One of the greatest tragedies in education is when a teacher starts to bully students. I had many great teachers at school and few that bullied me and other students. I have seen the results of teacher bullying on some of my friend's kids and talked to teacher trainers who describe some very worrying cases.
Do you know what your kid's teacher is really like? (Attribution: Pixabay: Destiny)
Most teacher bullying is the result of lack of necessary skills to manage students. You would think that they would learn some of this during their 4 years of study, but if they do, it is mostly theoretical. Then little is done to help them develop classroom management skills once they start teaching.
Most bullying comes as a result of teachers using short-term strategies to control students. Punishing a student who steps out of line makes sense if the general experience in the classroom is positive. When it is a negative experience for a student to be in class then teachers revert to stronger and stronger punishment and bullying to no avail. Often these kids are just craving any sort of attention. The younger children are, then the more positive attention and feedback they may need from the adults around them.
A negative classroom environment can be a terrible place for kids to attend every day (Attribution: Pixabay: PublicDomainPictures)
When you talk to bullying teachers, often there response is "There is no other way to control students." Which is wrong because this behaviour does little to control students and there are many positive ways to manage students in a classroom that are both positive and more effective.
Also, by role modelling bullying to kids, their students will grow up to bullies themselves. If you want to remove bullying from schools you have to start with the adults.
So what can you do about it? You won't stop bullying by trying to bully teachers. Your approach should be positive and constructive. That is, try and get the schools to access training programmes for student and classroom management.
Some teacher training institutions sell their programmes as something for the students, but incorporate the classroom management skills into the course as well. Thanks to technology these programmes are available both face-to-face and online.
One example is the Pathways to Resilience Trust that delivers programmes, mostly around Queensland, but has been extending its reach globally through online delivery.
Pathways to Resilience Trust provides programmes for both students and teachers (Attribution: www.pathwaystoresilience.org)
This is an interesting article by a parent whose child was bullied because the teacher was feeling stressed. Teacher stress is a common problem and it is often passed down to the students.