Bullying Teachers Are A Problem

Bullying has received enormous attention here in Tuscaloosa, the United States, as well as abroad. However, the central focus has been primarily on student-to-student bullying. How about educators that abuse their authority over children they are supposed to protect?

When some teachers verbally, and with malice abuse children, the abuse is very rarely identified as it should be-bullying-perpetuating the idea that only children, not the adults in charge, are bullies.

According to research data, bullying is on the increase, and there's a noticeable absence of reliable data on adult school bullies. Perhaps that's because bullying by a teacher or other school personnel is far more difficult to identify, address and correct. As a 45 year veteran educator, both as classroom teacher and administrator, I don's have any confidence in the ability of any teacher who crosses the line from instruction to regularly berating, intimidating and humiliating students, so much so that a child has no real desires to attend school. So what is a child or it's parent to do?

When it comes to a bully teacher, there's no silver lining, but there are different routes parents can take. Following protocol, like documenting every incident, building a support system and working up the chain of command, can protect the child from continued trauma at the hands of a bully child or bully teacher and save them from the ordeal of leaving a school altogether.