There's nothing new about bullying in schools. Nothing new either about victims making their daily, dread-filled way to the classroom.
What's changed is the profile of the "bullied". These days, too often and in too many schools, it's as likely to be the teacher as the student. More and more teachers are enduring verbal abuse and the leering, smirking and physical intimidation that are the weapons of the bully.
Teachers, and students, agree on the tactics used: the everyday behaviour of the bully includes sniggering, using malicious nicknames, doing obscene drawings on copybooks and homework, temper outbursts, raised eyes, insults on blackboards and graffiti on prominent surfaces. More troubling behaviour involves physical intimidation: flinging class equipment at the teacher, uncomfortable closeness or touching, spitting, refusing to obey rules and saying things like "make me".
Most popular of all is doing damage to teachers' cars. All of these things do not happen in all schools. But some happen in enough classrooms for it to be clear that attitudes and behaviour towards teachers have changed. It's not something teachers care to talk about. Credibility is all in the classroom, as is being in control and loyalty to students. Five teachers were interviewed for this article, just two agreed to their names being used. All agreed on the "declining status" of teachers. All agreed on the need for support from principals and parents for a "code of conduct" and protocols to deal with bullying. And everyone said that such bullying exists because young people see themselves as part of a society in which material things are more valued than knowledge, in which lies and corruption are everyday currency and start at the top. All this, and the fact that the young are exposed to influences that are inappropriate for their age.
Anda Doyle has been teaching for 27 years and says attitudes in the classroom have definitely changed. "Teenagers are very aware of their rights, but there's no question of them having responsibilities. . . and teachers aren't a respected lot these days." Doyle teaches in Blackrock College, Dublin, and is adamant that the only way to deal with bullying is to have a protocol and "very strong back-up all the way to the principal. "Bullying in Blackrock doesn't get anywhere because such a protocol exists," says Doyle. "Any behaviour of that sort is sorted out at the very beginning." That said, she's met teachers from other schools who don't get backup, who've left the job because of bullying. "It has to do with the pressures of being snarled and scowled and leered at, with intimidation. A real problem too is that teachers tend to blame themselves if they've a difficult class, one they can't control. They don't want to be seen as whining, not able to deal with it."
Eamonn Russell echoes all of this. Recently retired after 30 years as a secondary teacher, mostly in south Dublin schools, he adds that young women teachers are particularly vulnerable, as is the lone male teacher in a girls' school or the lone female in a boys' school. "You expect, and can handle, banter, teasing and innuendo. But subjecting young female teachers to obscene suggestions is another thing, and so is firing missiles at the teacher." From a host of experiences he recalls one in particular. "A ball-bearing missed my eye. By way of intervention, the principal said that if the culprit owned up nothing would be done. With this kind of help from the head what's a teacher to do? "Since the abolition of corporal punishment the absurd sanctions put at teachers' disposal are failing. Writing out hundreds and hundreds of lines is meaningless and when teachers, without support, attempt to impose their own codes they're threatened with legal action. It leaves the teacher in a limbo as to what moves to make on discipline."
He also believes that more and more parents are abdicating responsibility for disciplining their children and says it's being left to "increasingly vulnerable teachers".
John, a teacher in a north Dublin school, feels the change in attitude to teachers has happened over the last seven to eight years. "We've created a society that is materialistic, litigious and antiauthority. I don't get bullied because I can deal with it, but you have to be full of energy, keep up the momentum every day. It's exhausting. I see female colleagues being constantly harrassed, called sluts and whores, having to listen to words like `boobs' and `tits'. "Everything from balls of paper to chairs are thrown by youngsters who don't want to be in classrooms, so they have a go at the person keeping them there. This happens in any number of schools. When parents don't support teachers discipline is a lost cause. Managements often don't admit to the problem because it gives the school a bad name. As a teacher, the feeling is that if you can't control things you shouldn't be in the classroom."
A female colleague corroborates this, and more. She recalls "a pregnant teacher getting a dig in the stomach as she tried to get kids out of a classroom. She didn't miscarry, luckily, and the culprit couldn't be identified - although everyone knew who it was. Nothing was done. A lot of teachers live quite dreadful lives."
Teachers recognise the complexity of the causes of bullying. So does clinical psychologist Marie Murray, who has a long experience of working with adolescent family services. According to Murray, a teacher may be bullied because she/he has not drawn clear boundaries of behaviour or because he/she is young, uncertain, sensitive or anxious. A teacher may, on the other hand, be too harsh, punitive or critical, or may simply fall foul of parents who have a negative attitude towards teachers and school. "Teachers are particularly vulnerable," says Murray, "because they must attend class each day, are usually alone in the classroom with a large number of pupils and have no adult witnesses to bullying behaviour. Too often, female teachers are afraid of being seen as complaining if they protest, and male teachers of appearing weak."
Murray says that teachers are often unsure whether bullying is a psychiatric or psychological problem, a medical or educational one, whether it's legal, social or to do with discipline or parenting. The solution, she says, is "a written bullying policy to which everyone subscribes. It should define and detail all likely events and the consequences of those events - and should be signed up to by parents, pupils and teachers."
Anda Doyle goes further. "There has to be back-up from the Minister down. It's all very well to say, as Minister Woods frequently does, that Ireland values its education system. Teachers have to be valued too. None of my students want to become teachers. As they see it teachers, by and large, don't aspire to great wealth and big cars. Contempt for people like this is deep in the psyche of the new Ireland."
