Ann Wason Moore opinion: Our schools and teachers are under unprecedented pressure

It seems schools are in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, but fault often lies elsewhere, writes Ann Wason Moore.

Another day, another school in the headlines.

Snapchat scandals, student deepfakes, inappropriate videos, offensive lists, bullying … barely a week goes by without some educational institution making the news for all the wrong reasons.

So what the heck is wrong with our schools?

While some seem to have failed in their duty of care by, for example, not adhering to mandatory police reporting, the vast majority are simply the easiest to blame when it comes to students’ bad behaviour.

After all, minors cannot be identified but schools can, and so they bear the brunt of public vitriol and the burden of responsibility, even if the controversial actions occurred outside of school hours or off school grounds.

Just look at this example from April: “Brisbane Boys’ College students threw a wild party at an Airbnb house, resulting in significant damage and a police investigation.

“The party was booked under the guise of a family of five and footage captured by neighbours showed hundreds of revellers at the property, damaging the plumbing and throwing expensive appliances and a mower into the pool.

“A16-year-old Kevin Grove boy and a 16-year-old Fig Tree Pocket boy were dealt with under the Youth Justice Act.”

The kids were clearly to blame and were rightly punished, but it’s only the school whose reputation was damaged.

Yet how could it have possibly prevented this?

Teaching is an industry that is fatigued with burnout as teachers deal with an extraordinary level of pressure.

Look, schools absolutely have a responsibility to create a healthy and respectful campus culture, to be aware of toxic elements within student cohorts and to enforce rules and consequences. Perhaps most importantly, they must treat every instance of unacceptable behaviour with the gravity it requires, they must ensure that staff are trained in trauma-informed care, and that their environment is not one in which racial or gender bias can survive.

But there is still only so much that schools can do.

That’s not to say they can’t do more than what occurs currently, there is always room for improvement.

But we also have to accept the limitations of schools and of teachers. We are talking about an industry that is already fatigued with burnout, that is fighting fires on fronts that never existed a decade ago, that faces an incredibly overcrowded curriculum and even primary school-aged children whose behaviour can legitimately be classified as criminal.

We need to look further and deeper into what is fuelling this current culture of sexual and physical violence and transgression. Because it’s not just Gold Coast schools that are in the headlines, not even just Queensland or Australian schools, this is a global problem.

Schools have a responsibility to create a healthy and respectful campus culture. But there is only so much they can do.

Of course, we’re lucky here that we don’t have to contend with school shootings or a political climate that teeters on the edge of civil war … but that doesn’t mean we have to allow this culture to continue.

I have a number of teachers in my wider social network, and what they tell me is cause for alarm. Classrooms trashed by prep students, daily verbal abuse and even bruises and scratches where they have been attacked.

They say for every ‘problem child’ they deal with, there is another side of that story … the absent parent. Almost exclusively, the parents they most need to speak with are the ones least likely to show up.

And when the behaviour escalates, it’s the schools rather than the parents that end up with the bad rap.

Yet if we look at what is happening in the wider community, where young people are stealing cars, attacking officers and bashing bus drivers, it’s obvious that schools are caught in the crossfire of a cultural issue.

Blaming them is an understandable but ineffective reaction to a complex problem where there are no simple solutions and no quick fixes.

Schools can certainly be part of social change, but the lesson here is that we need to accept our own responsibility when it comes to both the problem and the solution.

Originally published as Ann Wason Moore opinion: Our schools and teachers are under unprecedented pressure