no doubt, to the growing national teacher shortage. If we don’t start treating our educators–teachers, assistants, office personnel, bus drivers, and every other public-school provider– with respect and, well, basic common decency, we will lose the employees who remain in the system.

We cannot lose public education.

Public schools educate the majority of our population; when we no longer have a literate population, we can not operate as a democracy.  Not only that, every single one of us benefits from public education daily. Our cashiers, postal workers, garbage collectors, mechanics, customer service reps . . . MOST of them went to public schools. No matter what your circumstances, if you exist in the US, you benefit from public education.

Here are just a few thoughts on how we can make a difference.

• If you are responsible for a child with a cellphone, insist that they limit usage within the school day.
• Give teachers the benefit of the doubt: don’t assume they are the bad guys.
• Respect public educators experience, expertise, and education.
• Vote for better funding so that our teachers don’t have to spend their private time creating DonorsChoose grants to get pencils, paper, and folders (true story) for their students.
• Volunteer so you can see what our educators do every day.
• Listen to them. And believe them when they tell you their stories.

Public education is a national treasure. Let’s start treating it like one.