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Old 06-07-2020, 10:45 AM
lindaelane lindaelane is offline
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I spent 34 years as a classroom teacher.

In the United States, teachers are trained not to touch students for any reason, not even to protect themselves or others. Every campus I ever worked on had "Security" - workers in uniforms authorized to use "necessary but not excessive" force - plus we had intercoms on which to call them. We also normally had one campus police officer, though the police officer never came to the many fights I saw, basically, security handled it.

There was no "right to peaceful protest" on campus. Students were to be in class (or the library or eating in the cafeteria). A few times, a peaceful protest happened at the end of lunch hour, but there was not time for things to get out of hand. If groups of students refused to go to class, security escorted them. Teachers were hands off.

(It was different when I taught in the United Kingdom and was trained to intervene to prevent a student from harming themselves or another student. I was taught the safest way to restrain a student, going around back and clasping them in my arms at the student's elbow level. I supposed the student could have kicked my shins, but the one time I had to intervene in such a way I was not kicked.)

I was assaulted 3 times in 34 years and I would guess that is a below average number (not seriously harmed, just pushed or given a single punch.) I certainly did not strike back. In no case was the student punished who assaulted me. In no case was I accused of causing the assault by anything I said or did. (Well...in one case students said I put my hands on my hips and said "stay there", which is said to be a provocative gesture in their culture that I was unaware of at the time, but that's hardly an accusation of inciting an assault.)