School teachers are commonly the instigators of bullying within a school environment, and are often the subject of bullying themselves.

While teacher bullying is recognized as serious and harmful, there are no statistics on either teachers bullying others or teachers being bullied.^[1] However, according to an article, a high percentage of teachers admit that they bully their students.^[2]

Comprehensive research carried out in the UK found that teaching was one of the occupations at highest risk from bullying:^[3]

• 15.5% of teachers stating they were currently being bullied
• 35.4% saying they had been bullied over the last five years.

In another survey, the Economic and Social Research Institute found bullying to be more prevalent in schools (13.8%) than other workplaces (7.9%).^[4]

Students with learning disabilities may be especially at risk for teacher bullying.^[5]

There are complex issues with reporting bullying by teachers, not only for children, but also parents. By means of their position of power over the child, power that enables them to impact the child's present and future,^[6] children and parents are reluctant to report.^[7] There are specific signs that parents should watch for as their child is unlikely to disclose that the teacher is in fact the bully.^[8]

Furthermore, a teacher who bullies may present as a Jekyll and Hyde figure: they are often celebrated and popular so their abuse can go on for long periods of time undetected.^[9] Research on teachers in classrooms is lacking and it is unclear how much these activities go undetected or rewarded by teachers in the classroom. For coaches teaching a sport, it can be seen that adults are often rewarded for bullying conduct that would never be tolerated or condoned if done by a child.^[10]

Parsons identifies teacher bullying as often being part of a wider bullying culture within a school, with a complex web of dynamics such as:^[11]

• Teachers may be bullied by: other teachers, students,^[12] office staff, principals,^[13] school governors or parents
• Teachers may bully: other teachers, students^[14] or parents
• Bullying teachers may themselves get bullied by others in turn

A common manifestation of teacher bullying is staffroom bullying where teachers are bullied by other teachers or school managers.^{[4][15][16][17][18][19]}

In investigating teacher bullying, it is important to differentiate a teacher or coach who is demanding versus one who is demeaning. So "yelling" for instance can be highly productive and motivating, but if it involves belittling and is laced with putdowns, personal attacks, and insults, it becomes abusive.^[20] Bullying by teachers can take many forms in order to harass and intimidate including:^[21]

• Swearing, or yelling, especially in close proximity to the child
• Using homophobic, sexist,^[22] racial slurs, or direct personal attacks, comments targeting a child's disability or difference
• Humiliating
• Berating
• Ignoring or shunning
• Throwing objects
• Raging
• Expressing disgust at the child through gestures or facial expressions
• Muttering obscenities so only the targeted child or children hear
• Hypocrisy (ex: telling a student not to say "well" despite using the same word while communicating)
• Physical assault

Bullying of teachers can take many forms in order to harass and intimidate including:^[23]

• Face-to-face confrontation
• Memos
• Cyberbullying (including the use of text messaging or social networking sites)

Bullies often exploit positions of seniority over the colleagues they are intimidating (see rankism) by:^[23]

• Criticising their work
• Making unreasonable demands on workload (see setting up to fail)
• Sarcasm and jokes aimed at the victim
• Undermining them by over-ruling their decisions and views

In some cases, teachers are ignored and isolated by colleagues in the staffroom or turned down for promotion or training courses (see silent treatment).^[23] Other times, teachers are ostracized as whistleblowers when they report to administrators on students' reports of bullying being done by their colleagues.^[24]

The power imbalance of teacher to student is greater than peer to peer and may well intensify the impact. The possible impacts on a child of bullying by teachers include:

• Victimisation and victim blaming^[11]
• False accusations and fabricated formal disciplinary action^[25]
• Stress symptoms such as anxiety, headaches, nausea, palpitations, and hypertension^[4]
• Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as a compromised immune system, sleep problems, excessive guilt, irritability, hypervigilance (which feels like paranoia, but is not), constant anxiety, reactive depression and suicidal thoughts^[15]
• Loss of self-esteem^[15]
• Loss of job^[11]

In April 2012, Stuart Chaifetz, a father of an autistic boy, released a video on YouTube^[26] providing evidence that his son was allegedly the subject of emotional abuse at the hands of his teacher and aide at Horace Mann Elementary School, in the Cherry Hill Public Schools district.^[27] The evidence was secured when Chaifetz wired his son with a microphone before sending him to school. When he listened to the audio recording, according to one news report, "Chaifetz says he caught his son's teachers gossiping, talking about alcohol and violently yelling at students. He took the audio to the Cherry Hill School District, where officials fired one of the teachers involved after hearing the tape. Chaifetz's son was relocated to a new school, where Chaifetz says he is doing well."^[28][29] However, it appears that students with learning disabilities may be especially at risk for teacher bullying.^[5]

In June 2014, Britain proposed the "Cinderella Law" which would put emotional abuse in the Criminal Code.^[30]

Teachers being portrayed as bullies have made into popular culture, along with works with teachers being bullied by other teachers, students, and even the principal.

• Mobbing
• Personality disorders
• School bullying
• School violence
• Sexual harassment in education
• Sexual harassment and abuse of students by teachers
• Workplace bullying