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Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?

148 points · 332 comments · obscurette

  1. nekusar · · focus · HN ↗
    > The American Psychological Association completed three National surveys in which the findings reveal high rates of verbal/threatening (e.g., verbal attacks, verbal threats, sexual harassment, intimidation, public humiliation, bullying)

    Cry me a river. Public schools pride themselves on furthering extreme authoritarianism, while being in a country that praises on being a constitutional democratic republic.

    And guess what, public schools share striking similarities to that other place where authoritarianism reigns supreme - prisons. And when you treat the inmates/students like that, with capricious rules, 0-tolerence (0-thought) policies, and more, the inmates absolutely respond back.

    And "verbal attacks", oh noes, whatsoever shall we do? They said a bad word!

    And regarding "public humiliation", I remember quite a few middle and high school teachers who used public humiliation TOWARDS students as a way to shame them. Even remember a health class where the asshole teacher would put down each test and loudly say the grade and some snide remark.

    I also remember teachers *thieving* from students random "distracting objects". Of course, those class/school rules are just arbitrary principal bullshit. And somehow absolves thievery.

    Now, the whole physical violence and threats of physical violence, that's a whole different problem. But again, that's' caused in part by the prison-nature of current schools. Honestly, im surprised there isnt more violence towards teachers.

    1. aantix · · focus · HN ↗
      Because the bottom tier of teachers have done wrong, it invalidates the whole system?

      We all have a story of a favorite teacher, someone who inspired through story, who asked more from us, even when ourselves didn’t believe we’d achieve.

      Violence is not acceptable, verbal and physical.

      Even if their home life is a train wreck. It can be an explanation, but not a justification.

      1. ChickeNES · · focus · HN ↗
        Not invalidating your point, but I personally don’t have a story of a teacher like that.
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