When Teachers Bully Students

Your high school talks big about stopping bullying, but it ignores the worst kind: teacher-student bullying.

85% of schools have a teacher who bullies, and 20% of schools have a lot of teacher bullies. Asking you to put your phone away isn’t bullying—researchers define it as behavior that “threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear or causes students substantial emotional distress.”

https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2018/statistically-speaking

Most teachers are great and don’t do any of this at all, but they’re stuck as bystanders: 2/3 teachers nationwide don’t know where to report—or if they should report—a colleague for bullying a student.



I want a quick solution that will make this a little better.

Teachers are less likely to bully schools with policies explicitly restricting teacher conduct. 35% of schools with this language never observed teacher-student bullying compared to 22% at schools without—this is only correlation, not causation, but it sure seems like a policy wouldn’t hurt. Email or talk to a nice teacher friend asking if they’d be okay with a policy like this, getting their input, then email your principal with the ask. Here’s two templates:

Subject:Can you share thoughts on teacher-student bullying?

Hi Mr./Ms./Dr. [Teacher's last name],

[I've experienced / My friends have experienced] teacher-student bullying at school and noticed there's no language in any school policies against that. From my perspective, this seems like a small, win-win step to decrease this type of bullying, but I'm not sure how teachers would feel about it.

What do you think?

I read a study (https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2018/statistically-speaking) that said 35% of schools with no policy on teacher-student bullying had higher rates of it. It suggests including a policy prohibiting behavior that ""threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear or causes students substantial emotional distress."

Thanks so much.

Regards,
[Your Name]


Subject:Free to talk about our policy on teacher-student bullying?

Hi Mr./Ms./Dr. [Principal's last name],

[I’ve experienced / My friends have experienced] teacher-student bullying at school and noticed there's no language in any school policies against that. Studies show correlation between such policies and lower rates of teacher bullying (https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2018/statistically-speaking).

Are you free to talk about ways this could be incorporated? I want to work with you and our awesome teachers, making sure the policy supports them in addition to empowering the vulnerable students experiencing bullying.

With hope and gratitude,
[Your Name]

In the meeting, suggest language prohibiting behavior that “threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear or causes students substantial emotional distress,” or any other ideas you brainstormed talking to your teacher!

I’m not sure if this is a problem at my school. How can I find out?

Send out a survey to teachers at your school asking if they've noticed other teachers bullying. Create an incentive for survey completion like cookies, or only email the survey to teachers you know and trust—if you take this approach, make sure to also loop in your friends to get as many teachers’ thoughts as possible.

Here’s a google form you can copy.

If you’re getting a lot of “None” responses for the first question, maybe this isn’t a big issue at your school. If you’re getting a lot of other responses, now you have DATA to bring your principal.

Subject:Free to talk about our policy on teacher-student bullying?

Hi Mr./Ms./Dr. [Principal’s last name],

[I’ve experienced / My friends have experienced] teacher-student bullying at school—we surveyed [YOUR NUMBER] teachers and [data summary, eg. half of them said over 5% of teachers in our school bully students].

There’s no language in any school policies against that. Studies show correlation between such policies and lower rates of teacher bullying (https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2018/statistically-speaking).

Are you free to talk about ways this could be incorporated? I want to work with you and our awesome teachers, making sure the policy supports them in addition to empowering the vulnerable students experiencing bullying.

With hope and gratitude,
[Your name]

I’m Feeling Ambitious - This is a problem at my school and I want to SOLVE it.

You should still do the data collection from the previous section, and it wouldn’t hurt to send an email to a teacher you’re close with, like in the first section, but you’re going to make a big move.

You’re going to create an anonymous reporting tool for teachers that lets them email administrators about other teachers they see bullying students. 

There’s a twist: the principal will be the only one who can see the specific complaints, but everyone can see the number of unresolved complaints.

This will put pressure on administrators to actually deal with the situation instead of sweeping it under the rug, but it won’t be extreme enough to put teachers in conflict with each other or cause additional stress.

If you’re interested, email ben@fix.school with the survey data you collected in the previous section and we’ll send you full infrastructure for collecting data anonymously and showing the results, plus email templates you can send to teachers and administrators about this system and strategies to make sure nobody feels targeted or blindsided.

Related: How to get out of a teacher’s class · Your rights at school

Have feedback on this page? Reach out too! We love educator and student input.