A critical incident description

Violence at school

The critical incident described in this report occurred in a technical school near my neighborhood where I have been working for the last three years. This school is situated in a marginal zone of the city characterized by a low-income socio-economic context. It took place in the 2nd year of the Basic Technical Cycle by the middle of June of 2010. This class was formed by seventeen students, five girls and twelve boys.
Most students from this class behaved appropriately; they participated in class and completed assigned activities; except for three students who misbehaved at that time. They bothered the other students, insulted and bullied them, interrupted when the teacher was introducing a new topic or explaining an activity students had to carry out. This problematic situation took place from March to the middle of June. Although I had talked to those students, and informed about this difficult situation to the director and students’ parents, they kept on behaving more and more violently. I had commented about that situation to my colleagues and they said that they had the same problem with those students.
By the middle of June, in one of my classes, while students were completing an assignment, Mauricio, Juan and Johnathan took a strip of crepe paper taken from a garland that decorated the classroom, and put it around the neck of Raúl so that he could not move. Mauricio, Juan and Johnathan almost caused asphyxia to Raúl. That was a really shocking situation in which I did not know what to do, I called the invigilator and tried to help Raúl to recover. I really felt angry and helpless and sent the students to the director’s office and I went with them to explain what had happened. I asked the director to mediate and attempt to make these students change their attitude since I could not cope with their violent attitude in my classes.


The director’s response to this problem was telling students’ parents that they would have to take their sons out of the school if they did not change their behavior. After this incident, Mauricio and Juan changed school and Johnathan stayed provided that he improves his behavior.

Johnathan started participating, paying attention to teacher explanations, and completing activities, he showed that he could improve and behave properly. Since then, I try to encourage him, telling him that he can improve, that he can be a better person and student. And I learned that difficult students can change if they decide to do so, and that we as teachers should foster self-confidence in our students.