No amuse: abuse of teachers by parents

A bunch of my friends are school teachers, a few in primary and mostly in secondary. Over the past few years, three quitted all of them having received rigourous teacher training. They all said that return is never an option. Enough is enough, I learned from them.

Paper work and extra-curricular activities are part of teaching compoents but it is much more than that. Teaching pupils is both physically demanding and mentally challenging. It pushes ones' mental potential to the brink of collapse.

School kids are home princes and princesses. What's more to deal with nowadays is to serve their parents, Kings and Queens. A few months ago, I met an old friend of mine in our common umate's wedding reception, who teaches in a so-called band-1 secondary school. As a fashionable rule, I asked how band-1 pupils excelled and behaved. No surprise his answer was overwhelmingly negative.

The most telling part of the story was that a father of a pupil, who worked in a managerial level, behaved liked a gangster violently roaring at my friend over his son's irresponsble wrongdoing outside staff room.

This situation seems to be universal and is completely unacceptable. BBC reported today that "four in ten teachers have faced verbal or physical aggression from a pupil's parent or guardian". No wonder a British friend of mine vowed that he will never be a school teacher. 

Having been shocked by my friend's miserable episode, I immediately wondered whether teacher training includes handling verbal violence and potential physical threat, or even self-defence technique. It reminds me of the ubiquitous welcoming notice at airline and immigration counter in England: "verbal violence is NOT TOLERATED!"