Entering the teaching profession can be exciting and scary, particularly for new teachers who face a steep learning curve and enormous responsibilities. Unfortunately, many new teachers encounter workplace bullying, which can severely impact their emotional well-being and ability to teach. This bullying often manifests as exclusion, undermining of authority, being given the most challenging classes, or flat-out harassment, creating additional challenges for an already difficult job.
The root of bullying against new teachers often lies in resistance from established staff members who may perceive newcomers as a threat to their status or feel uncomfortable with changes introduced by new perspectives. This negative dynamic can hinder new teachers’ effectiveness and integration into the school environment. Addressing and mitigating workplace bullying is essential for supporting teaching. Schools must implement strategies to foster an inclusive culture where all teachers, regardless of year of service, can thrive and contribute positively to the school.
The Most Challenging Classes
As previously stated, there are many common forms of hazing of new teachers. The most common is to give them the classes that no one else wants, often the ones with the most behavioral challenges, and then blame them when they cannot control the class. Let’s face it. Every school has classes that are almost impossible to get to cooperate, regardless of the teacher’s efforts. A veteran teacher with the most effective classroom management would best teach these classes.
New teachers often haven’t figured out their teaching style and what kind of classroom management works best for them. It’s unfair to give them classes with severe behavioral problems and then give them low evaluations for not handling them well. Unfortunately, this is a common practice that has new teachers exiting the profession after their first year on the job.
No Permanent Classroom
When you do not have a permanent classroom to have your classes in, you are referred to as a “floater.” Floaters must carry all their materials with them on a cart and travel to different rooms all day long. This is stressful, chaotic, and quite undesirable. This is why new teachers are often given “floater” status.
Being a floater can be stressful because it takes time to get settled in each class and then to pack everything up. There is no time to use the bathroom as one dashes off to their next classroom on the other side of campus.
Undermining Their Authority
A new teacher’s opinion is often unwelcome in meetings. If a newbie asks too many questions or dares to point out a problem, many of the staff feel cringy. While the new teachers should probably have the most questions, they are more often expected to be quiet and listen only.
If the new teacher works with some serious jerks, then they might undermine them directly in meetings by pointing out how little experience they have. They might even do this in front of students. This happened to me. A student asked me a question, and another teacher nearby responded, “Don’t ask her. She doesn’t know anything.” One thing I did know was that that lady was stank.
An Unreasonable Amount of Duties
A new teacher might feel they cannot say no quite yet and find themselves saddled with an unbelievable load of extra duties, clubs, and responsibilities. The way this is presented to them makes it barely feel like they have a choice. So, new teachers spend their entire lives in the school building while the veterans leave at a more reasonable time.
New teachers are hazed in their first year in many more ways, including teachers who have experience but are new to the school. Here are comments from some of my followers who were hazed or bullied in their first year of teaching.
- “My mentors were even bigger bullies than admin.”
- “I’ve been the newest in my department for nine years, and I’m still being hazed. I teach the classes no one wants regardless of expertise or qualifications.”
- “Giving more than two preps to a new teacher is hazing.”
- “I was treated like absolute trash my first year. My mentors were awful to me. In the fall, I was forced to coach a sport I didn’t like and knew nothing about.”
- “I was bullied so badly my first year that I almost quit.”
- “There is definitely an idea that new teachers need to ‘do their time,’ and it’s gross.”
- “Our newest teacher has been given the class from hell. Admin. takes every opportunity to dog her classroom management. Her grade-level partner even growled at her one morning.”
- “Young, inexperienced teachers are voluntold to be on committees and go to district meetings that require a representative because they don’t know how to say no yet.”
- “Veteran teachers often treat new teachers like trash. It’s corny.”
- “In my first year teaching, I got a class designed to make the previous teacher resign. They put the most challenging kids in the grade in one class. The teacher left, and I was hired to fill her spot. The principal, staff development teacher, and several other staff members took monetary bets on how long I would last.”
- “I introduced myself to different teachers around the building, and one of them said, ‘Make it to three years here, and I’ll start remembering your name.’ That still bothers me.”
- “In my first year, I had two co-teachers and three preps.”
- “Veteran teachers make themselves feel better by making new staff members feel inferior. Some teachers care more about being liked by authority figures than being friends with other teachers, and they often throw new ones under the bus to suck up to admin.”
- “I was assigned a mentor teacher my first year. She didn’t say a single thing to me all year and got a stipend for mentoring me.”
- “I was made to play ‘food twister’ in front of the whole school where the dots were covered in condiments. It was disgusting and mortifying, and I had to teach afterward. I did say no, but it didn’t matter.”
- “I had five preps during my first year of teaching.”
- “My first year teaching was in the eighties, and there was a system for signing out of a TV/VCR. A veteran teacher took mine, ignoring the whole process, and said, “Let this be a lesson to you, kid. Always have a backup plan.”
If you enjoyed this article, check out this article about teachers who were severely bullied by administration.