My child is being bullied by a teacher: how to understand and what to do

In every fifth case, the initiator of bullying is a teacher. The reason for nagging is often the appearance, nationality and some characteristics of the child, for example, stuttering or the financial situation of the parents.

Every second schoolchild experiences aggressive behavior and bullying. In every fifth case, the initiator of bullying is a teacher. Most often, the reason for nagging is the appearance, nationality and some characteristics of the child, for example, stuttering or the financial situation of the parents. Together with Karina Richtere, a professional psychologist, an expert in parent-child relationships and attachment theory, a mother of five children, we looked at how to understand that a teacher is bullying a child, and what we can do to protect him.

Why do teachers humiliate students?

There are several versions.

First (cultural):

We have a tradition: respect our elders. Belarusian culture has many traditions and rituals associated with paying honor to the older generation and ancestors. The elders in the family were always the bearers of knowledge, so they were trusted and obeyed. This is where the custom comes from: elders must be respected. And the elders demand respect from the younger ones! Indeed, there is a deep meaning in respect for elders, but the problem is that this idea has become taken literally and simply formally. Because of this, situations of misunderstanding often arise. For example, you are traveling in public transport, and for obvious reasons you did not give up your seat to an elderly person, that’s all: those around you make a verdict: you do not respect the old person, you are bad. Or you answered something to an elderly person that he didn’t like, that’s all: you don’t respect your elders. It’s the same at school: you don’t follow the teacher’s orders, that’s all: you don’t respect the person who is older than you and who is “crucifying himself in front of you.” It is probably worth distinguishing between the concepts of “politeness” and “respect”. It is normal to be polite with elders, as with people of any other age, if you value yourself and your world.

Respecting people just because they are older than you is a question. We respect those people who….. are hardworking, friendly, etc. Everyone will be able to supplement this sentence with their own adjectives, which outline the range of their values ​​- qualities that they consider important. What if the other person does not have the qualities that are important to you? Or does he not demonstrate them towards you? Why then respect him? It’s not for nothing that they say that respect must be earned. But this phrase is usually said to children, a priori believing that an adult, and especially a teacher, is already a respected person. But it turns out that you don’t need to earn the respect of children?

Second (psychological):

The process of humiliation is very beneficial to the one who commits it. Let's take a trivial situation in which the teacher says that with such grades you “will go to work in a factory.” This episode contains double humiliation: firstly, the person to whom it is addressed. Secondly, to the people who work at the plant. It turns out that the teacher contrasts himself, the magnificent one, with the student and those people who are doing something else (in this case: working in a factory). Why does the teacher do this? Dominance is the answer. By lowering the student down, the teacher rises emotionally to the top.

If you observe people who often use humiliation as a technique, you will notice that these people disguise themselves in this way. They cover up their fears. Their biggest fear is that someone will notice and make fun of their shortcomings and lack of skills. That's why they attack first. If you follow the moments in which this person humiliates another, it is very easy to see the weak points of the attacker.

How to resolve conflicts at school

First of all, it was important to find out the details from the child. Emotionless. The parent's strong emotions can frighten the child, and he will close down. Show empathy, express your sympathy to the child, but do not show your emotions.

Then, just as calmly, without witnesses, find out the details from the teacher. If dad, instead of causing a scandal at a parent-teacher meeting, had found out the details, he would have found out that the teacher said “it’s not good to complain” to another boy who annoyed her with his sneaking: “And he’s moving my desk. And he took my rubber band,” implying that the guys are quite capable of figuring it out on their own.

She didn’t think that another child, having accidentally heard her words, would take it so literally and stop complaining to anyone at all. In the case of the girl, she did not know what was happening, since all this bullying took place outside of school, and the girl, like her parents, did not say anything. That is, the teacher really did not understand why dad had such an aggressive reaction.

Dad, of course, should not have started a conversation with the teacher before all the details were clarified. And even more so, it was not worth extracting details from the child (the very next day) in front of the teacher and director. This is additional stress for the child. Especially with an undeveloped “complaining is not good” attitude.

What to do?

The humiliated person should not take everything as truth and personally. These are just words that speak about the emotional state of the one who uttered them. But if you are still hurt, it means that something in you responds to these words and actions of the attacker. This is not about taking literally what the offender said. You need to analyze the emotions that the situation caused. For example: the teacher tells you that you will never learn to speak English properly. If your self-esteem is adequate, then you will perceive these words simply as the emotional subjective opinion of a person who may not be an authority for you at all. Moreover, they were said in not the best frame of mind. After all, it is known that people who are doing well in life do not say or do nasty things to others.

But if you are still offended, then you need to ask yourself “Why?” The answers may be different: “What if everything happens like this? And I won’t be able to meet my parents’ expectations?” or “I’m the worst. Everyone will laugh at me. I will remain a failure,” etc. Even in these examples, the true roots of the problem are visible: the expectations of parents or the fear of not being accepted by society. Ask yourself why you are so afraid of this. Imagine a situation in which this is exactly what happens: You haven’t learned English. You are a loser. Live it out in your fantasies completely. And then return to reality and think, is everything really the way you picture yourself in your fantasies? Look for inconsistencies. Make sure that this is your delusion, which you yourself promoted at the suggestion of the person who humiliated you. And also think: why did this person do this. What's in it for him? In any case, ask yourself questions and think. No one will do this work for you.

Now about the person who humiliates. There are many situations in life. We are interested here only in those that occur in the classroom and on the part of the teacher. Dear teacher, if you humiliated a student, an apology always helps both. Next, you should understand why you did this, what were you so afraid of, why did you want to be higher than the student? The principle of work is the same as with someone who has been humiliated. Ask yourself questions and answer honestly. There will be many questions, one after another. For example: Why did I call him names? How did I feel when I called him names? Is he...? Why did I decide this? Do I know absolutely everything about this child? Why do I allow myself to call a person such....? Why do I put myself above him? Do I have the right to humiliate a person? Do I consider myself “the best” and others are “worse” than me? Why? Am I better than others at everything? It turns out that I do some things better, and some things worse? Those. like everyone else? Those. Am I like everyone else? Why do I allow myself to feel better by humiliating another? Why do I need to show my superiority over others? After the reason is found, you need to forgive yourself. If you start blaming yourself, you will definitely receive punishment, because where there is guilt, there will be punishment. You need to understand yourself, and then think about what lesson you learned from this situation and change your line of behavior so that similar episodes do not happen again.

The following rules will help the teacher avoid situations that provoke possible humiliation of students:

• Call the child "You". No matter how many years you have been his teacher. This helps to keep your distance and not forget that the student is a person just like you, which means he should be treated with respect. You treat yourself with respect, right?
• Create a clear system of rules of conduct in the classroom and comply with them. When students know what to do and what not to do, it makes things easier for everyone.
• Evaluate student performance using a variety of feedback techniques. Read about them here.
• Demonstrate professionalism. A teacher is a specialist who works following the principles of teaching. (conscientiousness, systematicity, strength, scientificity, etc.) This person will not gossip about colleagues in the presence of his clients (i.e. students), impose his opinion, waste class time on chatter and others not related to the learning process , things. If you treat your work as providing a service and strive to ensure that the client (i.e., the student) is satisfied, then many things in the teacher’s behavior will happen differently. A teacher is a service provider, not a spiritual leader, who should be unconditionally respected only for the fact that he “stooped” to the student and spent his invaluable time on him. When a teacher shows his professionalism, students value and respect him.
• Respect your students, even when they show their shortcomings. Absolutely every person has the right to make their own mistakes. And the teacher is not the Supreme Judge, who is also obliged to accuse, punish and oversee correction. The teacher simply does his job efficiently according to principles and standards, without trying to correct/re-educate the child or make any other contribution to the “fate” of the student.

Situations of humiliation can occur not only in the direction of teacher -> student, but also vice versa. In this case, the situation is kept under control by the teacher, who behaves like a professional and perceives the humiliation directed at him by the student as an indicator of the student’s emotional state. Instead of taking offense and trying to take revenge, a professional teacher behaves like an educational specialist trained in developmental psychology and pedagogy: he analyzes the situation and thinks about what could have provoked such behavior. Maybe this was influenced by the teacher’s behavior in the classroom, maybe it’s because of relationships with classmates, or maybe it’s an echo of changing hormonal levels. In any case, respected by students, a teacher is a professional who knows his business, respects himself and his students, and does not try to manipulate the idea “I’m older, I know what’s best.”

Tatiana Razmyslovich

More interesting materials:

How to competently protect your child from teacher attacks?

Be prepared for the teacher to explain everything to you with reason. He will tell you that his behavior is a response to the child’s personality traits, and yours is a consequence of a lack of understanding of the situation as a whole. Most often, the reaction of teachers in this case is manifested either by aggression, or distant indifference, or tears and pressure for pity. Indeed, every teacher is now under a colossal pressure of responsibility and a heavy burden of teaching load. But all this does not give him any right to offend his students. You can treat this teacher with understanding, but this does not negate your right to complain about his behavior and demand to stop putting pressure on the child.

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