Custom of Using Violence in Schools Always Existed: School Principal

Without the support of the public, a school cannot change: at the same time, school principals and teachers should become the initiators of that change, said former RA education minister and principal of the Mkhitar Sebastatsy educational complex Ashot Bleyan, speaking to Epress.am Wednesday. 

“Generally, the environment should be one that spares the child and the teacher, other relations are needed, another world should be created,” he said. 

Speaking on the videos circulated online which depicted teachers in Yerevan schools hitting students, Bleyan said he’s convinced that any type of school should be an open community; it should be public and visible.

“Information technologies, basically, multiply those opportunities. I am convinced that schools, as open communities, should be that example which must show the type of society we want to create,” he said. 

In Bleyan’s opinion, society must help schools become a space where children’s rights are respected, where a fair and just society is created, other relations exist between teachers and students, where children’s rights are completely protected, and the teacher him- or herself is the main defender of human rights.

As an example, he mentioned the educational complex where he is the principal:

“Our site, www.mskh.am, hasn’t had an editor in the last 3–4 months. The skills, abilities in putting stuff up on the site we pass on to each teacher, each learner, and any of our learners can put stuff up on the site. That is, each child can turn his problem over to the public domain. Everything is being done so that our educational activities are transparent.”

Note that there are already cameras at the educational complex’ School of Fine Arts, and parents can follow the activities of the teachers and children online, from the comfort of their own home. This, according to the former education minister, becomes “a sort of means of stimulating pedagogy.”

In response to a question by Epress.am on where the custom of using violence comes from and were there, in fact, such incidents in Soviet schools, Bleyan said: “That always existed; brutal ways were accepted and widespread. Something else, each particular problem should be viewed separately, since ‘something like anonymity turns out’,” referring to problems being discussed anonymously, when really everything should be out in the open and talked about. 

Parents, in Bleyan’s opinion, for different reasons, avoids publicizing (incidents); they believe that they will be pursued, victimized, and in this case, cell phones and YouTube become “a very good means.” That this phenomenon is widespread is a fact, stressed the school principal. 

Reforms inside society are needed in order to resolve these issues:

“Society must be fair [and just], for that they must quickly release political prisoners, the right to expression must be protected. It’s a long process, because schools operated in a closed corner, now it turns out there is an opportunity to voice problems, and that’s good, people are using these resources.”