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A student is trying to bully me.
Filed Under Behaviour Management, Bullying
Yes, it’s happening again. One of my students is trying to bully me. Janet, not her real name, tried to bully me to get her way. I asked her to do something last class that she really didn’t want to do, ( using her ear buds to listen to her music while working on her project) and she said ” having to use ear buds to listen to music is going to really p*ss me off”.
That’s a threat and that’s a form of bullying. Janet’s trying to get her way by threatening me. The implication is that I don’t want to get her mad because … so I’d better let her do what she wants to do. She’s obviously learned this tactic somewhere. Kids like Janet who try to bully teachers by threatening to get mad need to be told that threatening to get mad is a form of bullying and that tactic needs to stop. Bully is not an acceptable behaviour. Period. If she does it again, I will take the threat to administration. She needs to know that what she does is a form of bullying and that bullying is unacceptable.
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Bullying is a cry for help we’d better listen
Cyberbullying Part 1- relational aggression
Students with learning disabilities or ADHD are more at risk of being bullied
Cyber-bullying- educationing kids is better than incarcerating them
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6 Responses to “A student is trying to bully me.”
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Interesting…I had something similar happen recently. Took it to admin and they told me that even though the student said “she would get even”, it was not a threat b/c she didn’t specifically say anything physical! Unbelievable! I hope your admin is more supportive than mine was.
My first year teaching I had a student threaten to kill me by smearing peanut oil on things. Both her parents and the then principal were furious that I called the cops. After all you can’t really die from just touching peanut oil.
HR backed me (first words out of my mouth were my lawyer is (name of my family lawyer)- and the cops put the fear of something into that little brat and her Mom.
Elona,
I had the same thing happen to me and I called the parent immediately. Unfortunately, the parent was not very cooperative, stating that she has no time to talk to me (even though it was was concerning her child)…i am furious with parents who neglect to see that their kids have a problem, parents who do not put their kids as their number one priority…this student who is overy annoyed, angry, passive aggressive and who is a threat to me and my students…i am arranging a meeting with the parent, counselor and a social worker…i have to get to the bottom of the issue and you are right…ther is no place for bullying in our classrooms.
.-= Mirjan Krstovic´s last blog ..Time Use Graphs: A deeply reflective exercise for all teachers =-.
Hmmm. I do not mean to make light of the situation but in my opinion the student just told you how she felt about having to listen to the music with the earbuds. Not a threat. I have had heard students say to teachers “I am going to shoot you”, now thats a threat. If it were me in your shoes I would have simply stated “You have two choices, use the earbuds or turn the music off.” You could even use that moment to teach/model the proper skills she clearly lacks (expressing her dislike for something)so that she knows how to express it the next time. If you feel threatened by that then you are in the wrong profession, of course in my opinion.
Mr James, it’s not that I felt threatened. I didn’t. The point was that she was trying to bully me. As for only “I’m going to shoot you” being a threat, a threat is a threat. If someone promises to do harm, that’s a threat. We can’t dismiss threatening behaviour of any sort. Our students need to feel safe in our classrooms. Making kids feel safe in my classroom is part of my job. Excuses like, “I was just kidding” or “boys will be boys” or “that’s just the way girls are” aren’t acceptable either.
While I realize that students may be involved in bullying, what insight can you give me to handle bullying done by teachers? I agree that there should be proper modeling on the part of the teacher, but unfortunately I know of a teacher who uses harsh threats towards students at the beginning of the year as she refers to bizarre and inappropriate discipline tactics which have been practiced by her in the past. A complaint was issued to a college supervisor by a student teacher. The student teacher was then disciplined for being judgmental. This student teacher was told that it was not his role to criticize a teacher. Tell me what you think. Sounds to me like the student teacher was also being bullied, when he was just looking out for the best interests of the students.