The answer might be “You have no idea!”  One of the realities we have not talked about as much as we might–and which the teaching philosophy reminds me to focus on–is that we often have incredibly disruptive students in situations where the parents not only aren’t helping, but are actually actively running interference on our attempts to help students.

For instance, what if you had a student touching himself in class in front of the other students?  If he made jokes about anatomy to second or third graders, swearing and using terms where you were sure it would be the children’s first exposure to sexual content?

Teachers routinely have situations like those.  Sometimes, the behaviors bear the hallmarks of sexual abuse and suggest the need for teachers to step in and get the child counseling or even psychiatric help. But what if the parents think such behaviors are normal?

Having a supportive principal, counselor, school psychologist, or social worker is vital.  Often, that’s not possible or much of the burden is placed on the teacher to push the situation further.