I don’t know if I’m thinking all of this because the older I get, and the further I get with my plans of becoming a professor*, the more I relate to the teacher’s side compared to when I was a teen, but here’s my take:
The teacher isn’t 100% at fault. I’d argue that it’s something beyond her control if we did see the whole picture when it comes to her intervention. She didn’t seem to treat the bullied side unfairly, like scolding them when it clearly wasn’t their fault, she just tried to de-escalate a fight.
And yes, there are many “styles” of how you deal with students’ issues (be it their bad behaviour or relations with peers) — the stern, who goes by the “respect through fear” motto, and may sometimes blame all the parties equally, the dismissive “it’s not my problem”, and the mediator, which is much trickier than the other two, since specially in situations in which it’s not something too harsh going on (physical/verbal abuse, for example) you can’t just get between them screaming saying everyone’s at fault.
You’d probably single out the ones causing the problem (the bullies) and talk to them about how their actions are wrong, not in an overly confrontational tone to avoid further issues with them (or their parents, since sometimes their child can do no wrong).
That is if it’s the first time an incident happens. And by the way it goes, it was more of the tall girl being somewhat of a bitch than something too extreme. However, until we get the full story, we may not know. And that’s the thing: the teacher probably doesn’t know how deep it goes either if the students don’t open up to them (or to others, like counsellors, who may convince them to not avoid the situation). It could not be deep at all, of course.
But oh well, the chapter’s MC didn’t really have the time to put that into perspective. And I do get where she’s coming from because I had this “the world is against me” mindset as a teen, due to a lot of bullying when I was younger.
Back at my middle school, the staff’s posture was “everyone’s at fault” to the point that when a 13 yo girl BIT my friend’s arm and he fought back to make her stop, he got suspended. They didn’t treat it seriously enough, which lead to her biting someone again — ME, who didn’t do anything because I feared getting the same fate as my friend. I hid it from my parents after I got home until my mom saw my arm and dragged me to school to talk to the psychologist/counsellor about this, that the girl did it YET AGAIN.
So yeah, I’ve seen school staff deal with stuff in a shitty way so I feel confident enough in my opinion that the teacher is not the villain at all.
*I ain’t that old, by the way. Just getting into Grad School, don’t have experience dealing with students head on but have been a TA long enough to see a bit more through the teacher’s perspective. Don’t even know if it’ll work out… But my experiences at college got me thinking about how delicate it can be if you care enough.
