Amid rising violence in Ontario schools, one anonymous teacher recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to describe the physical challenges they face teaching on a day-to-day basis. 

The thread, which was posted on Tuesday afternoon, describes the exact type of violence many teachers said they faced in a bombshell survey conducted by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (EFTO) earlier this year. 

"For the first time in my career I feel unsafe at work. The violence is out of control. As a teacher when we walk down the hall we have anywhere from 1-6 kids yelling 'f*cking bitches,' 'I f*cking hate teacher b*tches.' Kids I have never even met," the teacher wrote. 

They also claimed to have witnessed other teachers repeatedly being kicked, bitten, and hit by students.  

When on yard duty kids are coming up and telling us they are getting hurt by these other kids. When we try to approach they respond with “fuck you bitch”, give the finger and walk away. What are we suppose to do? How do we make these kids feel safe? I don’t feel safe. (3/5)

— 𝑀𝒾𝒹𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒜𝑒𝓈 𝒮𝑒𝒹𝒶𝒾 (@OntarioTeache12) October 17, 2023

"This just not sustainable and filling out incident reports feels absolutely useless at this point," the post reads. "And what I think is even more terrifying is this is just k-3 at my school! I can't even begin to process the issues happening in junior and intermediate. 

The EFTO's 2023 All-Member Violence Survey revealed that an alarming number of members (77 per cent) say they have personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against another staff member, with those working in special education impacted the most.

Admin is overwhelmed and have no tools to even try to deal with this situation. No suspension k-3 and 1 /year in grade 4+? I’m sure this policy makes sense on paper but it is NOT working at ground level. There must be a solution to untie admins hands in a meaningful way. (4/5)

— 𝑀𝒾𝒹𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒜𝑒𝓈 𝒮𝑒𝒹𝒶𝒾 (@OntarioTeache12) October 17, 2023

According to the survey, 86 per cent of EFTO members who work in special education say they have personally experienced violence or witnessed it against another staff member. 

Moreover, 72 per cent of members say the number of violent incidents has increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-two per cent of members also say they have suffered a physical injury, illness, or psychological injury/illness as a result of workplace violence. 

This is heartbreaking and shocking.

We’ve seen the degradation of good behaviour in adults over the last few years, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to see it trickle down to kids.

I’m sorry you are experiencing this.

— Em.Gee (@ThreeFuzzyBears) October 18, 2023

"The results are alarming and distressing and action must be taken at the provincial, and school board levels," EFTO President Karon Brown said. "The survey results may shock the public, but they're not a surprise to EFTO members." 

Brown also said the survey found that Indigenous, female, disabled, and LGBTQ+ teachers were more likely to have experienced some type of physical violence. 

It definitely is happening in the elementary schools (I can confirm this is happening in NB too. Worse, parents will be very quick to blame schools for their child's behaviour. It's very taxing on our health in more ways than one + making lots of teachers leave the profession. 😔

— Chrissy Tea-Gun (pew pew) (@Chrissy19993) October 18, 2023

In response to the report's findings, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that violence "starts at home," and encouraged students to respect teachers. 

"They have a tough job. The kids, you guys gotta get your act together," he said. "If you're asking me about putting policing in schools, while I think that decisions have been made, so we're gonna always advocate for the teachers to make sure there's never violence in our schools."

I wouldn't want to be a teacher these days. You're in a very tough position.

— Lisette Kaip (@KaipLisette) October 18, 2023

The union currently represents approximately 83,000 members, including public elementary teachers, occasional teachers, designated early childhood educators, education support personnel, and professional support personnel. 

Following the report, the union insisted that there's a critical need in the province for more educational assistants, psychologists, special education teachers, school support counsellors, behavioural therapists, child and youth workers, and speech-language pathologists. 

The viral thread comes just a day before Ontario's public elementary school teachers voted 95 per cent in favour of a strike mandate as negotiations continue.