The Dangerous Lives of Teachers

The arrest of three third-graders in Waycross, Georgia for plotting to attack their teacher is yet another reminder - although a particularly bizarre one - that teachers are often targets of school violence. The plot in question, which involved nine students overall, was surprisingly elaborate, but some experts have questioned whether students that age are actually equipped to carry out such a threat. Still, as Dr. Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia explains in a recent NEA Today article, all threats against educators have to be taken seriously.

Most assaults on school staff, on the other hand, tend to spontaneous – a result of a standoff in the classroom or an intervention in a school fight. Jolita Barry, an arts teacher in Baltimore, was attacked by one of her students as another stood by and recorded the incident on a cell phone. Student assaults against teachers are a huge problem in Baltimore but the district, according to Barry, has usually ducked the issue.

The video is obviously disturbing, but the city’s educators hope that the national attention it has received will jolt the administration into taking strong action - not only to protect staff, but also devote resources to properly train them how to defuse classroom confrontations. Either way, Barry says, “it’s time to stop blaming the teacher.”