Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How To Deal With Bullies":
The full article can be found at
http://searchwarp.com/swa333432-P2.htm
by Rev. Carla Goddard
Everyone is aware of peer on peer bullying and the Education system is emphatic about about not allowing the situation to arise and if it does how to protect the student who is being bullied. What about when teachers bully students. This receives virtually no attention. With the publicity surrounding peer to peer bullying, why is the idea of teacher to student bullying largely ignored in the education system today unless it involves sexual conduct? Is other types of bullying unplausible? Is there a definition for teacher bullying? Does it exist?
Bullying by a teacher is defined as a pattern of conduct, rooted in a power differential, that threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear, or causes a student substantial emotional distress. What does that really mean? Abuse of power that tends to be chronic and often expressed in public, a form of humiliation that generates attention while degrading the student in front of others, students capabilities are debased and identity is ridiculed. In nearly every case of teacher bullying it is a singular target that this bullied repeatedly. Equally significant is that the teacher usually receives no retribution or other negative consequences.
Victims are chosen on the basis of either vulnerability or because of some devalued personal attribute the teacher perceives of the student. Once targeted, the victim is treated in a manner which will set the student apart from their peers. The teacher makes frequent references to how the student differs from other students whom the teacher perceives as more capable or valuable. As a consequence, the student because a scapegoat among peers.
Teachers who do bully feel their abusive conduct is justified and claim provation by the student. They disguise their behavior as an appropriate part of the instruction, as well as disguising abuse as an appropriate disciplinary response to unacceptable behavior by the student. However, the student is subjected to deliberate humiliation by the teacher that can never ever serve as a legitimate educational purpose.
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There are also more subtle situations where the educator is endorsing and/or encouraging student to student bullying. He/she may not even be aware of it. Children are oftentimes victimized all in the spirit of humor. Other times it's in the manner in which discipline is handled, mistakes academically and socially are corrected, simple comments made publicly that sometimes the teacher has no clue lead to humiliation and/or bullying.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely an area that has gotten very little research attention.
"Bullying by a teacher is defined as a pattern of conduct, rooted in a power differential, that threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear, or causes a student substantial emotional distress..."
ReplyDeleteIn Corporate America, this is called harrassment.
The problem with teacher to student bullying, when it does occur (hopefully not as often as I fear it might), is that most adults will take the word of an adult over that of a child. It's a tough thing to prove. I remember being on the receiving end of it in my own childhood. It's something you never forget.
ReplyDelete