When a teacher is physically attacked by a student can they defend themselves or not?

I think when attacked anyone should have the right to defend themsevles. This kid is old enough to hurt someone severely and even kill the teacher this size, I think though the teacher should do everything in her power to prevent having to do bodily harm by calling security.

He would be the one running away,not me. ;)

To be honest. If a 5’10’’ student attacked a teacher [with the teacher being male or female, makes no difference], the teacher has EVERY right to whip out some roundhouse kicks and three inch punches [Bruce Lee style] into the guys face.

I know I would. And plus, the teacher would not get into trouble with the council [or who ever] since it was pure self defense. Unless the teacher used a katana.[the last sentence was a joke]

Self-defense is a fundamental human right. On the other hand, the idea that one has to “clean someone’s clock” while doing it is generally a fallacy.

The more skilled the teacher is in martial arts, the more likely that she actually is able to control the situation with minimal damage to the student.

But everyone should have the right to defend themselves physically.

@lifeflame Completely correct. However, IMO, a MA practitioner, no matter how skilled, can’t badly injure an assailant, unless he or she really wants to.

Absolutely. The same situation reversed is also true.

I would love to know myself. I remember schools had this habit of trying to emasculate us by punishing us, even when we were only defending ourselves. I got suspended for not even physically fighting back once. Pissed me off too, because I may as well have just beaten the living crap out of the guy. That’s how you get rewarded for following rules in life.

OTOH, I always warn kids (especially females) to get good at self-defense. You never know when authority figures will attempt to abuse you physically.

Frankly, if she cleans his clock, she’s doing a good bit more than self defense. I would hope she wouldn’t get away with that. I do believe she has the right to defend herself. She’d just have a hard time convincing me that beating somebody up was necessary to accomplish that, particularly if she’s experienced in martial arts. Someone with that experience should be able to subdue an assailant without harming them.

To be honest, if a student were to attack a teacher, I doubt he would just be in it for a slap. Neanderthals today, they don’t know when to stop.

Also, a kick in the groin is always nice to see. I doubt he would be able to return ’‘fire’’.

In Germany, yes. But commensurability plays an important role. If a student smacks a teacher he can’t shoot the student.

As a matter of law and policy, yes. Teachers can defend themselves when attacked. As @mattbrowne says, however, the self-defense must be proportional to the attack.

As a matter of educational theory, self-defense is discouraged. Some educational psychologists even go so far as to say that teachers are at fault for letting the student get to a place where s/he feels the need to attack. In my semi-professional opinion, however, this is nonsense. Not all attacks are provoked, no matter what the setting.

A person has a right to defend himself, period. The law of self-preservation makes us this way.
A teacher or anyone for that fact, can place another person under citizen arrest. If there is resistance, a person can use whatever force is necessary to effect the arrest. Just be sure you can effect the arrest, beforehand.

You also, of course, have the God-given right to resist when someone tries to place you under arrest. That’s why citizens need to learn to defend themselves from agents of the state.

I doubt the teacher would break the guy’s spine. Or behead him.

Yes @Hypocrisy_Central the teacher has the right. This happened several times with a particular punk ass kid in our HS. He finally got suspended when he cold cocked the VP in the hallway.

The VP and several teachers pinned the kid down until the police (just across the parking lot is the main station) came to arrest him.

Teachers have the same rights anyone has to self defense.

My old teacher carried a gun every class. He didn’t show it of course, until one dude took out a knife at the end of the year [not being satisfied with the grade he got] and placed it on the teachers neck.

He then took out the gun. Boy. Was that funny.

@Written: where do you live? Alabamistan?

@Written Or Texastan/Bushistan?

What. No one said Kazakhstan?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jgyugzLdbng/TKP4OalJ4QI/AAAAAAAACAY/xhZ4GKRRr34/s320/borat-high-five.jpg

I’m from Europe. Same rules apply. ^^

@WasCy On the other hand, the idea that one has to “clean someone’s clock” while doing it is generally a fallacy. One can get their “clocked cleaned” with one punch or kick; “Iron Mike” Tyson and George Forman proved that many times. If the kid punched the teacher in the chest and she staggered back and he lunged in, if off instinct she gave him a round house kick (ala Trinity of the Matrix) the cobwebs could very well be cleared from his noggin.

@bobbinhood Frankly, if she cleans his clock, she’s doing a good bit more than self defense. And 3 cops shooting a slightly retarded man with a butcher knife in the heart when they could have winged him seems excessive too, especially when the cops are crack shots at distances greater than 15ft but in the rush of the moment I guess things happen. So if crack shots and wing a man with a knife at 15ft instead of just blasting him in the chest I can give a teacher a little slack when there is a larger student full of rage less than 18 inches from her trying to knock the stuffing or worse from her.

@Written My old teacher carried a gun every class. He didn’t show it of course, until one dude took out a knife at the end of the year [not being satisfied with the grade he got] and placed it on the teachers neck.
He then took out the gun. Boy. Was that funny.
And there does the catch 22. Especially when you see schools like that of Richmond Ca. no one really wants metal detectors because school is suppose to be a safe place not a prison of compound, but you have 3 students in one week and a student a week since the 1st of the year getting busted with firearms on them or in their backpack then other students want to be strapped because they feel the next time they beef with someone they are not going to settle it in back of the gym as their grandfather did it but like the OK corral at high noon. No one wants to show up to a gun fight with just their fist. What must the teachers be thinking? How many of those adorable freshmen are sitting there in class with a 9mm by their biology book in the backpack? And what if on boy has a frackus with another and pulls out a knife then have the other come out with a pistol? At least if Ms History Teacher was armed she could disarm the students before stray bullets started ripping through the classroom wall.

@Hypocrisy_Central Police abusing their power isn’t exactly anything new. That doesn’t make it acceptable. If the teacher knows martial arts, she can control her power and choose an appropriate technique to subdue him without “cleaning his clock”. Just because there are other examples of authority figures using excessive force does not mean she should do so.

Perhaps the difference is that you believe that “in the rush of the moment…things happen.” I am not nearly so willing to dismiss police brutality as accidental. Not that accidents never happen, but police brutality is too often clearly deliberate for me to automatically assume that slightly more ambiguous cases were accidents.