Is It OK For A Teacher To Defend Herself?

OK. I'll start out by saying this could very well be a controversial post. And I'll also add, I do not have both sides of the story. I only have what's been reported in the news.

Last Wednesday Fairfax County Public Schools teacher Maria Waugh (who has been a teacher for 16 years) had a choice to make. A special ed student was not listening to her directions and physically attacked her. In the process of getting him (a 12 year old) off of her, she also got physical with him. He told his parents. She is now charged with a misdemeanor assault. And she has resigned from the school system.

Like I said, we only have her side of the story. The child has not been identified, and his parents have not come forward to talk about it. The school can not comment about it either.

But, the teacher does have a broken finger nail and bruises and swelling on her arm.

We have been told the student has had behavioral problems in the past and has been identified as a special needs student. The email accounts at Fairfax County Public Schools also identify Ms. Waugh as a general ed teacher, as does the school's staff list on their website. This tells me the child was probably not at a self-contained level, but a resource level, which means he receives up to 15 hours a week of instruction from a special ed teacher, the rest from the general ed teacher. He may or may not have had goals to address behavior and compliance issues. The students choice to not listen and then attack his teacher may or may not have been due to his disability.

But, what about the teacher? Was she supposed to stand there, in front of her class and allow him to continue to hit/push her? Is she not allowed to defend herself? General education teachers are not trained in handling physical altercations with students. Heck, most special education teachers aren't!

And, now she's been charged and has also resigned (which can only led me to assume her administration is not supporting her in her decision to defend herself).

Yea, she is the adult you may say. She shouldn't have pushed back you may say. She should have told another student to get another staff to assist her you may say. And what, stay there with a student attacking her while she waited? Ms. Waugh made the decision to defend herself with the tools she had in the heat of the moment.

I first read this case last Friday and have been thinking about it all weekend. And the reason is because what happened to her isn't too far off from what happened to me. I was a special ed teacher for 11 years. I mostly taught the 'tough kids' - self contained emotional and behavioral disabilities where I did need to be trained in therapeutic crisis intervention (ie: how to restrain a child). I also taught learning disabilities, mental retardation and autism. Last year I had a student that was extremely aggressive. I will not go completely into his situation, but I will say I still have the pictures of all the bruises I obtained from this child over the course of the entire school year. I still have the arm splint that I had to wear for 8 weeks because my arm was so badly bruised from being hit/kicked during one episode that the muscles were 'tomato juice' as my orthopedic doctor explained to me. It took a complete year to heal and to find out of I would have permanent nerve damage or not. That was my last year teaching. I took a year off and have decided not to go back. At the time I felt my administration did not support me. In fact, I was told to take a day off after the arm incident, and the student was not even suspended!

So, yea, I've had Ms. Waugh on my mind. When you pick a career of teaching you do so because of a desire to help children learn. However, it only takes one incident to make you have a change of heart. A situation like hers or mine may very well not happen again if we were to return to the classroom. But for me, it just isn't worth it. I wish the best of luck to Ms. Waugh with her court proceedings.   

This is an original post by Robin on DC Metro Moms. When not keeping up with current events in education, Robin can be found blogging at MyLifeAsItIs.

Comments

[feener]

wow, powerful post. i started taking classes to get my masters in teaching. I was very surprised to hear about mainstreaming and the aides that are provided for students today. It really opened my eyes. when i want to school disabled kids were sent to a different room. You could tell that the college I was attending was really teaching how important it is to have disabled students in class with the general population. It does bring so many mixed feelings. i am sure as a parent of a disabled student they have concerns that others do not have to deal with. I can not imagine being a teacher in such an atmosphere.

[Elaine]

Without knowing the full story either, my immediate sympathies go with the teacher. I suspect newspaper headlines that portray anyone as the 'bad guy' and the other as 'the victim.' The reality is always much more complicated than that. What a sad incident all around ...

[Caitlin]

That's really kind of scary, since some 12 year olds are as tall (or taller!) as the average adult. I think most of the teachers I had would not have physically responded unless they feared for their safety - they know it probably means their job. She's been there 16 years with no mention of any of prior incidents, so I'm inclined to side with her. Given her injuries and her description of the incident, I wouldn't be surprised if fight or flight kicked in.

I don't really know what the answer is here. If she had not done anything, the headline might have been "Teacher Hospitalized After Student Assaults Her". If the school board is going to mainstream these kids, they need to train the teachers in how to handle situations that might come up that wouldn't in a normal classroom. Maybe if she'd had training, the situation would not have escalated to this point and it would not have been a news story.