Thanks, Peanuts,
I want to fill in some background with this particular boy. When he entered my art class a couple of 9 weeks ago, from day 1, he argued with me about every assignment, and sat and did nothing...truly from Day 1. I grade very leniently, and gave him a C for midterm. At that, his mother called me objecting to his grade, telling me "Art is easy!" and how did he get a C! I explained to her that he had done nothing, and that he really deserved an F, but because of my lenient grading policy, I had assigned him a C.
This experience with grading him had nothing to do with the incident in the cafeteria in which he was disrespectful, but it does point to the way his parents enable him.
Perhaps I WAS wrong to try to stop him by touching his arm to prevent him from leaving the cafeteria! My God, I'll never touch another student again. This is the first time this has happened to me in 18 years of teaching, but the boy WAS truly defiant and disrespectful. What is a teacher to do?
Patty