Teacher assaults

The Dom Post reports:

At least two secondary teachers are seriously assaulted by pupils every school day, a union survey shows.

The Post Primary Teachers Association says teachers are being punched, kicked, struck with objects, or verbally abused.

I share the concern over teacher safety. Some horrendous assaults have occurred on teachers.

However it would have been useful to not include verbal abuse under the definition of assault. Verbal abuse is also quite unacceptable, but I want to know what proportion of these ten assaults a week are physical, and verbal.

She insisted, however, that it was not a problem in every school.

Principals contacted by The Dominion Post said the majority of assaults were verbal but in a disturbing trend, the age of students responsible for serious assaults such as stabbings were getting younger.

I’d hate to see metal detectors in schools, like in the US, but I do despair at what one can do about these stabbings of teachers.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said while there was “no magic wand” to deal with violence in schools, the Government was taking it very seriously. It had given an extra $15m over two years that would help thousands of teachers receive extra training, including in effective classroom management.

This is well intentioned, but maybe the funding needs to go to detect unstable kids and make sure they get treatment.