This music educator says she's experienced violence on the job — and she's not alone

Musician and music educator Rosemary Lawton's recent education thesis at Memorial University aims to shed light on the violence music teachers face in Newfoundland and Labrador. (Alick Tsui/Submitted by Rosemary Lawton)

Music educator Rosemary Lawton says experiencing violence in the classroom is an unfortunately common reality for many teachers, one that's personally caused her "significant trauma."

While musical instruments are meant to be played, she says they "can become projectiles really, really easily." She's even had a student hit her with a stool.

And research she recently completed for her master's of education thesis at Memorial University in St. John's shows she's not alone.

"I feel like this topic sort of found me," said Lawton, who currently teaches privately. "I had suffered actual very significant trauma from teaching that really stayed with me for… I mean, it's still with me today."

"One of the participants in my study actually had a student pick up one of those really large wooden Orff instruments, the big xylophones, and throw it at her. And it hit her chest and she ended up having to go and get an X-ray, and they thought that she had broken some ribs from it and stuff."

Violence against teachers has always been a concern, says Canadian Teachers' Federation president Heidi Yetman, but it's likely becoming a more prevalent issue in many places across Canada.

For instance, she says, the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario found in a recent survey that three-quarters of its members had experienced or witnessed violence against staff members, and that there's been an increase in the number and severity of violent classroom incidents.

Heidi Yetman, the president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, says violence against teachers has always been a concern but seems to be becoming a more prevalent issue across Canada. (Submitted by Heidi Yetman)

In mid-November, the CTF held a meeting with education leaders from across the country, including union presidents and executive directors, says Yetman.

"The No. 1 issue that came out was violence," she said. "Very clear."

In an emailed statement to CBC News, the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association said, anecdotally, incidents of violence among students and sometimes toward school staff appears to be on the rise, and the NLTA says it's gathering more data.

The provincial government, though, says it's not seeing an increase in violence.

In a statement to CBC News, Education Minister Krista Lynn Howell said N.L. schools document incidents related to student behaviour but a review of available documented incidents "does not indicate an increase in violent incidents in schools compared with previous years."

The statement also said the department hosted symposiums in 2022 with educational representatives from kindergarten through Grade 12 and the post-secondary system. School violence was not raised as one of the major concerns, says the statement, although it wasn't the focus of the symposiums.

Violence on the job

During her first week on the job as a music teacher, Lawton says, she wasn't informed that a student in her class had a behavioural disability. The student became physical with her, she says, but she didn't have the necessary training to defuse the situation.

In a survey of 49 music educators in Newfoundland and Labrador for her thesis, she said, 59 per cent of participants reported experiencing violence in the classroom — including physical violence, verbal threats and cyber-bullying.

Through her research, Lawton said, she found there often aren't enough student assistants or instructional resource teachers assigned to music classes — instead, those resources are put in more core subject areas like math or science.

"So often they're kind of, you know, moved from classroom to classroom in whatever space can benefit them the most," said Lawton.

LISTEN | Hear how one music teacher's trauma led her to write a thesis on an unexplored topic: 

"And there's this sort of idea of the fact that a lot of people see music class as like, the fun class, the class where you can kind of take a break."

While funding varies from province to province, says Yetman, generally speaking, provincial governments decide how much funding is allocated to education and then provide funding to school boards, which then decide how to spend that money in schools.

She says the CTF is trying to see if there's a way to receive more federal funding for education, particularly when it comes to mental health. Yetman said the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have cost students a couple of years of emotional development and socialization.

"That is probably another reason why we're seeing this increase [in violence]."

The Education Department's statement says it has boosted mental health resources since the pandemic hit with about $4 million for an additional 40 administration/guidance units.

The president of the province's largest public sector union says he's hearing of more incidents of violence toward student assistants as well.

There also seems to be more incidents of violence toward student assistants in the province, says Jerry Earle, the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees. (Mark Quinn/CBC)

"I had one student assistant show me the bruises on her arms where she was so violently grabbed that that left significant bruising," said Jerry Earle, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, which represents the province's student assistants. "And this repeats itself in a number of our schools."

Earle says an increase in classroom violence could be the result of an insufficient number of student assistants.

Student assistants also aren't always properly trained or resourced, he said — for instance, he said, some student assistants who fill in on a temporary basis aren't provided with adequate crisis prevention intervention training.

Solutions for safer schools

Lawton says the teachers she spoke with for her thesis had a number of suggestions about how schools could be made safer for teachers, including providing teachers with better methods to call for help, such as repairing broken in-classroom PA systems.

She also says having proper storage measures to lock away instruments is important for music teachers in particular. It's also crucial, says Lawton, that more people receive crisis prevention intervention training.

"This research for me has been incredibly empowering, because I've gotten to a point now where, you know, if I was faced with a situation or if I had a friend who was faced with a situation like this, I know what my rights are," said Lawton.

"I know what their rights are, and I'm going to fight for them. I'm not gonna just sit by and let that happen."

Lawton says the teachers she spoke with for her research had a number of suggestions about how schools could be made safer for teachers, including providing teachers with better methods to call for help, such as repairing broken or ineffective in-classroom PA systems. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Yetman agrees more resources need to be allocated to mental health support in schools.

The reasons for an increase in classroom violence vary, she said, but they can include a fear of reporting violent incidents as well as a lack of trust or support from school administration.

It's important for unions to continue encouraging open communication to ensure teachers flag instances of violence so they are properly addressed in the future, she said.

"If we don't report and a student continues to do something violent over and over again, we have no proof that this has been going on for a long time," said Yetman.

Earle said some people feel aggressive interactions are part of the job — not so, he said.

"It should never be part of a job where it's accepted that violence, assaults, physical or verbal otherwise are accepted as part of a job, especially in the educational system. That should never be something that's accepted."

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