Stop School Violence Worldwide

We always worry about kids being bullied in school. From freshmen being shoved into lockers to kids being picked on because of their size, sexual orientation, clothing, and a number of other factors, bullying is a very real and sometimes deadly consequence of attending school today that shouldn’t even exist.

But I was shocked to learn how much violence is perpetuated in schools worldwide by actual teachers. When I was teaching in Spain, I did experience one teacher who was so biased toward her Gitano, or gypsy students, that she would verbally make fun of them and use them as bad examples right in front of the whole class. She would smile at me, as if this were totally justified, and then continue teaching as the children she talked about looked down at their desks, ashamed. And then you wonder why the gypsy students had the highest dropout rate!

But this violence is even worse than that. There are teachers out there who sexually abuse their students as “tuition” for teaching! I suppose this should not be surprising since we’ve seen so many priests turn into pedophiles as well, but both teachers and clergy should be people we can trust—not the predators we work so hard to protect our children from

In this video, there’s also a boy who is kicked to the ground—a savage “punishment” for not wearing his school uniform. As against corporal punishment as I am, this takes beatings with rulers and paddles to an entirely new level of brutality.

If we can’t entrust our kids with teachers, who is really left to trust to help us teach our children? Sure, some of us can homeschool—I’ve been considering it for a while, and having home schooled a sibling I know that I could do it—but most of us have to work long hours to provide for our kids in the first place, leaving little to no time to plan lessons, let alone give them.

That’s why the Plan USA “Learn Without Fear” Campaign is so important. In this campaign, the United Nations is being asked to stop this worldwide violence by developing violence-free action plans with teachers and authorities, working with governments to collect data in all schools for violence assessment and prevention, and especially creating a safe reporting system for kids to be able to use in reporting violence that they witness or experience.

You can sign the petition, watch the video, and learn more here.