Students

At a private school in Los Angeles, students can earn class credit for hitting a teacher.

The all-girls' Marlborough School recently began offering full-impact self-defense classes--which involve mock combat with an instructor--to teach young women the importance of protecting themselves.

Though some schools offer limited martial-arts training to their students, Marlborough is a leader in using the full-impact method, where a male instructor wearing protective padding acts as an assailant. Students are taught how to fight off a "mugger" and strategies to...