Students at a vocational training school in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, staged a protest in support of their classmate who bullied a teacher. Raising banners reading “no students to courts” the teenagers occupied the school fearing the possibility of criminal charges against the bully student.
The protest takes place a day after a video showing the bully student to threaten and insult with vulgar expressions the teacher was posted on internet and went viral.
The boy is seen and heard screaming at the teacher, and threatening her with violence unless she clears his record of absences from the class.
One hears other students laughing, with one shouting “Punch! Punch!” Another class mate pretends to paint the classroom walls.
during the verbal attack the teacher remains cool.
The incident took place in the vocational training school (EPAL) in Kordelio by Thessaloniki a year ago.
The reason that the video was posted a year later are not known.
The video triggered an outrage especially in the education community, with Minister Niki Keramos to threaten the student with legal measures.
Director of Schools for the Central Macedonia, Alexandros Koptsis, ruled out the possibility of criminal charges, saying that the student has already been punished in accordance with school regulations.
The student was expelled from school for one day, state broadcaster ERT reported.
Protesters’ banner: “No Students To Courts”
The student’s classmates told media that his behavior was not right but he should not face criminal charges.
“We don’t know what happened to trigger his outrage,” one protester said.
He has problems with anger management, a student said, another blamed the teacher saying that she was not able to take the class under control.
Several stressed that the teachers’ behavior needs to be improved.
Kudos to the teacher for staying calm. These classes are hard because of the types of students that are in them. I don’t know how many kids were in the class, but it still looks smaller than almost any I have taught.
It would have been very easy for her to talk back to him and to lower the tone of the classroom even more. I did hear some students telling him to sit down and be quiet.
Teachers in the province are Ontario are in a “work to rule” position now as our contract has expired and the present conservative government wants to raise class sizes without any caps. In the school where I presently teacher, there are already classes of 35,36,37,38. How much higher can they go? As the librarian, I routinely supervise 125 kids. Me. Alone.
Again, my congratulations to her for keeping her cool.