How to handle violent behavioral outbursts and fighting in class alone
When multiple high-needs students cause active disruptions, fight, or chase each other, teachers are often left completely alone without administrative help. This makes it impossible to continue teaching or maintain safety, leaving educators entirely exhausted and at the end of their tether.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Trying to establish routines and natural consequences with the students
- 2Sending disruptive students to the hallway for a short break to calm down
- 3Requesting administrative intervention or student relocation
- 4Stopping talking mid-sentence and staring at the ceiling until students quiet down
- 5Separating students involved in arguments and having them write down their perspectives
- 6Having students brainstorm examples of disrespectful behavior in small groups to build anchor charts together
- 7Asking for smaller class sizes or caps
- 8Evacuating classrooms during violent outbursts
- 9Wanting educational assistants (EAs) or administrative support
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“During that time I was alone with the rest of my behavioral students and the rest of my class.”source ↗
“B was being observed by admin and immediately started to cut tf up and cause a SCENE.”source ↗
“I plead with her to either leave or help me separate them, which she resists and tries to reassure me it’ll be fine and to continue teaching while they’re actively fighting and chasing each other under my teacher table.”source ↗
“I need EAs. I also need parents that believe in medication. I can’t teach a room of 28 11 year olds when one is literally buzzing around talking nonstop, grabbing things and bugging people and is only able to stop for 5 seconds before they forget and are back at it.”source ↗
“Tell us youve never had to evacuate your classroom multiple times a day due to aggresive violent disruptive students without telling us.”source ↗
“I’m running into a bunch of behaviors but the two main categories are as follows:”source ↗
“Im exhausted. I want to do something fun with them but they ruin it immediately because they start talking over each other and don’t even notice that I haven’t said anything in minutes.”source ↗
“Every time I turn my back someone is complaining that this kid said something to them and the other kid will deny ever having said that.”source ↗
“I would appreciate any advice I can get on this because I am at the end of my tether.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 20How to stop classroom interruptions from photo and video documentation
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- 12How to handle a chaotic last period elective class
- 55What do you call students who copy or police classroom instructions?
- 17How to handle an out of control kindergarten class
- 7Fear of retaliation from admin for removing disruptive students