This
semester has had quite a few incidents in it, all of which have us questioning
whether or not we should follow suit with the previous example.
A friend
had a student very nearly go ballistic in class. He yelled and cursed at her,
even after she kicked him out of the classroom. He did leave, but she nearly
had to call campus security. And the entire dynamic of the class suddenly
changed, not to mention my friend’s tolerance and patience.
She needed
to vent to her family and other teacher friends in order to calm down. Over and
over she kept talking about how she had gone home and began to calculate her
finances to see whether or not she could afford to give up teaching.
She only
has a few more semesters to go before she can stop entirely, but she doesn’t
think she can keep teaching—all of us, really feel the same way.
And, sadly,
we all know that such incidents are only the beginning. It’s only going to get
worse.