Kidopia - Why do teachers ignore it when kids call each other names or pick on others?

Why do teachers ignore it when kids call each other names or pick on others?

For teachers, or anyone who knows, I see time and again kids in school picking on the 'ugly' or the 'poor' kid with no interference from teachers or staff, particular in 4th and 5th graders.

Is there some sort of teaching that says teachers are not to interfere when kids are interacting this way? These picked on kids come home, sometimes, in tears. What do you say?

Public Comments

i think some teacher teach for the money not for the kids. other times they feel that they can never get on the good side of all kids, so they stay along with the majority...

other times they feel that interfering will only make it worst for the poor kids, they 'll get pick on more...so they ignore it
I know it sounds silly but they might not want to get involved because there scared of the kids too. I am horrible at defending myself and I have seen this happen and I was scared of the kids too and I'm a 25 yr old women.
OMG! You don't expect them to get involved do you? They are too busy planning their summer vacation. Besides, most teachers are afraid of the kids. We need more men in public education. I read somewhere (and quite a while ago) that approx. 54% of all applications filed for elementary teaching jobs in the US were filed by completely qualified males, but less than 20% of the hirees were male. What does that tell you about the profession as a whole?
this is not a healthy enviroment for children to be in. It could continue to high school and cause long term low self esteem or other emotional problems. Even teachers or administrators will pick on "different " kids . I was one of those kids and when I grew up I matured and enjoy being different from most people. Nobody's perfect. these kids need to grow up and show respect for others. Maybe they aren't taught manners at home. My mother never did any thing to help when I was picked on or to help my self esteem. I finally helped myself when I got older. The kids who are picked on need to be in a better enviroment where they can learn without harassment. who can do well if your constantly being harassed by others? I'd recommend homeschooling. I have no kids but if I did they would be homeschooled. This is a common reason why parens seem to homeschool.
I think hte teacher should interfere and reprimand not just for that incident but as a lesson on respect as a whole.... It causes alot of issues for the targets and it is something that needs to be addressed we as adults wouldnt like it if a student called us those name
My only insight is that the bystander kids have to be empowered to do something and say something. I think most of this goes on in places in school where adults are not around. A group of kids who show they will not tolerate bullying of one of their members is the best defense. It has been shown time and again that if just one person steps up, others will follow. We need to really work on this in the early grades so people do step up and start that chain reaction.
There are a few reasons.

(1) They don't actually notice it. The child often assumes that the teacher has noticed all that's going on, but with 20 or 30 children in a class (or more), teachers are often not aware of a lot that's going on.

(2) They don't want to get involved because they think it's something that the kids need to work out on their own. And sometimes children do need to figure out how to handle such problems--it can be a hard judgement call to know when to jump in.

(3) They don't want to get involved because they've already got way too much work to do. There is so much paperwork involved in teaching and getting involved usually means that they'll have to write up more paperwork. And get parents upset at them no matter how they handle the situation. (These days parents are rarely on the side of the teacher and usually complain and cause trouble for the teacher no matter what they do. In fact, I know a teacher who almost got fired for rescuing a child from an oncoming bus--her department head thought she'd done the wrong thing because she had to pull the child out of the way and then parents thought she was man-handling the children. Anyway, that sort of thing teaches a lot of teachers that it's better to pretend not to see trouble.)

(4) Administrators discourage it. They don't come right out and say to teachers to ignore such stuff. But if a teacher notices such things and ends up disciplining some of the children involved in such incidents, the school administrators start causing trouble for the teacher. Why? School administrators have to report statistics on disciplinary issues. They get called on the carpet by school district officials if there are too many disciplinary reports because it makes their school look bad. So the way that a lot of administrators solve the problem is to give the teacher enough grief until the teacher learns to only deal with such situations on rare occasions. Then fewer incidents are reported and the school looks good. (It's all a political game that shouldn't be going on.)

(5) Teachers are human. Sometimes they might actually think the child deserves to be picked on. Perhaps the child causes trouble in class. Or perhaps the teacher thinks the child is dressed badly or whatever. Doesn't make it right, but it does happen.

(I once heard a teacher agreeing with some bullies because a child didn't dress like the other children and wore a different style of pants. The teacher made nasty comments about the fact that the child seemed to have only one pair of pants and they were so out of style. I got so mad at the teacher (who seemed to be one of the bullies).... I pointed out that the child was always cleanly and neatly dressed and what difference did the style make... And then I went and dealt with the problem even though the student wasn't in my class and his teacher was right there and should have dealt with it.)