“A teacher told me that when he enters the class, he stands by the door in case he has to run away”: Alarming increase in assaults suffered by teachers around the world

In England, for example, nearly one in five teachers in England have been assaulted by a student this year, according to data from a survey conducted by the BBC, which surveyed 9,000 teachers over the past two months.

A closer look at the Spanish-speaking world reveals the same.

In Spain, a high school teacher was beaten and kicked by a student at a center in Valencia a month ago. In Bogotá, a teacher reported online that she brutally beat a student at her school after asking her not to use her cell phone. In Santiago de Chile, the teacher was beaten unconscious by a student who was told by his mother that he would return in a year.

And this is a worrying upward trend.

Lorraine Meah has been a primary school teacher in England for 35 years, with a 5th shift last year, which gives her a lot of flexibility. In recent years, he says, student behavior has worsened.

She says she's seen kindergarten-age students “spitting and humiliating” and exhibiting the worst behavior. 5- and 6-year-olds with “dangerous tendencies” like throwing chairs.

“If there are three or four people in a class of 30 children who exhibit challenging behaviour, it's difficult to deal with,” Meeh tells the BBC.

In Chile, the College of Teachers with more than 100,000 members conducted a survey, 86.8% of teachers were victims of insults and threats, mainly by students and parents, i.e. father, mother or representatives.

In the South, they see these situations nearly double since 2018.

For María Elena Duarte, a Chilean psychologist specializing in education and medicine, one of the reasons behind this phenomenon is a change in how the school and the bond between teachers and students are perceived.

“Before, it was a space where it was respected, although that respect, from my point of view, has to be accompanied by authoritarianism and, in some cases, abuse. The result of that model is good, but, over time, we have moved to another. The school loses all meaning as an institution“, he maintains.

Duarte believes that today's access to so much information and technology has something to do with this loss of meaning.

In a world where access to content is increasingly easy, schools need to adapt and advocate for the learning and development process, and strengthen the bond between teachers and students, the expert says.

“Because this doesn't happen, because the school, in theory, doesn't provide added value, we have a lot of students because they have to attend class, but they don't want to,” he says.

At the same time, “the task of improving the emotional and emotional bond between teachers and students has been lost,” he says.

“On the one hand, we have Satisfied authors, the less optimal conditions for work are increasing, the more work. On the other hand, unmotivated students who don't want to be in class… it doesn't help either party,” he says.

This social change has, in many cases, led to a loss of respect, and in some places they are trying to reverse it through legislation.

For example, in various autonomous communities in Spain, teachers have become persons empowered by law, like a police officer. Therefore, an attack on a teacher is at one level an attack on authority.

But this is not prevented Attacks on teachers are on the rise in Spain.

In Spain, 91% of public school teachers report coexistence problems in classrooms and 8 in 10 have suffered physical or verbal attacks, according to a study by the CSIF union (Central Sindical Independiente y de Civil Servants).

Physical attacks such as pushing, hitting the back of the head, throwing objects and false complaints are more frequent.

Added to this are new forms of mistreatment of teachers outside the classroom, such as cyberbullying.

Behind the statistics, Teresa Hernández, coordinator of the Teacher Grievance Service at ANPE, the teachers' union in Spain, told BBC Mundo that people are afraid to enter classrooms.

“One teacher told me that when he enters the classroom he thinks about where he stands next to the door. If you want to run“, account.

And there is no easy way to deal with a conflict with a student today, he says.

“The teacher must take care not to suffer stumbling or being laughed at because, after the aggressive episode has passed, he must return to class the next day and be professional, because, in addition, it is his turn. The student back in the classroom… it is not easy,” he points out.

It turns into high levels of anxiety.

Hernandez says that of the teachers they work with, about 80% suffer from it, and many are already on leave with symptoms of depression. “These are very worrying data for us.”

A similar phenomenon exists in Chile, where stress-related medical leaves increased last year.

“A lot of people consider leaving this industry, which is very serious, because it's such a beautiful, professional and demanding industry,” says Hernandez.

Theses, studies and consulted experts agree that while conflict in the classroom is not a new phenomenon, there has been something to increase it: Epidemic.

“From there we see more mental health problems, more psychosis, more aggressive behavior in social networks,” says Teresa Hernandez.

“It was a huge stress, not only because our lives were in danger, but because imprisonment made us look after ourselves and see how we manage our emotions and practices. Without that management, the situation would explode like a bomb,” says Duarte.

This will happen Lack of emotional development and behavioral problems.

“In recent years, since the epidemic, we at ANPE have been denouncing the need to address the mental health of the academic community, in this case of students,” says Hernandez.

In the United Kingdom, Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers' union, told the BBC that this state of mental unrest has been “exacerbated by cuts to specialist mental health services for children and teachers have a role to play in filling these gaps.

In some cases, those services didn't even exist before the pandemic.

For many children and adolescents, incarceration means losing a phase with valuable learning: how to live with their peers and how to manage boundaries, Duarte says.

Also, they had to manage socialization through social networks.

“So we returned to the social space with this burden, without the transitional work to connect with the other. And then, in the post-pandemic era, we find ourselves in these abusive situations.

In the relationship between teachers and students, according to experts, according to fathers and mothers, the third leg is very influential.

If earlier it was thought that what the teacher said at home “went to mass”, now the tendency to reduce their authority, overprotect the minors and give them rights in almost everything, blames even the teachers.

Psychologist Mar Romera believes it has to do with declining birth rates.

“That's the deciding factor We have some childrenIf you have a garden with 200 geraniums and one orchid, focus on caring for the orchid. There's more security,” Romera opines.

“If parents protect their children first without questioning anything, those children do what they want in class without repercussions. It worries us that the work of parents is often not done well“, says Teresa Hernandez.

He also pointed out that the task of educating and nurturing minors cannot be the sole responsibility of teachers. “That too must come from home.”

Maria Elena Duarte insists that there is a problem in the bond between teacher and student, which must be worked on like a father or mother developing a bond with their children.

On the one hand, he says, there should be social-emotional work with teachers. But, on the other hand, realizing what happens to minors.

“There is abuse of teachers, yes, but it also happens among students They treat each other worse and worse. It's usually a problem of coexistence,” says Duarte.

And, as he says, it's a two-way problem: “If we have children and adolescents today who can't manage this emotion management, it's because we have adults who can't imagine the importance of it.”

It all depends on one's mental health..

“Both students, families and teachers need to be mentally well. The problems in the classroom are getting more and more serious,” says Teresa Hernandez.

Experts point out that unless this situation is rectified and adequate coexistence protocols are developed, the problem will not end.

*With additional reporting by Lauren Moss and Elaine Dunkley.