'I've had students yell 'pedophile' at me just for disciplining them'

“There’s not a single parent or teacher out there who is not concerned about this issue.”

Warning: Contains graphic content. 

Teachers at Australian schools have reported an increase in students making “nonchalant sexually charged” comments and accusations towards teachers and students. 

There have also been reports of students making sexually explicit comments towards teachers, accusing them of being pedophiles and sharing pornographic memes of them online. 

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Australian teachers have reported an increase in "nonchalant sexually charged" comments to teachers. Picture: iStock

Students calling teachers “potentially career-ruining terms” in class

A NSW teacher shared their dismay with the current sexual culture arising across the state, particularly with female students. 

“Students, male and female, although in this particular instance more often female students very casually accusing male teachers of being paedophiles,” they said on the online forum. 

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The teacher also said they’d witnessed “disturbingly graphic public declarations of sexual acts” towards female teachers and students. 

“We recently suspended a boy who had a Word document with a list of various girls and women at the school and his preferred sex acts for each one,” the teacher said. 

Another example included “numerous boys” who were suspended for making catcalls such as “clap them cheeks” and “beat the p**sy until it bleeds” to girls.

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Students have also been heard discussing their “sexual exploits” halfway through class, “yelling across the room derogatory slurs like sl*t, wh*re etc.”. 

Online, teachers described how damaging the comments and accusations from female students can be, experiencing “potentially career-ruining terms” that reportedly go mostly unpunished. 

“I'm female, and I've had students shout ‘pedophile’ at me when I try to give them an assessment or manage behaviour,” one said. “I've had students to go management and make up lies about things I did NOT say to them, and all because they got a grade they didn't like.” 

However, other teachers pointed out that it wasn’t just an issue with female students; they’ve also noticed "heightened use of misogynistic language and behaviours by male students, some as young as five".

“I heard a year 7 male explicitly describe what sexual acts he was going to do to someone,” a teacher wrote. 

Another example included a group of boys at a private school who were drawing penises on their books and threatened to “p**s in the corner” if they were denied access to the bathroom.

“I was recently at the centre of a situation in which grade 12 boys were making such foul, sexualised comments about me that a grade 11 boy in the room put in a complaint to admin because it made him so uncomfortable,” another educator wrote. 

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“We need to do more”

There has been a worrying increase in graphic and abusive language and behaviour by male students directed towards female teachers. 

The Herald Sun reported a litany of social media posts from high school students across the country, accusing teachers of having relationships with students and being pedophiles. Other posts included students matching their teachers up as couples, simultaneously mocking them online. 

Many have put the onus of this behaviour on online influencers such as Andrew Tate, who has been charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang, and others who have infiltrated social media, sparking the rise of the “manosphere” - AKA online content aimed at promoting toxic masculinity, misogynistic rhetoric and attitudes, and sexually explicit content targeted towards women. 

George Variyan, a researcher at Monash University, said social media has acted as an “echo chamber” for manosphere influencers.

“We need to do more, and it’s not just about having a one-hour consent education incursion,” he said. “This kind of profane behaviour has always been there, but now technology is amplifying this.

“There’s not a single parent or teacher out there who is not concerned about this issue.” 

One of the first steps could be a nationwide implementation of a collective system of reporting for such behaviour and language in Australian schools, as Samantha Schulz, senior lecturer at Adelaide University, explained.

“Little change will be made until the problem is measured and acknowledged, and a unified system of reporting is put in place,” she said.

Originally published as 'I've had students yell 'pedophile' at me just for disciplining them'