Bullying of teachers by teenagers has become a sad reality

Legislators are currently considering drafts of a number of laws that, in fact, overlap. Laws on the protection of the honor and dignity of teachers, on the prohibition of children’s video filming in the classroom, as well as on the total ban on the use of gadgets by students in the classroom. In particular, it is proposed to hand over phones to security guards or class teachers at the beginning of the school day for the entire period of full-time education.

Needless to say, the problems that came to the attention of legislators are really real and serious. Bullying of teachers by teenagers and even younger schoolchildren (!) is a sad reality of the modern school. The forms of this harassment can be quite sophisticated, in particular with the use of modern information technologies. Thus, bullying at school (bullying one of the members of the class team) in relation to children is complemented by bullying directed against teachers.

At the heart of this phenomenon is children’s gadget worship. A smartphone for many of them today is an analogue of a pagan idol. He is literally worshiped, possessing a fancy gadget is a matter of prestige. If before the sign of “coolness” was fashionable jeans or sneakers, today it is the latest model of a smartphone that plays an extremely important role in the lives of children. So significant that it is even difficult for an adult to imagine. I know of cases where taking a smartphone from a child as punishment for his misdeeds led to suicide attempts.

The grandfather of a fifth grader laughingly told me how he unsuccessfully tried to get his child out of bed on Friday morning so that his granddaughter would not oversleep school. But after the grandfather’s categorical statement that if she was late for classes, she would be deprived of a smartphone for Saturday and Sunday, the child instantly jumped out of bed!

Today, everyone is a director for himself and can shoot any video with the help of a camera built into his phone, and then transform the image in Photoshop at his own discretion. As a result, with the malicious intent of the student, teachers can look very unattractive in this video.

A couple of years ago, a seventh-grader blogger started up at my school, whose blog gained a record number of likes every day. One blog title spoke of the talent of this young gadget fan. The blog was called The Secret Life of the School. Teachers flashed on the screen with painted genitals, in very frank poses, and similar vulgarity. Shut down this blogger by threatening to remove him from the web? But this will only add to his popularity. In addition, nothing will stop him from creating a new scandalous blog. What to do?

I decided to drag him to the rehearsal of my theater studio. In this lesson, I showed the children how the actor works with facial muscles, moves his nose and ears, creating stage images. In other words, he made faces. Of course, the guy “imperceptibly” filmed, not denying himself the pleasure of posting the respected director in such an unsightly form on the networks. After class, I asked him to stay.

“Don’t think that I didn’t notice your “secret” shootings. I must tell you that according to legal and human laws, they cannot be done without the consent of the object. Besides, I have an offer for you.

– Which?

– And you secretly film your naked grandmother in the bathroom and put it on the net. You will get a thousand likes.

The young man’s face was covered with red spots. The thing is, he’s basically an unhappy guy. His parents don’t care about him, they left him. Grandmother took care of her. The guy has a literally holy attitude towards her. And when he imagined that such a muck could touch his own person … As a result, the filthy blog disappeared from the networks.

What is there to say about teenagers. Even third-graders have already been marked by teacher harassment. Due to professional necessity, I regularly watch videos related to the psychological and physical violence of teachers towards children. On one of them, in the corridor of the school, an angry teacher beats up a third-grader. Isn’t it the outrageous behavior of a teacher who should be immediately expelled from the profession and put on trial?

But I don’t know at all what preceded the teacher’s outburst of aggression, and I see this as a sophisticated manipulative directing. It was necessary to bring the teacher in the lesson to such a state, and then, foreseeing the consequences, start shooting. Children are still those manipulators. Let me remind you that we are talking about the third grade!

So what exactly should be done to curb such excesses? Will changing the law help? The question is not easy.

The fact is that the smartphone is the personal property of the child, which we have no right to encroach on. Neither the school security guard nor the class teacher may search a student at the entrance to the school or classroom. In addition, a mobile phone is an operational form of communication between a parent and a child. In a big city full of dangers, a parent has the right to know where the child is at the moment: has he reached school? did you run away from classes before they were over? To answer the last question, parents have mobile phones of class teachers. So it turns out that in modern conditions one cannot do without mobile communications. Therefore, not all parents will advocate the forced selection of gadgets from children.

In specific circumstances, decisions must be made by the school itself. For example, if the governing board of the school (namely, today it is the highest authority in the educational institution) decides that mobile phones are handed over to security at the entrance to the educational institution or to the class teacher, then so be it. And if not?

Then it remains to rely on the qualifications of the teacher, his ability to conduct classes in such a way that it would not even occur to the child to be distracted by extraneous activities. By the way, using a smartphone can not only generate, but also extinguish possible conflicts. For example, a literature lesson is supposed to work with the text of a classical work, and a slovenly student forgot the text at home. Then, instead of tedious and meaningless reproaches, the teacher says to the child: “It’s okay. Type in the tablet the appropriate chapter of the work under study. And we will continue to work.”

So the gadget turns from a dangerous bullying mechanism into an element of a teaching aid in the classroom.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29000 dated March 30, 2023

Newspaper headline:
Kids and Gadgets: Dangerous Worship