Violence against teachers is more widespread than you think

There’s a disturbing trend in classrooms. Kids are getting violent, threatening one another and their teachers.

One teacher was recently traumatized after she said she “was beaten to the ground by a student and kicked 14 times while she was on the floor.” Another teacher said she spends more time managing the dangerous behavior of a small number of students than teaching the class.

“Staff are being grabbed, kicked, punched, spat at, cornered in classrooms, subjected to threats and left managing corridors that feel more like crowd control than education,” the teacher said, according to The Daily Mail.

One teacher said, the article reported, being bruised and bitten during class. Others have been injured by thrown objects, spat at, scratched, and kicked, often accompanied by misogynistic comments.

But it’s not just teachers who have become subjects of assaults. Says one teacher, “Children are being assaulted by peers, witnessing frightening incidents and trying to learn in environments where emotional dysregulation becomes the norm because there aren’t enough staff or resources to intervene early or safely.”

Where is this Lord of the Flies anarchy and its violent takeover of schools? All of these reports come from England. Yes, jolly old England, with its stiff upper lip and aristocratic mien. The place, some say, we got our civilization from. Don’t get too comfortable, however. It’s happening here too.

All of these problems have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Shutting down schools required teachers to rapidly learn how to teach online to students who may or may not have been tuned into the instruction. Parents faced a work-life balance challenge well beyond their experience, one that often left kids unsupervised and left to their own devices, especially electronic devices. And now, back in school, engulfed in its rules and structures, they are acting out in ways that have left teachers wondering if teaching is what they want to do.

British teachers have been fairly sympathetic to the students, saying that they are not to blame for their own anti-social behavior. Rather, their needs aren’t being met in a time of trauma and mental health challenges, amplified by social media addiction and its own forms of abuse. Understaffed counseling departments are overwhelmed by the demands, and teachers are pressured to control classrooms and proceed with instruction.

But even amid such sympathy for kids, British teachers are questioning how much more they can take. They are now tasked with de-escalating tensions. It’s just the latest demand made on a profession already stressed by mandates created by people from outside their classrooms.

I began with the problems affecting British schools because it helps me to see that there is a global situation, rather than one created by irresponsible teachers, undisciplined kids, bad parents and clueless administrators in the U.S. There are some derelicts in each of these categories, but not enough to throw off-kilter the balance wheel of schooling, the metaphor used by Horace Mann at the founding of mass U.S. public education during a health crisis.

My sympathies lie with those whose lives are centered on public schools. The kids are acting out after losing basic structures that had supported their lives throughout their education. Teachers are trying to do what they love — teach kids — when their job feels like a battle for control. Parents are trying to raise kids in the midst of social media influence and tensions, and economic pressures as the economy fluctuates daily. Administrators are flummoxed by the waves of anti-social behavior that are upsetting the school’s educational mission.