Babylonian Combat Zone

After some three years teaching in New York City, hand-to-hand combat has finally come to Mr. Babylon's classroom. From the Battle Report:

And everything was fine. It was a big class, people were chatting quietly and not everyone was doing the work, but they knew it counted and they weren’t acting up, so I wasn’t worried about that. By thirty minutes into the period things were so calm that I’d grown bored, finished my own copy of the student questions about the Holocaust, and taken to wandering around the room reading the student work on the walls and talking to some weird boys in the back about the time I saw David Blaine walking down the street doing card tricks and stealing people’s watches.

If I’d had a crossword puzzle, I‘d have pulled it out and been halfway finished before the bell rang.

Then a little argument flared up. I missed the beginning, but heard clearly when, firmly but quite calmly, a serious looking young black man said, “Shut the fuck up, bitch.”

Before I had a moment to react or even figure out who he was talking to, a girl stood up, walked across the room, said, “Don’t ever fuckin’ call me that,” and calmly slapped the guy in the face.

See what happened next right here.

Even though we often complain about certain aspects of living here in California's "Imperial" Valley, at least we don't have to worry about our classrooms becoming free-fire zones.

The New York City public school system is in need of a fundamental restructuring of its school culture. The focus must be on teaching and learning.

Those individuals who would physically harm students or professional staff need to be promptly removed from mainstream classrooms and placed in more structured environments or expelled from the system altogether.

And so should those who disrupt the educational process. No student has the right to deny another student his or her opportunity to learn and rise as far as his or her talents will take them.

Update:(PM) See how Mr. Babylon's eye-witness accounts square with the MSM reporting of the 4th anniversary of Mayor Bloomberg's "takeover" of the New York City public school system. ----------------------------------------See our latest education-related entries right here.