Like many others I was upset when I read a newspaper article, which, among other things, said that politicians are in agreement that teachers need protection in classrooms.

The report highlighted challenging situations teachers have come across in the classroom, such as girls exposing themselves and then accusing teachers of looking at them and boys talking about what sexual acts they prefer.

The Malta Union of Teachers was reported as insisting that adequate legislation is required to protect educators facing harassment.

In more ways than one, the MUT’s reaction is predictable.

The agenda of a teacher’s union is to look after its members’ interests, even though I think the report makes it sound as if teachers are being harassed day in day out by students. Maybe some statistics would quell the moral panic that such an announcement might provoke.

This is my take on the issue raised by the article, namely that students goad their educators.

For the record, I am a teacher by profession and those who know me can vouch that I have taught in some very challenging schools both during my training and also throughout my teaching career.

I have never made it easy for myself, more so, I have always enjoyed working with students coming from a challenging background and tough neighborhoods. That’s where I felt most comfortable working.

Mine was no heroic stance but it was in such schools that I believed I was most effective, encapsulated by the narratives in ‘deprived’ and ‘needing regeneration’ contexts,

Maybe there is another reason to this as well.

When still at school myself – a naughty, troublesome, coercive student – I keep recalling that I wasn’t the model pupil and the price I had to pay at the time (unorthodox and unacceptable by today’s standards) was a bitter one, to say the least, when the rod was really not spared at all.

But I keep asking myself to this day: what was wrong? Was it me? Was it the system? Was it a boring curriculum and tedious teaching methods or, maybe, my impatience and discomfort linked to the fact that I was growing up?

Whatever the cause, whatever the case, I felt that the system was not helping me fit in. I remember feeling that I was a victim and not a beneficiary of the institution.

That is why the recent debate I made reference to above worries me.

Students have always been the same. They want to test and play around with the system as best they can. They want to confront rather than to conform. They want every reason ‘to pick a fight’ with the establishment they are engaged with, especially with a structure that, unfortunately to this day, as in my times, still makes students feel as if they are always in the wrong.

Let’s call a spade a spade.

Are students brats at times? Are students vulgar from time to time? Are students confrontational?

Of course they are. Of course they have their moments of tetchiness.

Having said that, I feel that the problems are not bigger than they were before. Undoubtedly, what is being reported is sexual annoyance. But that children are sexual in their altercation or belligerent or antagonists is not as the political parties or the MUT have made it sound in their reaction to the above-mentioned ‘report’, assuming they were reported correctly.

Some educators may have discarded the principle that teaching is a vocation as well as a profession

Lest we forget, students spend almost half of their waking time in schools. They need a sounding board and a punchbag but this is not about ‘them versus us’, it is about ‘them versus them’; it’s their repartee, it’s testing limitations. Sex is on their mind and if they are thinking about, say, a twerking video, a former Disney diva gone soft porn or a pop star taking selfies with hardly any clothes on, such attitude comes down on them like a ton of bricks.

I think the challenges are more complex than they were during my time. But I also believe that teachers are better equipped, with improved instruction, ongoing training and an increasing support mechanism even to deal with inappropriate sexualised behaviour.

My biggest worry, however, is that the more time passes, the bigger the divide between teachers and students. As educators, I believe that some of us may have discarded the principle that teaching is a vocation as well as a profession. This is what we need to address.

Teachers and students need to be on the same wavelength, where they can agree to disagree but, at least, there is dialogue because unless this happens we will not be able to read beyond the behavior young people are confronting us with.

As Mario Mallia, Alternattiva Demokratika spokesman and an educator of great repute aptly states: “Students are victims of a hyper-sexed environment… teachers should feel comfortable to discuss pertinent issues and have the required support.”

Andrew Azzopardi is senior lecturer at the university’s Department of Youth and Community Studies.