My son’s friends were suspended for filming a fight at their school with their phones. Doesn’t this seem like an extreme punishment for just doing what most kids do?
Some would argue that the filmers are worse than the fighters themselves. When you put so many kids so close together, it’s inevitable that tempers will occasionally flare and kids will express their frustration physically. It’s the wrong way to handle a conflict and schools have to punish it, but it’s not an atypical loss of control.
Filmers, however, do not have the excuse of temper or impulsivity. Unlike the fighters, they can’t claim they were bullied into it. They can’t squeal in their defense, “He started it!” Filmers are opportunists who are making a conscious decision to exploit classmates engaged in a regrettable situation.
Of course, if kids were made to put their phones away at the beginning of the day as they do in sane schools, this might not be a major issue. But that’s too seldom the case. And before you say the student is filming the fight only to kindly help principals sort out who did what first, let me point out that most schools have security cameras that already do that, which disposes of the only good reason I can think of to video a violent melee.
I can think of a dozen bad ones.
For one, students (and everyone else in the school) should de-escalate violence, not incite it. When kids are fighting, an audience exacerbates the situation, particularly an audience that is hooting and hollering and spurring on the contestants. Videography only augments what is at best a “spectator sport” atmosphere and at worst an outright mob.
What does help is intervention – people encouraging the fighters to quit or separating them from one another. I know, I know. This isn’t always the safest move, but it does tend to help. I was in a fight once in high school. We threw punches, but before any could land a classmate who was bigger than both of us emerged from the aroused crowd and ordered us to knock it off. Someone pulled away the other guy and someone pulled me away. I was grateful for their involvement. That other guy would have killed me.
As funny as that sounds, it is also true. Students can die in fights. You might remember in March of 2019 a 10-year-old girl at South Carolina’s Forest Hills Elementary School lost her life due to a brain condition following a classroom altercation. In September of that same year, a 13-year-old boy at Landmark Middle School in California died after being punched in a school fight.
My own cousin was killed in a middle school fight when another student hit him in the head with a glass soda bottle. That situation was aggravated by a riot-like atmosphere that led to brawls all over the school grounds. He was a bright, funny, well-loved young man. He had done nothing wrong. He got caught up in a bad situation made worse by the mob reaction of his classmates.
All of these deaths might have been prevented if someone had intervened early. Without a crowd egging on the participants, things could have worked out differently. It goes without saying that when your child whips out his phone and starts jockeying to get the best angle on the action, he’s not doing anything to stop the fight. He’s promoting it.
Students must be taught to be helpers when a fight breaks out, not fanatics or opportunistic observers. Schools do very little coaching in how to respond appropriately during a fight. They should do more.
The mob reaction is probably worse today than ever because of kids’ obsession with “going viral.” Parents and teachers should downplay the kind of fleeting fame that comes from simply holding up a phone to broadcast someone else’s suffering. It’s a cheap path to celebrity, but it’s one that today’s children lust for. We have to show them a more positive way to earn distinction.
So, yes, there is nothing wrong with suspending the filmers. They weren’t helpers. They were accessories to a chaotic, dangerous, and potentially deadly situation. Perhaps a day or two out of school will help them to realize that what they need to use most in a crisis isn’t their phone. It’s their head.
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May 18, 2021 at 08:30PM
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Teacher to Parent: Filming a fight encourages the behavior - Charleston Post Courier
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