Bullying in Irish Education by O'Moore Mona;Stevens Paul;

Author:O'Moore, Mona;Stevens, Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4789901
Publisher: Cork University Press
Published: 2013-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

My research project was a simple one; it was born out of issues which arose when two concerned parents approached me with regard to treatment of their children by teachers at school. A small part of the data collected was quantitative; much of the data collected was qualitative. In retrospect, my visits to the three schools, A, B and C, and my attempted interactions with teachers in each of the schools were approached with trepidation as I was aware that it was unlikely that these teachers had been asked to reflect on their possible negative behaviours in the classroom in the past. On reflection, students and parents were eager to discuss the issue, teachers and principals were less so, as evidenced in the small sample of teacher questionnaires returned, 35 out of 110.

Questions emerged for me which I felt compelled to find answers to, despite the obvious sensitivities of the subjects that would be discussed. As the journey progressed, which became a personal journey of reflection, discoveries were made which will have lasting effects on my practice in the classroom. Some questions still remain unanswered. Why are teachers largely unaware of their Teaching Code of Practice? Why are teachers given no training in Child Protection Guidelines for Secondary Level (2004) and specifically, the possible opportunities within the context of teaching which exist to inflict abuse on students? Why is a document as important and of such magnitude as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) not central to school life? Why do we practise without the frame of the Education Act (1998), Children Act (2001) and Teaching Council Act (2001)? At the very least, why was it not mandatory to have certified training in all of the above areas before beginning to practise as a teacher?

At the outset of the project questions were posed with regard to the existence of dialogue between teachers on the subject of negative classroom management techniques, the level of teacher awareness of the effects of such within the school context and within the context of whole-school anti-bullying policies and what supports existed for those in the profession who wished to discuss their own problems or the actions of a colleague which concerned them. The data yielded suggests that teachers don’t discuss their aggression or a colleague’s aggression towards students and that teachers exist and practise in their own classrooms within their own micro-climate, and no one seems to monitor the health of these climates. It seems as long as teachers are seen to be getting through the course material it is of no consequence as to how the material is delivered or how disruption to delivery is dealt with. The behaviour of students is not viewed within the context of teacher behaviour and only a small percentage of the teacher sample perceive their behaviour as central to how students behave in their classrooms. We seem to expect certain standards of student behaviour in adherence to our schools’ behavioural codes and anti-bullying policies but we do not ‘culturally’ examine our own behaviour within this frame.

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