By Neli Demi
The recent footage of a teacher exercising physical and verbal violence against students is not just an "incident". It is an alarm. Violence against children is unacceptable. No relativization. No "we grew up like this too". No excuses with professional stress. Stress does not turn into the right to humiliate or hit.
But if we want to be serious, we need to look beyond the individual. Such a situation does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs in a culture where authority is still confused with fear, where obedience is taken as educational success, and where shame is used as a means of discipline. In this sense, we are dealing not only with a personal failure, but with a symptom of a deeper institutional and cultural problem.
As a psychiatrist, I know well what happens to a child's psyche when the authority figure who is supposed to protect them humiliates them. It creates not respect but shame. It creates not discipline but fear. And internalized fear either produces blind submission or silent revolt. Neither of these builds healthy citizens.
This event (and others like it, whether publicized or not) should push us towards some serious questions:
• Do children have safe and independent mechanisms to report violence?
• Are school psychologists really functional?
• Are teachers trained not only methodically, but also emotionally in managing frustration and authority?
A society that does not protect the dignity of its children is building its future on fear, and our response should not be just three-day indignation. It should be determination to disrupt a culture that has normalized violence as "education."
Children need fair authority, not fearful authority. And this should be a non-negotiable standard.
