ISLAMABAD (Digital Post) When people think about teachers mistreating students, they often picture something physical like a slap, a hit, a raised hand. But research consistently shows that the most common form of harm from teachers isn\u2019t physical at all. It\u2019s emotional and psychological. And it doesn\u2019t stop once students grow up; it continues to show up even among older, adult learners in colleges and universities, not just young children in primary school (Gusfre, St\u00f8en, & Fandrem, 2022).<\/p>\n
Emotional and psychological mistreatment is harder to spot than physical abuse. There\u2019s no bruise, no mark, nothing to point to as proof. That\u2019s exactly why it tends to be so widespread: it can happen constantly, in small doses, without ever being labeled as a problem. A teacher who humiliates a student, mocks their intelligence, or uses their authority to intimidate rarely faces the same scrutiny as one who hits a student, even though the psychological damage can be just as serious, if not more so (Datta, Cornell, & Huang, 2017).<\/p>\n
Across the research, this type of mistreatment shows up as:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Making students feel stupid \u2014 mocking wrong answers, ridiculing a student in front of classmates, or openly questioning their intelligence. This is one of the most frequently reported forms of teacher mistreatment.
\n\u2022 Dismissing students and their ideas \u2014 ignoring their questions, refusing to take their input seriously, or excluding them from class discussion. Over time, this teaches students that their thoughts don\u2019t matter.
\n\u2022 Misusing authority \u2014 using the natural power imbalance between teacher and student to control, intimidate, or punish, rather than to guide or teach.
\n\u2022 Threats, insults, and unfair treatment \u2014 targeting a student repeatedly with harsh comments, unequal treatment compared to peers, or comments meant to shame rather than correct.<\/p>\n
Moreover, this pattern isn\u2019t limited to children. Research on university and college-level students shows the same behaviors persist into adult education; professors and instructors belittling students\u2019 abilities, dismissing their contributions, or using their position to intimidate rather than mentor. This challenges the common assumption that this is only a \u201cchildhood\u201d or \u201cK-12\u201d issue that students simply grow out of once they become adults.<\/p>\n
One of the most important findings in this area is that many teachers genuinely do not recognize their own behavior as harmful. Some teachers see belittling or intimidating behavior as simply \u201cclassroom management,\u201d \u201ctough love,\u201d or \u201cmaintaining standards\u201d; even when their own colleagues, watching the same behavior, see it as unfair or abusive (Hepburn, 2000; Zerillo & Osterman, 2011).
\nBecause emotional abuse leaves no visible mark and is so often reframed as strictness or discipline, it rarely gets challenged, reported, or taken seriously, even when it\u2019s happening constantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD (Digital Post) When people think about teachers mistreating students, they often picture something physical like a slap, a hit, a raised hand. But research consistently shows that the most common form of harm from teachers isn\u2019t physical at all. It\u2019s emotional and psychological. And it doesn\u2019t stop once students grow up; it continues to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":57229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57230,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57228\/revisions\/57230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailydigitalposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}