Food for thought

Today I ate with the same group of teachers I eat with everyday during lunch. Usually the talk around the table is student-centered and mostly I just listen. Today, I realized that this may be the cause of my averse feelings towards some students.

Today, walking to the mail room, I saw a middle school student trip over himself and face plant coming down the stairs. He was fine, but I could not help but laugh a little inside. I did make sure he was able to get up on his own and walk away.

The specific event that made me think that the lunch talk caused those feelings is when we started talking about our 9th grade field trip. One teacher, who likes to be in everyone's business asked us where we are going to leave the 9th graders that do not go on the trip. One of our 9th grade teachers asked her if we can stick them in her room and she asked "Can I beat them?" Now, I know they are completely joking, but talk like this occurs almost everyday. Another teacher adds in by telling her she should slap them in the hands with a ruler. The nosy teacher replied by saying that it would almost be worth it if they could bring back corporal punishment.

So, I know what some of you are thinking, what in the world could our students have done to provoke such punitive thoughts? Well, I do not have a good answer for that. I do know that it has caused me to feel a certain way about some students and I do not know if it is right to be thinking about students that way.

Surely I am not going to go around and start slapping students hands with rulers, nor has the thought crossed my mind, once or twice.

I pose a question to you: Do you think that it is okay for teachers in this day in age to be thinking this way or having such conversations knowing that they would never act upon them?