Verbal Violence Of Middle School Teachers And Its Countermeasures

The verbal violence of teachers is a kind of language injury that teachers inflict on students in the process of teaching and student management.It has many negative effects on students’ physical and mental development.In pressure-packed middle schools,teachers’ violent language often appears in the classroom,corridor,office and other fields.Some scholars at home and abroad have already probed into this phenomenon,but most of the existing studies are at the macro level.Although they have verbal violence has been classified systematically,there is no detailed analysis and discussion on a certain type.Since most of the research methods are quantitative,there are few qualitative studies and even less in-depth case studies.Studies on verbal violence in primary schools abound,while studies carried out in middle schools are rather limited.Moreover,there is no study on the mechanism of the underlying causes of verbal violence among middle school teachers from the perspective of teacherstudent interaction.The distinctiveness of this study is as follows.First,starting from three typical cases from the perspective of students,this study explores the “victim”group,discourse and its form in common use,occurrence fields and attitudes of bystanders of different types of verbal violence by middle school teachers,and further analyzes its harm.Second,the study starts from three representative cases from the perspective of teachers to explores the possible causes of verbal violence among middle school teachers.Third,based on the theory of “interactive ritual chain”,the occurrence mechanism of verbal violence among middle school teachers is analyzed.Fourth,‘nonviolent communication’ is used as practical guide to construct the model of equal and harmonious communication between teachers and students.The case study is a qualitative research method that focuses on micro-level analysis and explores the hidden meaning behind individual experiences and stories.To collect sufficient research data,this study adopts a combination of observation method and interview method.The main site of the field study is J Middle School(Senior High School),a provincial key high school located in T City,and its affiliated junior high school.The observation period is 3 months.The respondents are 30 teachers and 30 students,including but not limited to the teachers and students of J Middle School and its affiliated junior high school.In the first chapter,this study selects three typical cases of verbal violence by middle school teachers from the perspective of students.The three types of verbal violence are different in many aspects,but they all have something in common with high incidence and strong harm.Teachers using extreme languages to attack students and insulting their dignity is called “insult abuse verbal violence”.“Negative prediction verbal violence” refers to teachers unilaterally and arbitrarily making negative predictions to the students’ future development based on subjective judgement or some characteristics of students in the current period.“Disparaging contrastive verbal violence” means that teacher belittles the individual or group of students through comparison by magnifying the disadvantages of the targeted student and advantages of others.After elaborating three different types of cases of verbal violence by middle school teachers,this study specifically analyzes their characteristics,including the group of "victims",the discourse and its forms in common use,the field of occurrence and the attitude of bystanders,to deeply explore the harm of each type of verbal violence.In the second chapter,three representative cases from the perspective of teachers are selected.Based on the interviews,the current education system and social environment,the various factors contributing to the verbal violence of middle school teachers are further identified.The study found that the three cases respectively reflected the possibility that the vocational nature and work content,the high standard requirements and the assessment system,the relationship between colleagues and personal emotions could induce verbal violence.Besides,the external expediting factors include the extremes of exam-oriented education,family environment and students’ characteristics.The internal expediting factors also include teachers’ authority and traditional concepts,punishment and expression,professional ethics and personal qualities.The third chapter explores the occurrence mechanism of verbal violence of middle school teachers based on Collins’ s theoretical framework of the interactive ritual chain.The results show that verbal violence based on good intentions stems from the reinforcement of "focus of attention".The verbal violence based on helplessness originates from the maintenance of "moral standards";Verbal violence as an emotional vent stems from the destruction of "emotional energy".Verbal violence as a self-serving tactic stems from anger over the "violation".The fourth chapter proposes the countermeasures from two perspectives.Externally,prevention and avoidance measures include improving the formulating,implementation,supervision and management of laws and regulations;optimizing the teaching staff and the examination of teachers’ ethics;lightening the burden of teachers and releasing their psychological pressure;strengthening harm publicity and optimizing the teaching environment;enhancing the awareness of rights protection and giving feedback quickly.Teachers should also act according to the “non-violent communication” mode.Teachers should stop being indifferent,instead,care for students and focus on their development.Teachers should stop giving commands,instead,give students autonomy and build equal relationships.Teachers should stop criticizing,instead,provide help to students and promote their progress.Teachers should stop derogating,instead,encourage students and make them feel being cared for.Teachers should stop making hurtful comparisons,instead,set good examples and create a positive atmosphere.Teachers should stop being impulsive,instead,control emotions properly.This study is expected to eliminate the occurrence of verbal violence by middle school teachers from the root and pursue the beauty of teachers’ language.