And in this corner...

Well, there was another fight at Alcatraz today! This time it was a very large African American boy and a very large Caucasian boy. Beating the crap outta each other right outside my classroom door during passing period. I point out the race of each boy because the fight was... racial. White kid called black kid a name and BAM!

The problem was that they were big guys and they were really going at it. Classes for the day hadn't yet started. Another teacher and I started to pull them apart but it was obvious this was a fist fight and she and I weren't going to be able to separate them without getting hurt ourselves. Some of the other boys around wanted to get into it as well and I had a hold on two boys and kept elbow checking a third one who was sort of behind me, between me and the door jamb. As the two guys rolled around on the floor beating the hell out of each other, we yelled for help and two house parents and the principal came running. It was just one of those super fluky instances where the only adults in the immediate vicinity were women.

When the 3 adult males got there, everything seemed to happen super fast. They were on top of the boys pinning them down and holding them down, all a tangle of splayed arms and legs. Then a 4th adult showed up and 2 adults took one boy one direction and the other 2 took the other kid the other way. In the middle of it all, one of the adult guys got punched in the eye. When I saw him after school his eye was black and blue, and hugely swollen.

It took awhile to settle the boys for class. They were all fired up, and then were snarky with each other. I didn't have much patience with them, either, which isn't their faults entirely.

Guess it's just another day in the life of teaching at Alcatraz...

Mags