THE WAY NOT TO HANDLE DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS

ODD for me to use a “How NOT To” in a posting title, but I assure you, in this case it fits.  The “case” I speak of involves a local high school security officer –  a former Chief of Police in Easton, Pa. who did PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of what a teacher or security professional should do when confronted by a disruptive or violent student.

Maybe I should mention a few important nuggets here:  First of all, the student in question was not, in my opinion, either violent nor disruptive, at least not until the security officer intervened.  Secondly, I am a former Advanced Verbal Judo Instructor, a current Advanced De-Escalation Techniques Instructor and I have been a PPCT Disruptive Student Management (DSM) Instructor Trainer for years.  Ok.  That, hopefully, establishes my credibility.  Let’s look at what went down, so a valuable lesson can be learned.

In short, the student went to the office and asked for another Identification Badge.  The office was skeptical regarding his “story” and the kid probably got a trifle sassy.  The officer intervened and directed the student to quiet down and the boy started walking away and said something like: “A badge just doesn’t up and disappear.”  The officer then made the first of many Tactical Communications errors by stopping the youngster from walking away (the kid’s attitude may have been bad, but his actions were fine in that he was obeying verbal direction to quiet down and walk away) by asking the teenager “What did you say?”

The boy turned to the officer and repeated his words, to which the officer made another Tactical Communications gaffe by challenging the student with “Why don’t you say it to my face like a man (um, err, the officer was challenging a 14-year old boy to challenge a cop like a man )?”  The Officer erred again by moving closer to the boy (inside the child’s Personal Safety Zone – 2?), “trapping” him.  The youngster then shouted at the officer that his (Mazzeo’s) breath stunk, and the officer – taking the verbal attack personally (one of the most serious Tactical Communications mistakes possible for a professional), grabbed the 14 year-old by his neck, choking him to so long and hard that a librarian who witnessed the act later testified that she thought he was never going to stop.  To top off his professional intervention in a benign act of student defiance, the officer tossed the boy hard against a wall.  The youngster sought and received medical treatment.

The officer was later acquitted by a misguided jury, but his DSM techniques beg for considerable critique at the least.  Allow me to run over a few of his most glaring errors:

  1. LESS IS SOMETIMES MORE.  In this and many other situations, the less you say or do, the better.  Especially if there is an audience, allow an angry person to walk away.  If he or she has to be dealt with later, choose the place and the situation when emotions are subdued or under control.  This was one of those times.
  2. DO NOT TAKE VERBAL ATTACKS PERSONALLY.  A professional understands that de-escalation, or reductive skills, is an unnatural act.  It takes training and professional poise to deflect rather than absorb personal insults.  Personal insults or verbal attacks usually have as their goal to instigate a prescribed response (by the authority figure), which is for the officer to misuse his words and/or his actions.  Which means, in this situation, the boy controlled the interaction.  The officer succumbed to the prescribed response, did he not?
  3. MIRROR CALM.  CALM IS CONTAGIOUS.  Reduce tension by showing or modeling the calm type of behavior necessary in this tense interaction.  Any youngster would be triggered by a large, uniformed officer closing distance in an aggressive and bellicose manner.  It was perfectly predictable the boy would react as he did.  Besides, almost every Supreme Court decision as well as the law concedes that the subject of police attention is almost expected to be out of order.  It is the officer’s responsibility to rise above the disruptive behavior of his or her suspect or subject.
  4. USE TIME AND DISTANCE TO REDUCE EMOTIONS:  The officer rushed into the boy’s PSZ, thereby abandoing the two elements that can be key allies in deescalation.  Allow the child his space and allow time to work its magic.
  5. FOLLOW THE DEFUSE FORMULA:  Dont Lose Your Cool/Depersonalize.  Encourage the Child To Vent/Empathize.  Find out the Facts (ask questions).  Understand Feelings.  Suspend Ego (Ego is the most dangerous word in a teacher’s or security professional’s vocabulary.  EGO was at the center of this officer’s catastrophic actions).  Ego Suspension (this is so important in the defusing formula that I repeat it) and End on a Positive Note.

Next Posting:  More on verbal intervention strategies in the educational setting (VISE).  Also, how to recognize when a student is carrying a concealed weapon.

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One Response to “THE WAY NOT TO HANDLE DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS”

  1. Great article! All officers should receive de-escalation training!