I only attended Summit 3 days this week because my normal tutoring session resumed this week. Monday students wrote their stories. Monday I eventually ended up helping one of the more enjoyable students write his story. It was pretty cute because he was writing it about his mom and had a sentence like "They liked hair but hated armpit hair." I hope the mom never has to know her son wrote that about her. Monday was a good day. Wednesday I helped two girls. One girl was recording her story and the other girl hadn't started even writing her story. I taught the girl how to record her story and then actually typed up the story for the other girl as she told me what to type. After we finished the story, the girl and I looked for pictures. The rules for looking for pictures was that the kids could only use google if an adult was sitting with them. Well, the girl found pictures on the kid-friendly website but then she went to google to search for some things. First she searched for "limo." I was a bit concerned but I honestly had no other idea for searching for a picture of a limo! Fortunately, it turned up clean. There were no bad pictures. Then she searched for fashion show. I honestly didn't think this one would be bad. I guess I may be nieve sometimes, but I was pretty lucky that time. A few pictures that came up were questionable, but nothing showed, all of the women were wearing something, they were all covered, and although the initial glance at the page was scary, the women were just wearing swimsuits or underwear or something. It was nothing worse than would be on a Victoria's Secret commercial. So I was safe. Then the girl searched for "old woman." Alright, so, the first picture to come up when searching for "old woman" is this website... http://www.pocketfactory.com/images/stories/old-bday_lady.jpg . Yep, complete nudity. The student was good about the situation though and immediately threw her hands over her eyes (I can't blame her, I wanted to too!) and I scrolled down to a safe place for her to look. So, how do you prevent something like that from happening? The school filters didn't catch it. How do I know what titles are safe to search? And my goodness, why does "old man" not turn up anything bad but "old woman" turns up two pictures of topless women. It just doesn't seem right.
Today I worked with a girl helping her find pictures and sounds online. However, I was next to the male student who has in the past said I was scary looking and approached my face with his in an attempt to show power. Now, I'm not proud about my behavior today though I'd say I'm confused. Well, he wasn't doing what he was told to do and he eventually got mad about something and put his face up to mine again. Now, I was on the floor on my knees so he was already in a position of power over me since he was higher than me. Well, I didn't back down. I stared at him and eventually he just started staring at his computer. I didn't stop staring. Eventually I turned off his computer monitor and unplugged his headphones. He tried to turn the monitor back on and I put my hand over the button, so he moved my hand. After doing this a couple of times I grabbed his wrists to keep him from turning the monitor back on. There was a struggle and I honestly thought he was going to take me down since I was on my knees. Tyler and another IU student were watching though and I think they would have jumped in if things got out of control. I'm not even sure how long this went on but it surely didn't last more than 20 seconds and then he stopped. When he stopped fighting I let go and he was fine for the rest of class. Looking back at the situation I know I shouldn't have held his wrists, but then again, moments before that he was shaking the computer monitor and last time a student did that I said I would step in and physically stop the student if it happened again. Plus, if two students got in a fight then it'd be acceptable for a teacher to physically restrain a student so was what I did today alright? I can't decide. I'm glad it worked though. Perhaps now the student will no longer challenge me.
1 comment:
Hmm...this is an interesting situation. Typically, you should not have to deal with this. You should just let him know that he will be taken from the room and then call in reinforcement to help. You should never touch a student. Perhaps you could have unplugged the computer. This is a sticky situation. It is always best to remain calm which is very difficult in those types of situations. Again, when it's your class and students it will be much different because you will know them and will be able to apply individual strategies to combat situations like these.
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