MIND MOVES Marie Murray'The teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants.' - Plato the Republic
Bullying or being the recipient of bullying behaviour are conditions that can pursue bully and victim throughout life.
Research literature, which is extensive on the topic, suggests that bullying may be first witnessed and learned at home, expressed in playschool, tested out in junior school, performed in secondary school and perfected in adulthood.
By adulthood, bullying takes on subtle, insidious and manipulative forms, hard to identify but of catastrophic impact. Bullying may then become a life-long manner of relating to others in the home and workplace, making the lives of those who surround the bully miserable and teaching a new generation the method of enforcing one's will at the expense of others.
But bullying behaviour is hard to tackle. It is complex because it involves such a range of cruelties designed to undermine, isolate, intimidate, humiliate, exclude, frighten, physically hurt or emotionally traumatise others.
Victims may be anyone. The common denominator is the emotional damage, personal pain, degradation and loss of self-esteem and confidence, and feelings of despair that can result. The range of psychological, physiological, emotional and occupational sequelae is enormous.
Most tragically people who are bullied suffer on a daily basis. This is because when they are not the direct recipients of the bully's attention, the threat of the next episode ensures that sufferers live in a constant state of stress and threat.
There are some common psychological features which bullies have been found to share. These include an inability to respect and empathise with others, often deep-seated insecurity and feelings of intense anxiety which find expression in wielding power in any situation in which the bully has the chance of the upper hand.
Emotional immaturity revealed in outbursts of temper, intense sarcasm, or public denigration designed to undermine others are common features. The psychological profile of bullies often includes intense fear of criticism and propensity to shift blame for anything that goes wrong, showing an inability to admit to their own limitations.
Of course, bullying may take place anywhere people congregate regularly: at work, at home, in school, in offices, hospitals, academic institutions, defence forces, police, prison, transport, social services; any public body or private commercial concern.
But one particular form of bullying that has added dimensions is the bullying of teachers by pupils. Ostensibly the teacher is in a position of authority and power, of superior knowledge in the subject being taught, has an official status and the right to conduct the class, control the group and require pupil attention and participation.
In such a structure one would imagine that teachers should be immune from being bullied by their pupils. No so. Instead, teachers have been identified as a group with high reported psychological stress.
Teachers may be bullied for many reasons. Most at risk are young, uncertain, sensitive teachers who may be inexperienced in handling a class, or in setting down boundaries of acceptable behaviour and sanctions for indiscipline. They provide the opportunistic bullies with situations for their amusement.
Alternatively, overly harsh punitive teaching may lead to revolt, which can also appear in classes in which the pace is too fast or too slow, particularly if work is beyond the capability of some students who then challenge the teacher in an effort to save face. Frustration from a previous class is also often vented in the next class.
Of course, any situation where parents have a negative attitude toward teachers, the school or education provides implicit "permission" to pupils to disregard the authority of the school.
The school is also the under-resourced repository of psychological, sociological, family and cultural change.
Teacher bullying takes many forms. Verbal abuse includes questioning a teacher's skill, refusal to comply with rules, codes of dress, class work or homework. High on the list of intimidations are expressions of ridicule, boredom and distain, shrugging, sniggering, intentional noisy disruptions by moving desks, opening windows, dropping books, kicking furniture, cursing and shuffling.
More personal bullying includes intentionally asking embarrassing questions, giving offensive gestures in front of teachers or as they pass, graffiti on the blackboard, insults written or obscenities drawn on copybooks and nicknames that are malicious, particularly those highlighting a physical characteristic a teacher may have, such as baldness, obesity, acne, a stutter or a stammer.
Female teachers may experience physical intimidation by pupils refusing to make way for them along a corridor or entering a classroom, or by uncomfortable physical closeness or sexual touching as they pass desks. There may be outbursts, flinging books, chairs, shouting or spitting. There have been reports of students tampering with teachers' cars.
Male teachers may be sexually harassed, afraid to disclose for fear of being accused of inappropriate behaviour, of appearing weak and unable to control the class or because of embarrassment at being bullied. Younger and older teachers are most at risk.
Teachers are also vulnerable because they must attend class each day, are alone in the classroom with large numbers of pupils, without adult witnesses, and with the threat of litigation if they make any accusation about which irrefutable evidence cannot be produced.
Without detailed anti-bullying policies - formal behaviour contracts with specified consequences if breeched, which are signed by teachers, parents and pupils and therefore protect everyone - the problem can only continue to undermine the classroom milieu and the mental health of all.
mmurray@irish-times.ie
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview, Dublin and co-author of The abc of Bullying RTÉ/Mercier Press.