One minute of silence in memory of the teacher, photo: CTK
Schools across the country have held a day of mourning for the teacher who was stabbed to death by one of his own students in the east Bohemian town of Svitavy last week. Schools hoisted black flags in honour of his memory and teachers abandoned regular classes in favour of a debate on violence and aggression in schools.
The tragic death of a teacher stabbed to death with a hunting knife before the eyes of a class of 16 year olds has sent shock waves throughout the country and highlighted the fact that all is not well with Czech schools. In the same week another sixteen year old boy fell from a fifth floor school window and although the incident is still under investigation his class mates say he jumped intentionally because he'd broken up with his girlfriend. There have been numerous cases of bulling which ended in grievous bodily harm, suicide attempts or serious psychological problems. Teachers complain that teenagers are becoming increasingly difficult to control and that many of them bring weapons to school. In the wake of the Svitavy tragedy they have expressed serious concerns for their own safety. At a press conference in Prague this week education minister Petra Buzkova stressed that although she would take steps to get teachers better legal protection, she considered prevention to be a much sounder approach to the problem. In addition to protecting teachers -it would give problem children the help they clearly need:
One minute of silence in memory of the teacher, photo: CTK
" Since teachers work in an environment that can be potentially more dangerous than others I am prepared to ask the justice minister to include teachers in the list of high risk professions against whom an attack would merit tougher punishment. However I do not think that in cases such as this it would make any difference since offenders of this kind are usually blind to the consequences of their actions. I believe that the best approach is prevention -that is to give teachers better psychological training which would help them detect problem children at the outset. Ideally, it would be good to have a psychologist at every school -someone qualified to deal with such problems who would monitor children and teenagers long term."
The sixteen year old boy who committed this horrific crime remains in police custody. The police have not revealed his motive, but his parents and schoolmates say that he had, on numerous occasions, claimed that the teacher in question ridiculed him in front of the whole class. His parents said they had no idea things were so serious. Similarly, the 16 year old who apparently jumped out of a school window after breaking up with his girlfriend had threatened to do just that on several occasions. His classmates said none of them took his words seriously.
