Bullying and anti-bullying campaigns are everywhere. The U.S. government has declared October Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. Wikipedia has an entire category devoted to pages about a host of anti-bullying initiatives. The national teachers’ unions, NEA and AFT, have efforts to raise awareness about bullying. Most of these organizations spend energy, time, and money to address situations where children are bullying other children. While there is evidence that these efforts may be counterproductive, they also miss what might be an even more serious issue: teachers as the bullies.
While not as prevalent as the news proclaiming all of the anti-bullying initiatives, there are media reports of teacher bullying. In one, a teacher was caught on video joining with child bullies to attack a 13-year-old boy. This post highlights several other instances of teacher bullying. Parenting and medical sites offer advice to parents who suspect their children are being bullied by teachers. My own son, at his first experience in a formal school setting, experienced five days of bullying at the hands of two Kindergarten teachers. Other children physically attacked him as well, with the tacit and outright approval of these teachers. Needless to say, the fifth day of this was his last in the school.
Dr. Stuart Tremlow researches this phenomenon. In one study, he found a correlation between prevalence of bullying teachers in a school and the rates of behavioral problems among children in that school. In another, he found that teachers who were victims of bullying during their youth were more likely to engage in bullying behavior as adults. Other teachers serve in the role of bystander, witnessing bullying but doing nothing.
Perhaps instead of raising awareness of bullying, or declaring a bullying prevention month, we demand that teachers stop being bullies and bystanders. Perhaps we expect teachers’ dispositions include active support of all students rather than than victimizing children.
Charity Jennings 