Intimidating teacher

[chillie]

My son came home yesterday and told me that 8 boys including him in yr 10 were locked in a classroom with and by their chemistry teacher in clubs time until all the rubics cubes were handed in. After they were handed in she proceeded to shout at them that they had been disrespectful. When asked by one boy what was it that he had said or done to be disrespectful she unlocked the door and told them to all leave. She didn't answer him.
Today the same 8 boys were told by the head of year and an assistant headteacher that young female teachers can be intimidated by them and they should be more aware of how they behave.
This is in a super selective grammar school. All boys my son included can behave badly but I really feel that this was inappropriate to say to the boys. They are 14, all black or Asian and nobody shouted at her, swore or approached her. Surely if you are intimidated by teen boys then you don't take a job at an all boys secondary school?
My son who is not in her form tells me that other boys say she often locks the door, can't control the class and sometimes cries. I feel worried about this teacher, it doesn't sound like she is coping. I think she needs help. No teacher should need to lock the door, I would expect the teacher to have enough authority that the boys would not dare leave until given permission. Am I expecting too much?

I don't think super selective grammar means that they're all polite.

They were obviously refusing to hand rubix cubes back.

No idea what relevance skin colour has in this.

She shouldn't have locked door but perhaps they were trying to push past her.

She may have unwittingly taken the job thinking behaviour would be better as it's selective. Obviously not! You admit yourself they're not always perfect.

Well of course a group of 8 Year 10 boys can be intimidating!! 🙄

Some of the worst behaviour happens at our boys grammar - some of the boys think they're God's gift and are cheeky, entitled shits.

It's absolutely fair enough to say to the boys that they are intimidating if they are. Their behaviour is disrespectful, misogynistic and selfish. And you should be telling your ds this and backing up the teacher.

Sounds like their behaviour is a persistent problem. You're right that the teacher needs more support from her SLT before she has a nervous breakdown or leaves.

Teenage boys can be shits.

Presumably she locked the door in an attempt to ensure that the missing rubic cube could not be removed from the room.

It matters not that your son wasn't the one who was misbehaving. Someone in there was withholding it. I am afraid I don't jnderatamd why you felt a detention for them all was Karen appropriate in these circumstances.

I do understand a concern about potential stereotyping of young black men being intimidating but there are also occasions where kids misbehaving for a teacher (whatever their colour) may be intimidating and it is important to separate the two.

I am unsure how a "Karen" appeared in that sentence

@KaptainKaveman

OP: IMO you are trying to your ds's behavioral problems into a race matter. Nice try but it isn't working . Unless you are prepared to come out openly and claim that the teacher wouldn't have taken the same action if those boys had been white - which I don't think you can quite bring yourself to do - then leave race out of it and accept that your ds and his mates were behaving like bullying little arses.

That is what she is suggesting or that the boys wouldn't have been told they are intimidating for asking a question had they been a group of white boys. As a teacher I have genuinely walked into the middle of a fight between boys and had no fear of being hurt, I can't say the same is true of girls. If the teacher felt intimidated she should have had the conversation with the boys at a later date but if the boys version is true that they stayed seated her bias is coming to the fore and she should be challenged on this.

I recently had to challenge a teacher friend who when discussing a child who misbehaves included his race, I asked if they would have included that descriptor if the child had been white and they apologised and admitted they'd never thought about it before. There is loads of bias out there, and plenty of reports regarding racism from teachers, so let's not pretend that the OP's concerns may not be justified.

Enough teachers are leaving the profession because of incidents like this. It's common for female teachers, and even male teachers, to feel intimidated by groups of teenagers - that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad teachers. Would you prefer your child to have no teacher at all? because that is likely to happen if she gets fired or goes on sick leave due to stress. Yes she was wrong to lock them in, but how badly behaved were these boys that was she pushed to do that in the first place?

@Caramel181

Enough teachers are leaving the profession because of incidents like this. It's common for female teachers, and even male teachers, to feel intimidated by groups of teenagers - that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad teachers. Would you prefer your child to have no teacher at all? because that is likely to happen if she gets fired or goes on sick leave due to stress. Yes she was wrong to lock them in, but how badly behaved were these boys that was she pushed to do that in the first place?

She couldn't have felt that intimidated to lock herself in with the group of boys.

Let's stop making excuses for unprofessional behaviour, schools all have a behaviour policy which includes SLT coming into classrooms if necessary. She should have followed the schools behaviour policy.

If the teacher felt intimidated she should have had the conversation with the boys at a later date
But she never told them she found them intimidating. She told them they were being disrespectful and she was perfectly right to address that with them at that time. It was the Ass Head and Head of Year who spoke about intimidation...at a later date. So, actually, they did do what you suggested.
but if the boys version is true that they stayed seated her bias is coming to the fore
Where does the op say they stayed seated? Maybe your bias is coming to the fore.

telling 14 yr old black boys that they shouldn't intimidate young female teachers just reinforces that stereotype

Extrapolate this into

telling boys/men that they shouldn't intimidate women

I think we'd all agree this was a good thing that boys are aware of when their behavious is/comes across as intimidating, so they can change it. Otherwise they will be 15, 16, 20 and still intimidating, especially when in a group.

I wonder if your ds and his mates would have acted the same for a male teacher?? I have several teacher friends and they all say that teenage boys are the worst in terms of lacking respect for them simply because they're a woman.

This can be exacerbated/caused by attitudes/cultures/behaviours from the teenager's home, especially in e.g. conservative/traditional Pakistani/Indian families where the man is the patriarch and everyone else does what they're told. If this attitude is coming into schools, then it neeeds to be dealt with firmly.

Your son was disrespectful to a woman to the point she had to lock a door to stop him from leaving to get him to return her property.

A woman had to lock herself in a room to make your son listen to her.

That is the behaviour you need to focus on. Why was he refusing to hand over a Rubix cube?

Whether the boys were white, black, Asian or bright pink it sounds like they were fucking about, upset her and refused to behave. That’s intimidating.

If you feel the teacher is out of her depth then ask for a meeting with the head of head. In the meantime ensure your son behaves appropriately in class.

She definitely should not have locked the door. That is a safeguarding issue and she is leaving herself wide open to all sorts of allegations there.

If the claims that she sometimes cries and cannot control the class are true then it does sound like she needs help and that the school maybe needs to crack down on bad behaviour more in general.

schools all have a behaviour policy which includes SLT coming into classrooms if necessary.
Hahahahah

When she locked the door, did the 8, 14 year old boys suddenly feel at risk from the single female?

A school being a grammar school doesn't mean the behaviour can't be bad. I went to one and remember hearing about stuff the brothers of friends at the boys' grammar got up to. We could be pains ourselves

You'll have heard a biased account of what happened from your son

@Frlrlrubert

Poor woman probably thought a super-selective school would be easier behaviour wise. I guess 14 year old boys are pains in the arse wherever you go.

But, no, she shouldn't be locking the door.

Have a think about how, exactly, she could 'have more authority'. What is it that she doesn't have? I'm assuming 'club time' is voluntary, so she's giving up her time for their benefit, but they still have so little respect they are refusing to give back equipment. It's club time, so it can hardly be blamed on 'poor teaching'. Is it because she's young? Female? Because others have said that she's easy to wind up and they wanted a go?

I say that as a Chemistry teacher who's just handed my notice in because I am so done with 'behaviour management' and losing learning time to shit like this. I signed up to teach, not to negotiate for my bloody magnets back and have to keep half an eye open for kids throwing rubbers at each other. How can they be trusted with chemicals when they can't give a Rubik's cube back?

Hopefully she'll get support from management, otherwise, don't worry, she'll be off soon with stress and hopefully the school will hire someone the boys find it easier to 'respect'.

‘Don’t worry, she’ll soon be off with stress’! That’s a terrible thing to say!

OP, your son and his friends are behaving like misogynistic little shits. Your job as a mother is to ensure your sons grow up respecting women and girls, not treating them like playthings. I can fully imagine this scenario - a group of boys ‘just joking’ with a young female teacher who may well be out of her depth, but it’s not on her to manage their behaviour, it’s on them to not behave like that towards her in the first place! It’s almost like people are saying she deserves it because she can’t control them.
Have you read the reports on sexual attacks on women and girls in schools? It’s rife.

Imagine if it was the other way round and a male teacher locked himself in with female students - there’d be uproar! although I agree that locking children is wrong, it wasn't a male teacher and these weren't female students. There would have been an uproar because the connotations would have been completely different.

She isn't handling it very well. No.

BUT These boys need a bloody good kick up the arse and learn some respect. They are clearly pissing about- regardless of their race- and it is making a teacher CRY. For goodness sake, if that isnt a red flag for poor behaviour then I don't know what is.

Poor teacher. Poor parents- This doesn't bode well for these boys and future relationships with women in authority.

I have a son, we are a mixed race family.

It doesn’t matter what your son did, outside of anything illegal, teachers should never lock the door.

I would talk to the school, make it clear you’re not complaining about your son’s behaviour being dealt with but rather HOW it was dealt with. And ask what you can do to support the school behaviour wise.

I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong about possible racial bias but I wouldn’t bring it up without something more substantial.

Any teacher can be intimidated by even one large boy. I am quite small and my trick was not to shout at them but to make them sit on a low stool and ask if they would like me to tell their mother what they had said or done.

I don’t know any school where the classroom doors are lockable buy the teacher. I’ve worked in many, and the caretakers are the only ones with the door keys!
However, I can imagine in this instance the boys were trying to leave with stolen items and she locked it to prevent them from leaving. That’s hardly a safeguarding issue.

Don’t worry, she’ll soon be off with stress’! That’s a terrible thing to say!
If you read the rest of their post you can see they weren't being literal, given they are a teacher who is leaving themselves due to poor behaviour

@Soontobe60 - ‘Don’t worry, she’ll soon be off with stress’! That’s a terrible thing to say!

You miss the point. @Frlrlrubert was being realistic/sarcastic.

@Soontobe60

OP says that she has been locking doors during lessons as well. If one of these students were to make an allegation against her, falsely or otherwise, the fact that she has been locking doors will not look good to anyone who investigates.

It's my fault for not being clear but only one rubics cube was not handed in and it wasn't by my son. I don't think the teacher is racist at all although I do think she does not like my son. My son has not been taught by this teacher for over two years. He sees her now once a week for 40 minutes for clubs. I have now told him to join a different club so he doesn't have any contact with her as she perceives him negatively. None of you know my son, I do, he can be surly and likes to fidget but he is not a liar(even when in trouble he is too lazy to lie) and he thinks it's unfair what has happened as he personally did nothing wrong, but also believes that life is not fair and that you will be blamed sometimes for things you haven't done and that's just the way life is, which is true and he better get used to it. A major problem in this whole incident is that not one boy has been asked or allowed to speak about it. One boy did try to ask what exactly they had said/done but was shut down immediately. The school has form for this. There is every possibility that my sons behaviour might have been intimidating but unless I get involved I don't think he will know how to alter this as no boy knows what exactly they did.
The warning about intimidating young female teachers came from a slightly older female teacher. I do take on board that the boys may be intimidating without them realising it and they need to know but this type of conversation would have been better had has a whole class pshe type of talk.
I talked to my son again last night as I think that some of you are right and that some of his behaviours combined with his height of 6'1 may have made her felt threatened without him knowing. He denies this as he says he didn't move out of his seat and didn't speak to her but maybe she still felt intimidated by the whole group collectively for some reason. My son has always been tall and I have always been worried he could be perceived as a bully because of that height, it has actually turned out that he knows that the eye is drawn to him because of his height and he is very good at walking away at the least sign of trouble.
My son wants me to drop the whole subject. He thinks this teacher is useless because she can't control the class, he's 14, not much sympathy or respect going on for her in his tiny brain at the moment and yes of course I've explained how she might feel and how rude and unacceptable it is to be badly behaved . He's petrified of his Spanish and English teachers, both around the same age and sex but they can control the class so not about age or women in his brain. I don't want to make it worse for him and draw more attention to him but I also don't want him to be a pain in the backside to any teacher or even more so be unaware of how women could perceive his actions. I'm torn on what to do.