--- title: DeBenedet and Cohen: When Teachers Bully Children description: With more than 4.2 million views and counting, Stuart Chaifetz's YouTube video is drawing attention to a situation no child, especially not one with special... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-05-01T10:30:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T09:32:01.857Z article:section: Ideas og:title: When Teachers Bully Children og:description: Stu Chaifetz's video shows how abusive teachers victimize the vulnerable and the voiceless og:url: https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt477ddf5532ce76c7/698a91cde6e84a5bdb2b8e81/aparents-wire-students.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 600 og:image:height: 338 og:image:alt: Stuart Chaifetz, Akian Chaifetz og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: When Teachers Bully Children twitter:description: Stu Chaifetz's video shows how abusive teachers victimize the vulnerable and the voiceless twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt477ddf5532ce76c7/698a91cde6e84a5bdb2b8e81/aparents-wire-students.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) # When Teachers Bully Children > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 1, 2012 10:30 AM UTC  Stuart Chaifetz plays with his son Akian Chaifetz, 10, in the backyard of their home in Cherry Hill, N.J., Wednesday, April 25, 2012\. After Chaifetz was told that his son Akian was acting violently at his New Jersey school he decided to investigate. Akian has autism, as do the rest of the students in the class. This prevented him from being able to explain to his father if anything had been happening to him at school. Chaifetz decided the only way to find out what was behind the outbursts was to send his boy to school wearing a hidden audio recorder. (AP Photo/Mel Evans) Stuart Chaifetz plays with his son Akian Chaifetz, 10, in the backyard of their home in Cherry Hill, N.J., Wednesday, April 25, 2012\. After Chaifetz was told that his son Akian was acting violently at his New Jersey school he decided to investigate. Akian has autism, as do the rest of the students in the class. This prevented him from being able to explain to his father if anything had been happening to him at school. Chaifetz decided the only way to find out what was behind the outbursts was to send his boy to school wearing a hidden audio recorder. (AP Photo/Mel Evans) AP by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 1, 2012 10:30 AM UTC With more than 4.2 million views and counting, Stuart Chaifetz’s [YouTube video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfkscHt96R0) is drawing attention to a situation no child, especially not one with special needs, should ever have to face: bullying by a teacher. Akian Chaifetz is 10\. He has autism, and according to his father Stuart, he suddenly began to have violent outbursts at school. Stuart was surprised and wondered what was provoking him. But Akian couldn’t describe what was going on in the classroom. So Stuart put a wire on him. Excerpts of the tape include heart-wrenching exchanges of Akian being verbally abused and brought to tears by his teacher and aide. At one point, one of his teachers said, “Oh, Akian, you are a bastard … Go ahead and scream because guess what? You’re going to get nothing until your mouth is shut. Shut your mouth!” (**MORE**: [Elisabeth Young-Bruehl: Childism: The Unacknowledged Prejudice Against Kids](http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/26/childism-the-unacknowledged-prejudice-against-kids/?hpt=hp%5Fc2)) We’ve learned a lot about kids bullying other kids over the past decade. But with exceptions like this video, we don’t talk much about teachers bullying kids. It’s tough to know the exact scope of the problem, as research in this area is limited. We do, however, know a few things. There’s some [evidence](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16875191) that teachers who experienced bullying themselves when they were young are more likely to bully students. These teacher bullies, categorized as bully-victim type, are usually less cruel compared with sadistic-type teacher bullies, who are callous, vicious, manipulative and degrading to all people, not just children. Like child bullies and adult bullies in general, teacher bullies prey on people who are voiceless. Children with special needs are especially vulnerable because they belong to two groups without social power: children and people with disabilities. Students who are victimized by teachers are [more likely](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16573980) to struggle academically, drop out of school and get involved in high-risk behaviors like drinking or drugs. What happens with these children when they become adults is again difficult to know. There is some data to [suggest](http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/08039488.2010.546881) an association between teacher bullying and the development of personality disorders down the road. (**MORE:** [DeBenedet and Cohen: Have We Gone Overboard About Bullying?](http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/29/have-we-gone-overboard-about-bullying/)) Listening to the secret tape of Akian’s classroom, it’s easy to imagine his teachers and aides frustrated, stressed, underpaid and undertrained. So are nursing-home or psychiatric-hospital workers, who have also been accused at times of mistreating their charges. Sociologists refer to such jobs as “dirty work,” ones like garbage collector and funeral director that are essential for a functioning society but are undervalued and underappreciated. Still, this is no excuse. The lesson behind Stuart Chaifetz’s video is simple: adult bullies are no different than their child counterparts. They victimize the vulnerable and voiceless, whether it be children with special needs, elders or people with mental illness. And they often fly under the radar, with us missing the cues. When children, even those who can communicate verbally, try to tell adults that they’re being abused, they usually don’t say it in words but by misbehaving, as in Akian’s violent outbursts. If “shut your mouth” is the problem, then “open our ears” must be part of the solution. When we listen better to the voiceless, we begin to understand their plight, signifying to them a very strong message: we are connected. Your power is welcome here. You will be heard. **MORE:** [The Myths of Bullying](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2108030,00.html?pcd=pw-op) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/"},"headline":"When Teachers Bully Children","datePublished":"2012-05-01T10:30:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T09:32:01.857Z","description":"With more than 4.2 million views and counting, Stuart Chaifetz's YouTube video is drawing attention to a situation no child, especially not one with special...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/","keywords":["Autism","Bullying","Teachers"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt477ddf5532ce76c7/698a91cde6e84a5bdb2b8e81/aparents-wire-students.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt477ddf5532ce76c7/698a91cde6e84a5bdb2b8e81/aparents-wire-students.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Stuart Chaifetz, Akian Chaifetz","caption":"Stuart Chaifetz, Akian Chaifetz","creditText":"AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7133365/when-teachers-bully-children/","name":"When Teachers Bully Children"}}]}] ```