My old classroom at North Royalton was on the second floor. The windows opened on to the roof of the first floor. Prior to my employment, a physics student climbed out the window, on to the roof. The teacher, Miss Jen, tried to coax the student back in. She begged, promised, compromised and negotiated. The student screwed around on the roof until the period was almost over, then came in.
There are a few ways to handle a situation like this, but the main dysfunction is that the student thought climbing out the window was an action to consider.
The students seizing campus buildings at Columbia and other universities are due some sympathy. They should be charged, held on bond, tried, and possibly expelled or convicted. They had every reason to believe that the upper ranks of university administration were so polluted with diversity hires, that there would be no consequences for trespassing, vandalism, breaking and entering, and kidnapping along with violating a number of other laws and policies.
The students did not consider that the pause in thug riots after the Covid shut down gave administrators a few years to consider how badly they’d handled BLM and other Progressive bullies, gave legislators time to pressure university administrators to do better and gave donors and the general population the time to realize that universities were pits of despair.
It’s unclear whether our enemies who are backing this civil unrest had considered these factors and were willing to see their useful idiots get burned.
Progressives in corporate media continue to support the revolutionaries. The cause for the protests is irrelevant, and is mentioned to distract or excuse the crimes. Drawing an equivalence to Kent State or protests in the 1960’s is meant to use nostalgia to conflate the two causes and deflect the conversation. Saying that everything was peaceful until police escalated the situation is to excuse the seizure of property and the damage done. Had all protestors left when instructed to do so, there would have been no problem.
For students to take such extreme action for a conflict most don’t understand and involves two groups that are thousands of miles away, they had to have been indulged and bad behavior excused for many years. Getting convicted of a couple of misdemeanors is the kindest thing that can be done for those students.
When I was hired to replace Miss Jen, I had some of her former students. What went on in her classes was incredible. Even the students were amazed. I was at Royalton for 12 years before I had to write up a student, and that was for an incident while I was on cafeteria duty.
During one lesson, a student went to the electric pencil sharpener while I was lecturing. He stood by the sharpener, waiting to use it, until I stopped talking. I finished the slide, he started sharpening, so I talked again. He stopped immediately. After my short additional instruction, I stopped, he started sharpening, so I talked again. I was just screwing around since I noticed him waiting.
He stopped when I started talking, but everyone was catching on to my little jape. We went one more round, then I complimented him on his courtesy and situational awareness. I told the class how much I appreciated how polite and considerate North Royalton students are.
They really are. I used to say that there may be some Mormons working at a Chick-Fil-A who are more considerate, but I’m not so sure.
That student was not unusual. He was an athlete who was little on the arrogant side. I’m good at managing students. They know what I expect from them, and they expect that I would not be a pleasant adversary. We were friendly, but not friends.
By the time that student had climbed out the window in Miss Jen’s class, students had vandalized equipment, snuck out of the class, dumped a can of sour kraut in a draw, stolen a computer and blatantly cheated on a near constant basis. Even Physics students can go feral.
If a student had crawled out a window in my class, I would have closed the window. When the student begged to come in, I might let him in or let him stew for a while.
Yes, there is some risk to taking a decisive action like closing the window. Any number of bad things could happen, but I’d be willing to take that risk. Honestly, I’m surprised I made it 25 years.