Teachers Can Be Bullies, Too
When we talk about bullying in school, we are referring to that perpetrated by students towards students. However, teachers can be bullies, too.
A student, who I consider something of a protegé, told me about an incident during lunch involving a teacher and himself. At the end of the day, this student was a mess emotionally, and was talking to another student about the incident when I encountered them in the library. I am not sure what lead me to go into the library when I did, but I will just give it over to kismet. Anyway the student told me that a teacher cut in front of him in the lunch line. Angered, he held his tongue, and did not react, which, for this particular student, is a major accomplishment. Several minutes passed, and the student saw a friend in line in front of the teacher in question. The student proceeded to move up in the line to talk to his friend. In a way, the student felt his actions were justified, since the teacher cut in front of him in the first place. At this point, all Hell broke loose. The teacher gave the student a schooling for cutting in front of her! The student could hold his tongue no longer, and reminded the teacher what she did to him just minutes before. The teacher, not about to be dissed by the student, told the student she was going to tell his advisor and asked the student for his advisor’s name. The student not only gave the teacher his advisor’s name, but also gave her his name, and invited the teacher to make contact with his advisor.
What is it about student-teacher interactions where some teachers consider the students less than human? Do we as teachers feel so abused ourselves that we exert what little power we feel we do have and use it to mistreat students? I do not condone the student’s manner and tone with the teacher, and I addressed that with him. This being said, he was justified in standing up for himself against bullying by the teacher, which occured not once but twice: cutting in front of him, and then reprimanding him for a wrong she perpetrated.
It is often said that a teacher’s influence endures far longer than his real-time contact with students. What will be the long-term effect of this particular teacher’s influence on the aforementioned student? I cannot help but wonder about that, and it saddens me.
Loading...
My brother is a school teacher and from him I hear of the challenges faced by teachers today. You obviously care a great deal about your students both for their education and their general well being. You have my deepest respect and admiration
Bill
hudds53 - January 27, 2007 at 2:18 am
Yeah…I cut in front of kids almost every day as they tell us to do it,actually kind of make you, for saving minutes but I ask, apologize and we definitely all know each other and I think every time…why isn’t there a teacher line? Cause at lunch I do have just a few minutes. Not really relateable just it worked differently in other schools and I haven’t liked it in years. Mostly I never get food because of it. I think children are treated poorly because they hold our projections frankly. I think that they are reflections of our inner smallness. Or greatness. It’s hard to watch children in a school be treated as objects. Or as this was….maybe your witnessing will turn that around. Often a witness stance is my own position of power.
Sad , this story, sorry. I hope the teacher gains a bit but bullies often deny and project. Sarah
Sarah Puglisi - January 28, 2007 at 1:04 am
I believe that it doesn’t matter what profession we are in or what we do in our lives, some people do not understand that their actions are bullying. They will argue their position and continue to do so. I coach Senior Girls basketball and watch this weekend as my team was bullied by two referees - they spoke to them disrespectfully, even yelling at one. When I brought it to their attention after the game, along with several other things, they admitted no wrong, hid behind their “officials” uniform and finally said it was my fault because my bench decorum was poor. As adults it is very hard to admit we have made a mistake and acted in an inappropriate manner. As a father, administrator, teacher, coach and leader, I’ve had to eat crow on numerous occassions and apologize to people, kids and my own children included, that I was wrong and acted inappropriately. It’s tough to do but I’ve learned that it is the only way I can live with myself. I make mistakes but I will learn from them and I will not make them again. But, I will demonstrate that I have learned something by admitting my actions/words/body language was inappropriate. Sometimes it takes me a few times! As for your teacher, I’d say she has a difficult time admitting when she is wrong about many different things so it wouldn’t matter how many presentations she saw. Most people who go to these always identify everyone around them who is doing this but never themselves. Maybe, just maybe, with the increase on personal accoutability being created with the access to new technologies, people will begin to see how they really look. It’s a hope anyway!
Kelly Christopherson - January 28, 2007 at 3:26 pm
[...] Teachers can be Bullies too [...]
The Student Help Forum - Homework Help » Carnival of Education - January 31, 2007 at 6:43 pm
My 9 year old son played a joke on a little girl in art class. The old “theres a spot on your shirt” and then you boop the nose. Harmless, it seems anyway. Our parents and parents’, parents have been doing this for years. I recieved a conduct refferal in the mail about this. The referral said, ‘Inapproprately touched a female student.” “This was very inapproate! Please speak with your son about this incident.” He recieved a dentention for this. Well, they never said anything else to me, not even a phone call. So I asked my son what this was about and he kept telling me for the next 5 days the same story of this harmless prank. When I called the school and spoke with the teacher that wrote the referral the story was quit a bit different. The teacher told me that my son reached across the table and grabbed this little girl in her brest. He also said that there were two teachers that witnessed this first hand. As I am talking to this teacher and getting madder by the moment he is laughing at me on the phone. So I said to him that I would contact the principal and he told me go ahead she has my back on this. Well, how nice one lies and they all swear to it. P.S., a meeting was set up between the principal, the art teacher that never seen this happen, and the teacher that wrote the referral, and then there were myself, my spouse and my son’s godmother involved. When the story came out about the incident, the teacher that wrote out the referral told us that yes my son told him that it was a harmless prank but after he went and did an investagation and talked to other children that wasn’t the truth that it was as harmless as my son was saying. There story then went to that my son was tripped and fell into the girl with his hands on her brest. That teacher gave me 3 different stories in a matter of 5 mins when my son told me the same story for 5 days. Gee, who looks like the lier. And we are suppose to intrest our children and there lives in these sick, twisted people called teachers. I am not saying they are all bad, but they all stick together in this school right or wrong. Who’s there for the children if they can’t trust the teachers. To take the prank and run with it to a grabbing a girls brest is a sick thing to twist. Where are there minds to imply this when the kids at this age don’t understand anything about brests and development.
Pam Markell - February 20, 2008 at 3:33 pm