VERBAL AGGRESSION IN THE PEDAGOGICAL MEDIUM

Abstract

The article suggests that verbal aggression is a destructive form of communication in the pedagogical medium. It aims to answer the questions concerning the conditions and causes of stability of the phenomenon of verbal aggression among the Ukrainian teachers; the forms of verbal aggression in the educational setting; the strategies to prevent the destructive speech behaviour of the teacher. The author stresses upon the fact that the Ukrainian educational system employs authoritarianism that is based on coercion and violence, on the principle of ‘carrot and stick’. It has been pointed out that destructive verbal behaviour, on the one hand, is condemned by students, and on the other hand – is absorbed by them. Verbal aggression, to the author’s mind, is not an inherited but a learned behaviour that the students could pick up through observing aggressive teachers, copying them and practicing over time.The consequences of verbal aggression in the classroom can lead to social isolation, stress, health problems, as well as to problems in educational advancement of students. In conclusion, we believe that the Ukrainian educational system must develop new principles of the teacher-student relations by using new assessment criteria of teacher’s activity, personnel selection, and implementation of the best folk traditions and student-centered methods of teaching.