A teacher at an elite primary school in Pazardzhik decided to take a disciplinary measure by forcing all the children in a third-grade class to line up and spit on a classmate, reports a segment aired on Tuesday by the “Horizon” program of BNR.
I tried to imagine the scene: nine-year-old Mitko stands at the blackboard with his hand raised in front of his face, not only to avoid being spat at but also to shield himself from witnessing a moment he will never be able to erase from his memory, no matter what psychological help he receives. In front of him is a long line of third-graders waiting for their turn to demonize him. This shameful punitive procedure likely lasted no more than two minutes, but what did the children experience during that time? Did any of them wish instead to spit in the face of the teacher, the very one who decided she had the right to humiliate a child in the most shameless way? The same teacher who had previously put two other boys from the class in a similar situation.
A Teacher’s Reflections on a Brief Experience in Education
This story brings me back to my brief teaching period, which lasted exactly as long as the so-called “distribution” of young graduates during the years of the totalitarian regime.
I was 22 years old, had never worked with children, and when I learned that I would have to take care of a fourth-grade class, I felt unsure. I still remember my first encounter with them and the eyes of twenty-five children staring at me. In their gazes, there was curiosity but also fear; a sense of expectation, yet doubt about whether they would be accepted and loved. It was then that I felt how important it was to present my understanding of what is good and what is bad in relationships—first among themselves, and then between them and me. But this is not a lecture or a lesson; you tell it and leave, expecting the children to have grasped and learned it by the next day.
The beginning was the hardest when some of them started coming to me either before class or after it to quietly and privately tell me who did what or said what in the class; who hit or insulted whom—pure snitching, but the children didn’t understand that. Their previous teacher had clearly encouraged such behavior, perhaps even applauding it; I don’t know— I just decided it wasn’t worth going backward. But I tried to change them.
Reflections on Empathy and Education
I saw tears in their eyes as I explained that we all needed to discuss the problems that arose among them, which often ended not just in verbal confrontations. The results did not come immediately; I didn’t even realize when the change in them occurred.
Of course, my teaching philosophy and my approach to literature were not well received by my older colleagues or by the school administration, which branded me in my file, as I learned years later, as an “anarchist.” This is why I left the profession; I understood that it wasn’t for me. But this was happening in the late ’70s and early ’80s—at the end of the so-called stagnation period under Brezhnev, not in the late 20s of the postmodern 21st century!
Postmodern ethics focus on tolerance, responsibility, and altruism. And children are best educated through the personal example and actions of their parents, along with conversations about the connection between a child’s behavior and the feelings that behavior evokes in others. However, the specific case in the third-grade B class of the primary school in Pazardzhik shows that neither Mitko’s parents nor the parents of the other children instilled empathy or the ability to feel compassion in them. Otherwise, none of them would have dared to spit in another’s face.
And What About That Teacher? How Was She Raised to Come Up with Such a Punishment?
What upbringing could lead a teacher to conceive such a form of punishment? Even Anton Makarenko, the Ukrainian educator who worked with juvenile delinquents and homeless children in communes after the Russian Revolution, argued that we should not punish a child to exact revenge for their misdeeds. Such an approach will only foster hatred and widen the gap of misunderstanding.
Adults like the teacher from Pazardzhik should not be allowed to interact with children, let alone stand on the authoritative platform of a teacher from which she has diminished herself through her actions. If she still has any sense of dignity, she should leave the school on her own without waiting for administrative punishment and without unnecessary drama.
Furthermore, it is high time for the state to understand that, besides salary, there are other no less important incentives that can attract young people with modern thinking and attitudes toward the world, particularly concerning children, to Bulgarian schools. But that is a topic for another conversation.
