Psychologist who specializes in student aggression talks about violence in Alberta schools

Welcome back, everyone. A report by the Alberta Teachers Association is highlighting an alarming issue in the classroom. According to the report, half of teachers and 75% of school leaders report some kind of aggression, whether it’s violence or bullying. We welcome Salvatore Durante, who is a registered psychologist as well as a PhD student in counseling Psychology studying student aggression. Thank you so much for being here. This is very interesting. Let’s just quickly go over the results. So according to the ATA, 75% of the the concern comes from students while 11% comes from parents. What do you make of what’s going on in the classroom right now? It’s it’s not too surprising. I mean, we look at elementary school and secondary schools, the physical violence is very common in elementary school. We see more at secondary schools with junior highs and high schools, kind of the verbal, the threats, but it’s not unheard of the physical altercations that happened. Why is this happening? Because, I mean, if we were to say this was happening, you know, report that this was something that was happening 20 years ago, people would be in shock. But it doesn’t seem shocking now. Well, I would, I would suggest that it’s not a new phenomenon. They were reporting, you know, some of the participants I talked to was happening in the 90s even before that. Right. So one of my big findings that I found is kind of so just to really briefly explain my research was I did interviews with veteran teachers. So they’ve been in the profession for at least 10 years because usually the burn out or the attrition rates at the five year mark for a lot of teachers. So I did about two interviews and really kind of looking at the career life development. So they were assaulted by students either be a physical they were stalking in some cases and what that that them to stay in the profession was part of my study and there’s three levels to it of my study. I’ll, I’ll speak to the societal level 1. The other one was kind of educational, kind of environmental. And finally at the individual level I talk about the recovery process. But at the societal level, one thing is that there is, you know, this is internationally, there’s a lack of value for the teaching profession that they’re reporting, right? The Teaching and Learning International survey in 2018 found that only about internationally maybe 25% of teachers felt valued. So I think it’s really just talking about how do we elevate the profession to be a good, more valued in people’s eyes Because it’s being viewed as a generic profession that teachers are semi professionals that you know anybody can teach, right? So it’s easier said than done. And a lot of the time when these aggressive or violent incidents happen, the fingers are pointed at the teacher where it’s more complex. How do we get over that? Because, I mean at one time teaching was seen and it should be seen as a noble profession because they’re it’s about math, reading writing and preparing young people for the real world. I mean what’s what needs to happen to change attitudes here? Well, well, one thing when teachers are you know, they get their they can get their B Ed or you know they can do an after degree as well. They’re pretty much said, well you got your interns teaching certificate even though you taught me majored in social studies you can teach everything and that’s a big challenge, right? Is that you know teachers get certificates right. Is there a way to make it more of how regulatory professions like for me, I had to even though I have my masters. I had to do an internship 600 hours. I had to pass an ethics exam. I had to pass you know E triple P where teachers that’s you got your B Ed. You get to go and teach. Maybe it’s a substitute teacher. Maybe you get part time contract and depending on how you do that could lead you to getting maybe the year later a 1.0 contract where you get your full, you know, teaching certificate, right. So there’s a lot of moving parts for teaching. What are, what are some things that teachers have to hold back even though they made. There’s aggression. You know that when the student says F you in the class or you know they take a punch to the face, right? What are you willing to do to get that contract in some cases right. And so I want to expand upon that. Then there seems to be competing forces at play here, you know, for teachers to kind of get that more specific skill level set, that might be something the union, for example, might, you know, push back against. So how do we find some balance here? Well, they offered the nonviolent crisis intervention of for a lot of teachers in areas. And I mentioned to you and the break was, it’s not always equal, right. Some schools have 0 to merely very minimal aggression where it’s a daily occurrence at other places, right. So we have to elevate the role of the of the teacher in the community. But at the training level level we can’t just rely upon non violent crisis intervention because teachers that are in schools where there is lots of, you know, physical or verbal assaults, they are using this right? And the big thing with, let’s say, for the Criminal Code, Section 43, informally known as the, you know, the the no spanking law, right. Even though if a student is coming at you with, you know, a pencil and they’re both to stab you, you know, in the neck and all that, your response still has to be in proportion. So anything that goes beyond that, right, even if you bruise them by accident by restraining them, I could really get them into trouble. Right. So there’s a lot of parts where I think it’s about a lot of this is one of my findings. We have to create trusting environments, right. So this needs collaboration from, you know, the students, the parents, the teachers, administration, even higher up superintendents, to, you know, up to the, you know, politicians and municipalities, even how we have our schools presented, right. Some schools, the neighborhoods are very dilapidated where other schools is at. So it’s about bringing that community and elevating the role of the teacher and the community and within society. And I guess my final question here, what role does the parent play in all of this? Oh, I I think I know one of their findings about holding the parents accountable. I think we have to be very careful because my fear and even when I was writing my, my thesis that we’re going to go towards very draconian kind of thing, right. It’s where, yes, students have a right to education, but that doesn’t mean that that takes precedence over where they can do anything to you, where you can, you know, assault your teacher and just get a slap in the wrist, which is happening right now as we’re speaking. There’s aggression going on in classrooms right now. And how much of it is really getting reported, you know? So I think it’s it’s a matter of, you know, collaborating with parents. But I think if we went towards, you know, legal consequences and all that, it would just be in the wrong direction. Because our, our, our goal is really just to create warm and friendly environments where we want students to go to schools where they feel comfortable. But at the same time, we can’t just expect teachers. And this is another finding, is that they’re taking on way too many roles, right? So they’re there, You know, they’re there. They’re the students doctor. They’re the parent. They’re the nurse. They’re the psychologists, right. And they weren’t trained for that in a lot of these cases, right, where you know, for me see I have a client and they say to me give me give me your opinion on, you know some medications. I say well I can’t because that’s outside of my competency. So I refer you to physician, you know you’re you’re psychiatrist son, but teachers don’t have that opportunity, right. So I think we this, you know, may be a controversial thing too. Is that challenging kind of some of the aspects of inclusion Alberta, right. The classroom sizes are increasing very much in there too. So you have one teacher with 35 students, you know, maybe, you know, one student has, you know, behavioural concerns, other students have neurodevelopmental concerns, right. So you’re trying to doing a lesson on, I don’t know, let’s say math for example, right. You know how to, you know, divide fractions, takes, you know, gets further down when it’s about developing that social emotional skills. I I will have to cut you off here. We’re running out of time. But obviously a very interesting topic and a lot more to discuss from a societal perspective. Salvatore, thank you so much for coming over here. It’s a pleasure. It’s fun. Excellent.