They are slowly starting to come to conclusions. They choose words of the year, list important events, and analyze prominent facts. Of course, there are some phenomena that stand out in the field of education. Especially at school. Bullying seems to have become both a word and the phenomenon of the year here. This has probably never been talked about as much as it has this year. It would be nice if the problem was discussed only from a theoretical point of view. Unfortunately, a lot of factual material has also accumulated.
At the beginning of 2023, I was quite tightly integrated into the school system, I was even a 7th grade classroom teacher. And I remember very well that from the beginning of the year there was a wave of instructions on taking measures to prevent bullying in school. They literally fell one after another. Almost every week. Conduct a class lesson on the unacceptability of cyberbullying. Organize a team building event. Remind minors of their responsibility to insult their peers. Talk about school mediation. Organize a master class on conflict management. Organize a contest on tolerance. All of this, of course, was a result of high-profile cases involving varying degrees of fear and madness occurring in children and adolescents across the country.
The school generally reacts “sensitively” to all external events, especially loud ones. For example, if a professor somewhere dismembers a student, there will be unscheduled medical examinations with invited psychiatrists in schools. And if, God forbid, there is a shooting somewhere in any secondary school of the State Budgetary Educational Institution, then a list of activities will immediately be sent to all institutions: from anti-terrorism exercises to psychological training “How to help a victim of bullying to engage in aggression.”
There are many cases. Either a fifth grader attacks his old friend with a knife, then almost simultaneously entire classes in different schools refuse to go to class because of one student, then a girl grabs a hunting rifle. And in every case, there are those who explain what is happening as bullying. Moreover, bullying is often the first and only explanation for everything. People are now shouting incredibly loudly about him with or without reason. The child in the famous parable shouts “Wolves!” They scream like he screams. The effect is generally predictable.
When they start looking at high-profile incidents, the tragedy is often preceded not by bullying but by an argument (which is, of course, terrible).
Or that children suffer because of parental conflict. Or – the victim of bullying, sorry, attacked and bit his classmates due to some mental problems. These are all complex phenomena that require separate investigation, of course, but most often they are not related to bullying.
Substitution of concepts also has various consequences. Sometimes they even seem to exclude each other. On the one hand, the real problem is trivialized. Again, they say that the child screams for no reason, as if he was undermined, frightening him with imaginary wolves – there is no point in paying attention. On the other hand, in the wake of this hype, the topic of bullying paradoxically becomes fashionable; people are starting to play it. And everyone: children, parents and teachers. Someone did not share candy with someone, that’s all, psychological trauma. Someone disliked someone on social networks – neglect, loved someone, but not so – in orbit! And all in all, vile, vile abuse, terrible, terrible bullying.
The subject is blurry. A serious problem becomes an opportunity for irony. But at the official level everything is limited to formalism. But the problem itself does not go away.
Cruelty is carried out silently and unnoticed, but at the same time it is never without consequences – a fresh harvest of ruined souls is always guaranteed.
Bullying disfigures and cripples everyone: the victim, the aggressor, and the indifferent observer. But the real cause of bullying is ugliness and an advanced disease. And it is not solved by orders from above and master classes. How does this disease manifest itself in modern schools? Ah, those are a lot of inconveniences resulting from a lot of bad decisions.
For example, inclusion. It was announced but not implemented. So children are now accepted into all kinds of regular schools, but there are still no conditions for them. Sometimes it comes down to sarcasm – why do they say special conditions if “special children are the same as everyone else” (we will write about this in the course minutes). Although everyone sees that they are not the same.
And children are cruel by nature, if you do not overcome this nature with them, if you do not explain to them that a person is more than biology, then at best they will just stay away from the weak and strange, at worst they will actively and aggressively attack them, as in some flocks of monkeys They refuse. In general, there is no one to explain: teachers working at a rate of 1.5 “need to be given a program.” Teachers or assistants? No, we didn’t. And they didn’t even hear it.
Another school problem is teacher burnout.
The human factor is very strong in the teaching profession. But working conditions are becoming increasingly inhumane. Big workload, lots of paperwork. I couldn’t resist: I left basic training for additional training and even reduced my workload there. The salary is a tear but now I work without nerves and I really enjoy it. Unfortunately, few people can afford it. Many people have more mortgage payments than my tuition.
Yes, of course, increasing workload is not just a characteristic problem of the education sector. Almost everyone works like hell now. But the damage caused by this is not the same everywhere. In areas related to working with people, the consequences may be irreparable. An irritable, tense teacher buried under a pile of reports can hardly respond to someone’s implicit mental distress. And when this becomes obvious it will be too late.
What does optimization and consolidation of schools lead to? They talk about convenience and saving resources. So, what are children like in crowded classrooms, noisy corridors, and corridors where the queue begins in canteens? In gyms where they put four classes in each and give each class a ball? Narrowness of space and scarcity of resources again lead to conflicts, the struggle for a sunny spot, aggressive identification of leaders, sad culling of outsiders and an unhealthy, bestial hierarchy.
What about the desperation of escort services? It is impossible to eliminate bullying in a school if there is only one social teacher per thousand students and this teacher is busy giving discounted travel passes and also teaches lessons by replacing sick students. It is not possible to create a normal psychological climate in an institution where a psychologist works part-time. It is impossible to somehow correct the behavior of potential victims of bullying or potential aggressors if they have not heard of defectologists at school.
There are many problems. Probably not all of them can be solved. At least once and forever. The world is imperfect. They will say that bullying has happened and will continue to happen. But thinking like this means giving up in advance, letting indifference win. There are many problems and they need to be solved. The result may not be guaranteed. You definitely can’t give up on this situation. Not in this case.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.