Hello; you gave me a lead in to another story. This not about a "special" student but about the way things became skewed over the years. There was a new student in my school and who was assigned to ride the school bus I drove. He was a big guy. One morning I pull up to the bus stop and find him beating up on a smaller boy. The smaller boy was his relative and was bloody. At school later that morning I took him into the office and paddled him. Paddling was still around.
I will condense the story a bit and skip to the part where he is cussing me the next day on the bus and making threats. I tell him another paddling is in order. Arriving at school he takes off down the road away from the school into the nearby coal camp. I report him gone to the principal office and go to my room on the second floor.
A few minutes later a different student warns me that student was coming to get me in the office. He had gone to the office brandishing a broken bottle but i was not there. I went to find him and we met on the stair landing. He indeed had a broken bottle and did try to cut me in front of many witnesses . I managed to stay away and side kicked his knee which took the fight out of him. He was subdued without anyone getting cut.
Turned out i had to have a hearing at the school board. No police charges were made as back then the police did not charge you if someone attacked you with a bottle. However his family went to the school board and they called a hearing. Turned out OK for me as there were plenty of witnesses to what happened. But the board was going to only give him a two week suspension and he would be back on my bus. My principal stood up and threatened publicly to resign if that student was allowed back in his school as the student had waved the broken bottle at him also. That worked and he was transferred to a different school. By the way that student had transferred into my school mid term from another school district because they kicked him out for behavior. He was staying with his Aunt in Harlan County KY when he attacked me, so it was not new behavior. Best school principal that year out of all the others over my 32 years as he stood up for the students to be safe and did not tolerate rowdy behavior.
My story only matches your post in that a karate kick was involved. Thing is i actually did kick a student in self defense. I could have done much more to the student but once the starch was out of him I did not do any more. To be clear I was grilled closely on how many times I had struck the student. Some on the board were looking for an excuse to make me into a villain.
An interesting thing happened some weeks later. I was loading groceries into my car outside of the local Krogers. I saw that former student walking toward me across the parking lot. I had bought some ten ounce Coca-Colas in glass bottles. I slipped one out and had it in my hand. The student's uncle got him and pulled him away so nothing happened. It would have been ironic had he started up with me again. I think he wound up leaving the County altogether.
I cannot say for sure but do figure the same situation would turn out bad for a teacher today. In the first place there would be no discipline on the school busses. In fact i did quit driving as i could not control bad behavior after a time. I was still responsible but had no control. I also figure somehow a student attacking a teacher would now days be blamed on the teacher. In fact my last year of teaching i was slightly physically assaulted by a high school student with a pencil. I called the school resource to press charges. I was pressured by that principal to let him move that student from my class. As i was filling in for a Biology teacher who became ill and could not finish the year I let it go.
