“Disrespect is skyrocketing. Boys who are openly macho and dare even with veteran teachers,” reflects teacher Dani Cortijo
“The mistake is to think that in schools and institutes we can create new fire,” says the psychologist specializing in child and youth mental health Roger Ballesca-; believe that we can educate children in feminism and the equality and thus we will have a feminist and just society.” And he continues: “That is a fantasy; things don’t work like that. Boys absorb social behaviors and attitudes; if we are in one violent and macho societythey reproduce those behaviors”, says the coordinator of the Childhood and Adolescence Committee of Official College of Psychology of Catalonia.
“The figure of the man is seen as an authority, and that of the woman, not so much,” reflects Roser Calvet, a secondary school teacher
With this logical reasoning explain Ballesca the reality described by countless high school teachers: the students, boys, disrespect the teachers more, women. It is not about generating alarmism, generalizing, or dramatizing, but it is about putting the focus on something that exists and has been normalized. “Is a question of authority. The figure of the man is seen as an authority, and that of the woman, not so much,” says Roser Calvet, High school teacherwho adds that the teachers, women, They have to prove their worth a lot more in front of the kids, something that a man is not required.
“For many kids, being macho is their way of being anti-system, something inherent to adolescence”
The verbal violence It has always existed in high schools, but the worrying increase in sexism among young people is making the situation ugly in many classrooms. “The lack of respect for teachers is skyrocketing. Boys who are openly macho and they dare even with super shot teachers”, reflects the teacher Daniel Cortijo, who points out that today, being macho is considered by many kids to be anti-systemsomething inherent to adolescence.
In parallel and closely linked to this situation, there are not a few teachers who speak of the loss of authority that his figure is living, something that some directly relate to the precariousness of the educational system. They believe that if they force you to teach everything, on topics that you do not control, that causes you to stop generating that admiration in the students.
This questioning of the figure of the teacher has been one of the reasons why the high school teachers union Aspepc called the educational strike this Wednesday. “The problem is that there is an Omerta. A kind of law of silence who denies the deterioration of coexistence in centers via the denial of indiscipline. It’s something that theoretically there is nobut the situation is very deteriorated,” says Xavier Massounion spokesman, who puts on the table the existence of a “systemic indiscipline“.
revictimization
“The insulting the teacher is already a characteristic that has been normalizedand before this the Department of Education the only mechanism that offers is mediation, a mediation that puts the attacked and the aggressor on an equal footing, something that also happens in cases of bullying, causing that many times it is the student who is attacked who ends up leaving the center while the aggressor stays there”, criticizes Masso, who also points the revictimization that the attacked teachers live, who are made to feel Guilty for not knowing how to control the class. What Calvet y Cortijo, Massó agrees that disrespect is more common towards teachers (the majority in a highly feminized sector).
“Sometimes the feeling is transmitted that the limit is a negative thing, something punitive, and the limit is part of the experience of living,” says psychologist Roger Ballescà
Ballesca points out another issue in his eyes definitive: the role of fathers and mothers. “In the last 50 years we have gone from families in which authoritarianism predominated to a environment of hyperprotection and lack of authority, and this has very important effects. Children who do not tolerate frustration Y they do not understand that limits are part of society. We met with Families who find it difficult to deal with their children’s frustration and to schools and institutes that find it difficult to sustain the frustration of families when they come to complain about an unfair situation in their eyes, that is, those of their children,” argues the psychologist.
“We are educating children who do not tolerate frustration and do not understand that limits are part of society”
Regarding mediation as the only answer, Ballesca defends the method, but adds that this “It does not have to serve for there to be acts without consequences“. “Sometimes the feeling is transmitted that the limit is a negative thing, something punitive, and the limit is not punitive by itself; the limit is part of the experience of living“adds the psychologist, who reiterates the idea that we will not be able to create a society of impeccable and fair children if we We transform society.
The influence of networks
Returning to machismo and intolerance, two of the great evils still pending to be transformed in society, the trainer Jose Antonio Martinez Vicar mentions the problem posed by the constant presence of denier messages of sexist violence on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. “The creatures are growing receiving very dangerous messages and very difficult to disassemble. we have to look how we work feminism to bring it closer to these kids. It is not so much a matter of confronting these discourses, but of come down to your reality meet her and, from there, invite them to meet But they are adolescents who come with many taboos and many prejudices and you have to listen to them,” he concludes.