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Mohammad Habibi

For years, there has been talk about the position of students and the rights that should be respected towards them. Various official media and social networks, every now and then, create a new challenge by publishing news or a video clip of a classroom and the wrong actions of a teacher, and point sharp criticism towards teachers. During these years, there have been numerous notes and interviews from teacher activists, emphasizing the respect for students’ rights and condemning the ugly act of punishment in the classroom. Teacher unions have also included the defense of students’ rights as part of their goals, by issuing statements and even making changes to their statutes; an example of this is the Tehran Teachers’ Union, which has added the promotion of the status of the three elements of education, namely teacher, student, and parent, as part of its main objectives in its statute.

In the new circumstances, everyone agrees that aggressive and physical confrontation with students in the classroom is against the principles of modern education and should be eliminated from teaching methods. The overall decrease in such incidents in classrooms is evidence of this shared belief and intellectual coherence.

However, it seems that in these circumstances, no one pays attention to the rights of teachers in the classroom.

The problems that teachers face in managing the class and controlling students include the following:

• Given the current conditions in society and the decreasing importance of education, students lack the necessary motivation for learning and acquiring knowledge. Teachers are often faced with the question from students, what impact will continuing their education have on their future and destiny? In a society where negative individualism and profit-oriented values have become entrenched, this question does not seem unrealistic or unreasonable.

• The pressure from higher authorities in education, whether officially through circulars or unofficially, is based on the idea that in order to reduce costs, teachers are required to increase the passing rates and decrease the failures, resulting in a higher number of students being removed from the educational cycle every year. In this process, while ignoring the decline in educational quality, the only tool for teachers to control the classroom and put pressure on students, which is grades, is also taken away.

• The normative changes in the current society, the increase in economic, livelihood, and moral problems among Iranian families, the growth of social networks and the increase of sometimes destructive awareness among students, have created conditions where families practically lose their supervisory role over their children. This issue is particularly evident in higher levels of education. In fact, while families are dealing with many internal problems, the expectation for teachers and schools to provide a more prominent role in education has increased more than ever before.

We must also add the economic and livelihood problems of teachers to these issues. However, despite the mentioned problems, everyone agrees that physical and psychological punishment of students is an unjustifiable act for classroom management. But the question remains, how can a teacher fulfill their role as a supervisor, educator, and scholar in these conditions?

And most importantly, in the face of high expectations, which institution and authority provides support for teachers?

While in recent years, student discipline has been met with appropriate and timely responses from educational authorities, in many cases where a teacher has been subjected to disrespect or even physical harm by a student or parent, no supportive action has been taken by educational officials.

A look at educational processes in developed countries also shows that this issue has been a fundamental problem in recent years, even in these countries.

England is one of the countries that has a long history of implementing strict laws for the benefit of students. However, in recent years and with the increase of disruptive behaviors among students in classrooms, they have passed restrictive laws.

According to these rules, the guardians of guilty students must be accountable for their behavior and actions, and accept responsibility for their bad and offensive behavior in schools. School officials have the right to financially penalize the parents of a student who, for moral or academic reasons, does not comply with school norms and causes distress to teachers or other students. Until this penalty is paid by them, the school has the right to not accept the guilty student in class and in the school environment.

The purpose of implementing such laws is, above all, to remind parents and families of their role and responsibility in the upbringing of their children. Something that seems to have been seriously neglected in our current educational system. Although organizations such as the Parents and Teachers Association have been playing a role in schools for years, their overall role is reduced to simply collecting financial aid for schools and filling the budget gap left by governments. It seems that in these circumstances, and considering the decline in the quality of education and upbringing in Iranian schools and the various limitations of teachers in fulfilling their educational role, incidents of students behaving disrespectfully towards teachers in class are inevitable. Perhaps the formulation and implementation of similar laws in countries like England can be effective in reducing such abnormalities, although it is not the ultimate solution.

It seems that the final solution to such a problem is to improve the relationships between the three elements of education, namely teachers, students, and families. Considering the inefficiency of governments and the neglect of educational officials towards this important issue, collaboration between civil and professional institutions related to teachers and children can be a suitable option for achieving such an important achievement.