Bullying in teaching

School teachers are commonly the subject of bullying but they are also sometimes the originators of bullying within a school environment.

Incidence
Comprehensive research carried out in the UK found that teaching was one of the occupations at highest risk from bullying:
 * 15.5% of teachers stating they were currently being bullied
 * 35.4% saying they had been bullied over the last five years.

In another survey, the Economic and Social Research Institute found bullying to be more prevalent in schools (13.8pc) than other workplaces (7.9pc).

Complex dynamics
Parsons identifies teacher bullying as often being part of a wider bullying culture within a school, with a complex web of dynamics such as:
 * teachers may be bullied by: other teachers, students, office staff, principals, school governors and/or parents
 * teachers may bully: other teachers, students and/or parents
 * bullying teachers may themselves get bullied by others in turn

Staffroom bullying
A common manifestation of teacher bullying is staffroom bullying where teachers are bullied by other teachers or school managers.

Manifestations
Bullying of teachers can take many forms in order to harass and intimidate including:
 * face-to-face confrontation
 * memos
 * cyber-bullying (including the use of text messaging or social networking sites).

Bullies often exploit positions of seniority over the colleagues they are intimidating (see rankism) by:
 * criticising their work
 * making unreasonable demands on workload (see setting up to fail)
 * sarcasm and jokes aimed at the victim
 * undermining them by over-ruling their decisions and views.

In some cases, teachers are ignored and isolated by colleagues in the staffroom or turned down for promotion or training courses (see silent treatment).

Impacts
The possible impacts of bullying on teachers include:
 * victimisation and victim blaming
 * false accusations and fabricated formal disciplinary action
 * stress symptoms such as anxiety, headaches, nausea, palpitations, and hypertension
 * symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as a compromised immune system, sleep problems, excessive guilt, irritability, hypervigilance (which feels like paranoia, but is not), constant anxiety, reactive depression and suicidal thoughts
 * loss of self-esteem
 * loss of job

Notable incidents
In April 2012, Stuart Chaifetz, a father of an autistic boy, released a video on Youtube providing evidence that his son was allegedly the subject of emotional abuse at the hands of his teacher and aide at Horace Mann Elementary School, in the Cherry Hill Public Schools district. The evidence was secured when Chaifetz wired his son before sending him to school. When he listened to the audio recording, according to one news report, "Chaifetz says he caught his son's teachers gossiping, talking about alcohol and violently yelling at students. He took the audio to the Cherry Hill School District, where officials fired one of the teachers involved after hearing the tape. Chaifetz's son was relocated to a new school, where Chaifetz says he is doing well." Chaifetz created a petition asking for legislation to allow the immediate firing of teachers who have bullied students. As of April 29, it had garnered over 149,000 signatures.

In popular culture
Teachers being portrayed as bullies have made into popular culture, along with works with teachers being bullied by other teachers, students, and even the principal.

In 2011, there are some scenes which had known that Mr Suhairi asked the students, "Did you see teachers fighting, kicking and boxing in front of the staff room?".