License to Non-Lethally Intervene

I'm trying to get my professional development out of the way before school's out. If people are going to say, "At least you get summers off," then I might as well make it true. Unfortunately, there isn't much offered during this time of year.

I attended "Crisis Management and Non-Lethal Intervention in the Public School."

We got to watch all sorts of fun videos full of actors portraying teachers intervening in tense, escalating situations and defusing them using non-lethal means. Plus, our instructor favored the term, "sonovagun":

"If you have a book near by, then throw that sonovagun to the ground. That will get their attention."

"You get in front of that sonovagun before they have a chance to charge."

"When a sonovagun sonovaguns on that sonovagun, then you're going to have one sonovagun on your hands ."

I didn't quite get that one.

The grand finale came when all of the class attendees lined up outside in two lines facing each other while we role-played and practiced the self defense moves we had just learned in the preceding five hours.

I didn't feel too manly doing a move called "the swat and spin," but I gave it my best effort. It wasn't until instructor came over for some one-on-one time that things got tense. I swear I felt like I was in Cobra Kai's dojo. The instructor kept yelling at me. "Focus! Bring 'em down! Reverse! Reverse!" I couldn't help but to put Mrs. Barnosky (the sixty-two year old music teacher) in a vice-like sleeper hold, yelling, "Submit! C'mon Grandma! Submit you old bat!"

I flipped her like a sonovagun.