A few weeks ago, I faced one of the hardest situations that I have faced in my short time in my classroom. A student threatened to take out his gun and shoot me.
A bit of a backstory is needed here: in my last period, I have this one student named Marcus* that is either super wound up and bouncing off the walls or a complete zombie. I think it's because of his ADD medication (or lack thereof), but I don't have an IEP on him so I can't be sure. Usually, he creates tiny disruptions by laughing or goofing off. I can handle these episodes. What I can't handle is the alternative. Recently he has come in and is groggy and tries to sleep all class period. He is moody and talks back and has a general bad attitude. I wake him up and make him stand or do a wall sit. However, I've found that this just creates more distraction among my students, so I have started moving him to the front and having him stand with me while I teach.
One day, he came in and was rude and completely uncooperative. He laid his head down on the desk as soon as he came in and would not do anything. I told him to get up and walk with me and he resisted. Undeterred, I went to his desk and pulled him up. He freaked out and asked me why I constantly bothering him and being annoying.
"You do not sleep in my class, Marcus. You know this. If you sleep, I wake you up and we walk. Today is no different."
"No, Ms. D. You're the only teacher that makes me work today. No. No, I'm not doing it. Just let me be!"
"Sorry, bud. You know I can't do that. You are wasting my time and the class' time. You can go to the office," I said as I swiftly made my way up to my desk to prepare his write-up for the office.
"No, no, no, Ms. D. You going to write me up for sleeping? No. I'm going to take out my 45 and shoot you on your way home from school. I'm going to just lay rounds into you, Ms. D!" He started shouting more threats and looked near to tears. I wrote him up and told him not to come back. Ten minutes later, he returned to class without his referral. The office had too many write-ups and since it was the end of the day, they just sent him back to class even though he had verbally threatened me in front of the entire class. Thankfully, the class had started working independently and his sudden emission into my class went unnoticed. I set him up with work and placed him outside the door. While outside, I asked him why he reacted the way that he did. He told me that he didn't get a lot of sleep last night because he was "doing business," and that every other teacher had just let him sleep. He didn't understand why I wasn't on this bandwagon.
There are so many things wrong with this scenario. I can't control what my kids do outside of school, but I can try to make them see that school and education are worthwhile. Also, it is incredibly disheartening to know that there were multiple teachers who let Marcus know that his behavior was acceptable. No wonder my school is so backwards! But the most enraging part of the situation is that the office did NOTHING to punish Marcus for threatening me. I know Marcus and I know he would never follow through with his threats, but that does not mean that he can think that he can say things like that and there won't be any repercussions. I really wish that the administration would back me on things like this. It is truly sad to feel unsupported by your principal.
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