Teachers are in a privileged position from which they can contribute to preventing aggression and promoting coexistence, as some acknowledge. It is clear that this privileged position cannot mean that they must assume the full weight of responsibility. The prevention of violence must be a shared responsibility between the family, the school and society in general and it is necessary that each one fulfills its part so that changes can really be achieved in an integral way. However, they report that some teachers seem to blame the problems of school violence on uncontrollable external factors, such as the existence of cases of problematic students, unconcerned parents, insufficient physical facilities, or even a deficient educational system. This can lead some teachers to disassociate themselves from their responsibility, believing that they will not be able to contribute to improving coexistence. In other words, if they have low self-efficacy to bring about change (that is, if they don’t believe in their own ability to do so), they may come to see it as not their responsibility. For example, those who believe that school violence is caused solely by disruptive students with uncaring parents often see the solution as removing those students from school, even though doing so would be abdicating their educational role and shifting the problem to the another school or to the street.
More complex views on the problem of school violence could, on the other hand, provide teachers with more alternatives regarding the role they could assume in promoting coexistence. For example, when school aggression is viewed as a group dynamic, the preferred solution is not to remove some, but to change what the group values or how the group responds to aggressive situations. Teacher training that promotes the understanding that a student frequently resorts to bullying as a way to gain recognition and popularity in their group can help them consider new alternatives, such as generating agreements with the whole class so that observers reject any act of aggression from their peers, instead of referring the aggressors or victims to the department of psychology, guidance or disciplinary instances. These types of alternatives help to recover teachers’ belief that they can play a central role in promoting coexistence from their classrooms and schools.
The studies presented in this compilation also seem to indicate that many teachers need a better understanding of the types of aggression and their dynamics. Pérez shows that, although most understand the seriousness of physical and verbal bullying situations, some do not give relational bullying the same importance and are less willing to intervene in such cases. Some male teachers, for example, seem to empathize more with victims of physical bullying than with victims of verbal or relational bullying, while female teachers empathize equally with victims of all types of bullying. This is very relevant because students require that teachers, who in many situations represent for them the only accessible authority figure, give them full support in any situation of bullying, even when they do not have physical injuries to show. Teacher training processes should prepare them so that they can identify the different types of aggression, understand the serious consequences that all types of bullying can generate and be willing to intervene so that no type of abuse occurs among their students. Likewise, it is important that the training of teachers helps them to differentiate bullying from situations of aggression that are not repeated or systematic and to differentiate bullying from conflicts, given that useful responses for conflict management, such as, for example, mediation by peers, are not recommended for handling bullying.
All of the above highlights the importance of the role that teachers have in promoting school coexistence. Teachers in all areas must very often face situations of aggression and mistreatment in their classes and the way they respond is crucial for the dynamics that these situations will take. A teacher who does not respond to situations of aggression in his class or who even participates in some mockery, offense or mistreatment, will be, at the very least, wasting an important opportunity to promote peaceful coexistence and prevent future situations of aggression and violence. However, little training is received by teachers on how to respond constructively in this type of situation. In fact, the main complaint many teachers have about their training in colleges of education is that they were not taught strategies for handling aggression and discipline issues in their classes. In the near future, all teacher training curricula should include specific courses and practices on this subject, if we really want everyone to have the capacity to assume the role they have in a responsible and effective manner