Finnish schools drawing up crisis plans to prevent bullying and harassment

Norwegian study claims even teachers bully pupils

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Finnish schools are currently compiling crisis plans that will become compulsory next autumn. One of the targets is to draw up an action plan to prevent bullying, violence, and harassment at school.
      A majority of schools already have plans in use for various emergency and problem situations.
      According to a recent Norwegian study, a pupil was bullied by a teacher in every fifth class.
      Furthermore, one teacher out of ten was guilty of bullying a pupil. In most cases he or she harassed only one pupil in the class. A total of 1.7 percent of all 2,400 respondents had been bullied by a teacher.
      According to the researcher, the reasons behind mental violence included the personal traits of the teacher, conflicts between the teacher and the pupils, or the stress and emotional tension endured by the teacher.
     
In Finland, teachers' mental cruelty against children has not been specifically studied.
      However, some information on the occurrence of bullying by teachers was received already in 1993, through the telephone counselling service maintained by the Finnish National Board of Education. A total of almost 400 calls were received.
      Moreover, some 15% of the callers reported that they were being bullied by their teachers. In addition, in 16% of the cases, the pupils' parents believed that even when another pupil harassed his or her classmate, it was actually the teacher who had initiated the bullying.
     
In 2001, a similar help phone exercise received only about 200 phone calls, and just a few callers spoke about situations where a teacher was bullying a pupil. Instead, bullying and harassment at work between teachers and headmasters was more frequent.
      Kiusattujen Tuki is an organization that maintains a national helpline, which is free to the caller. The purpose of the helpline is - in addition to listening and supporting - to give practical advice to callers who are bullied at school or at work. According to the organization, the total number of calls is 3,700 annually, and only about 35 of all calls are related to cases in which teachers are bullying pupils.
      The requested crisis plans will have to contain instructions as to how all kinds of bullying, violence, or harassment can be prevented. The most difficult situations occur when a grown-up person who should control the security at school is actually the one who is guilty of mental violence.


Links:
  Kiusattujen Tuki ry
  Finnish National Board of Education

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