A B.C. teacher on call has been disciplined after pushing a student against a wall and intimidating him.
According to the BC Teacher’s Regulation Branch, Ian Millar Ward was teaching a Grade 6 class in Coquitlam on May 31, 2018.
Ward joined the class in a ball game during a fitness break. Near the end of the game, he caught the ball and a student jumped up to knock it out of his hands.
Ward told the student in a “loud voice” not to do that again or he would be punished. Ward then “made physical contact” with the student with both hands, “forcing him against the wall.”
As the class walked back to the classroom after the break, Ward approached the same student again, made physical contact and told him: “That was well deserved. You want to see me get aggressive, I can get aggressive.”
Earlier, he had also told two students to stand in the corner and face the wall as a way to manage their behaviour.
The school district sent Ward a letter of discipline on Nov. 22, 2018, and suspended him for 10 days without pay.
It also instructed him to get help from colleagues or administrators if he finds class or student behaviour to be “challenging or emotionally triggering.”
The branch ordered Ward to complete a communication course by Sept. 30, 2019, or risk losing his teaching certificate.
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