Violence in Swiss schools escalates
Parents turn up to teachers with pocket knives and pistols
More and more parents are getting involved in the running of the school. Some even use threats and violence against teachers, a new survey shows.
Published: 20 minutes ago
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Updated: 2 minutes ago
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More and more parents are getting involved in the running of the school.
According to a new study by the Swiss Teachers’ Union presented this week, two out of three teachers have experienced violence in schools in the last five years. Blick reported on the shocking study last week.
Further examples from the study have now become known. Parents are usually the ones who attack, but schoolchildren also become violent again and again. In 2019, for example, a student (13) broke his teacher’s jaw with a punch.
In addition to physical violence, the teachers also experience psychological pressure. So there are always chases on the street, passing actions on the way to school, freak out in the classroom. A teacher reports that a father played around with a pocket knife during a meeting with parents.
interference is increasing
A kindergarten teacher tells of a father. He threatened that he would come over with his brother to “ensure order” because they didn’t have the class under control, which his boy was suffering from. The father of a student who was invited to lunch with a teacher and his wife even showed up at his doorstep with a pistol.
“In recent years, interference in school operations has increased. And with it the excesses,” says Daniel Kachel, President of the Zurich Upper School Association Sek ZH. The disputes mostly revolved around grades or impending transfers to the next higher school level, says psychologist Allan Guggenbühl, who is consulted by schools for crisis interventions. Most parents feel that their children are being treated unfairly.
“Schools want to encourage parental involvement. I hear again and again: we are all pulling together, we all have the same interests,” says Guggenbühl. “That’s a bit naive.”
Parents have one main interest: to get advantages for their child so that it is optimally supported. “Parents were allowed into the schools. Now they are there». (zis)