Failure to Communicate: Ending School Violence

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, July/August 2020 Issue

By Alex Newman

Violence in schools can exist in many forms: students attacking teachers, violence between students, and individual violent outbursts. In this article we’ll take a look at some different causes of violence, why the number of incidents is increasing, and what to do about it.

First let’s define workplace violence. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, it is “the exercise (or attempt) of physical force by a person against a worker in a workplace that causes or could cause physical injury to the worker.”

That definition should include other forms of violence as well, says Paul Wozney, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, such as self-harm, cyber bullying, and isolation tactics.

A 2017 study conducted by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) reported an estimated 70 percent of Ontario elementary teachers have either personally experienced or witnessed violence against fellow staff in their place of work. A Globe and Mail article revealed that teaching assistants in one British Columbia school board were subjected to 1642 incidents of student violence against staff in the 2017/2018 school year—up from 190 incidents ten years earlier. Charts from other school boards across the country tell the same sad story.

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Alex Newman is a Toronto freelance writer and editor. Visit her website, alexnewmanwriter.com.

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Alex Newman
Alex Newman
Alex Newman is a Toronto freelance writer and editor. Visit her website, alexnewmanwriter.com.

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