Teacher sacked for putting a student in a head lock despite being punched by the youth says staff are powerless
TEACHER who was sacked for misconduct including putting a student in a headlock after the youth punched him said the NSW education system left teachers "powerless to discipline kids".
Science and agriculture teacher Stephen Krix was fired from Riverstone High School when he fought back against a year-10 student who refused to work and punched him in the face during a class.
Mr Krix - a "squarely built" 51-year-old who had worked in various public and private teaching roles since 1989 - told The Sunday Telegraph he acted in self-defence when he put the "slight" student in a headlock during a science class in May 2011.
The incident came after the student refused to take off his headphones, told Mr Krix to f*** off several times and punched the teacher when he stood close to him with a worksheet and refused to move
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The incident was outlined in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission last Wednesday where Mr Krix lost an appeal against the sacking he claimed was "harsh, unreasonable and unjust".
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Krix, who now works in the security industry, said the public system was failing kids because teachers feared being sacked if they disciplined students.
He said students were leaving public schools without the self-restraint required to cope with post-school life.
It's a joke - that's why people are running to private schools," Mr Krix said.
"Eighty per cent of kids are screwed over by the state system because of a lack of discipline given to a minority of bad kids who disrupt classes," he said.
"You have to have zero tolerance … if a kid is behaving badly in the classroom he needs to be extracted and all the kids that are behaving themselves need to be able to get educated."
In relation to the student, Mr Krix said: "It's not like he's some sort of pathological killer … he's just a kid who needed discipline and wasn't getting it. If he's given the guidelines then he knows where the boundary is".
A NSW Department of Education and Communities representative told the commission Mr Krix should have stood down from any physical confrontation.
The representative said the Teaching Service Act meant that teachers had to respond to situations with the safety of students being the top priority.
more here http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/teacher-sacked-for-putting-a-student-in-a-head-lock-despit...
A very true comment from a poster on that page....
The day will come when no one will want to become a high school teacher...it has been getting worse for years now.
Education will be via the internet for a teacher's safety .T
he students hold the power .
Has anyone got the guts to swing this around...I doubt it.
Then again, anyone who wants to become a secondary teacher in the public system ,I guess, deserves all that is coming their way if they haven't heeded the warning signals by now to AVOID this once great profession!
