This past week I had a group of fourth and fifth grade students ask me, with straight faces, why teachers didn't "just let kids fight." Since this came from a leadership group that I host weekly after school, and we had been discussing bullying, I had to take a pause.
The party line is to step in when there is a physical altercation. That's the way we keep kids from getting hurt. In worst case scenarios, the pushing, shoving and flying fists end up connecting with innocent bystanders. Now it was being suggested to me by a group of kids whom I am sworn to protect that I just let the conflict rage on. Until it burns itself out. "When you break it up, they just go after each other the next recess. Or the next day."
A fair accounting of many of the feuds that have taken place on our playground over the years. One that had not consumed me as much in the past couple years when that playground sat empty while we focused our attention online. But now we're all back in person and the good feelings of being reunited with our peers has dissipated to the point of being all too familiar. Not the crisis level to which they had once grown, but a very sharp rise from the zero incidents of physical fighting we enjoyed on Zoom.
I should note here that this group of kids was not the first suggestion I have heard of letting children pummel one another until they were done, then sorting it out. Over the years I have had numerous parents and caregivers weigh in with this opinion. And I am always shocked. Which seems a little disingenuous since I have entertained a thought similar to this on those dark days when stepping between two ten year olds only serves to make them fume at one another all the more. And take it out on one another when they get their very next chance.
So there's that. But it doesn't keep me from throwing myself between the bulls in our particular china shop. And for the most part, this intervention is enough to calm the storm. There is precious little that can be done to still the muddy waters of children who crowd around to watch the spectacle. The not-so-innocent bystanders. The ones that are there to see blood. It makes me wonder: If they get to see the carnage, will they be finished? Or will they just start egging on the next in line?
Maybe this is all part the challenge getting of getting better. Coming out of the darkness and into the light. Part of the great re-socialization of an elementary school. You have to walk before you can run. And you have to run before you can run away.
That's actually a really interesting question. Why don't you? Why don't we? If we're talking about conflict and solving conflict, fists can be one way to do that if it's mutual. If it's mutual. That's not always known when you're breaking up a fight. But the spectacle part is disgusting. What if you just took those two kids and conflict and put them in a room together where no one could see? Would they still choose to want to hurt each other?
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