Systemic Abuse in Education: Breaking the Cycle

Abuse.

Let that word hit you.
And I hope it hits you hard.
I hope it feels like a punch in the gut that takes your breath away.
Because it should.

If a student came to school and reported what was happening at home, the neglect, the fear, the ongoing harm, as is documented in the stories from Kim Block’s powerful blog, “Is this Systemic Oppression or Systemic Abuse?”, there would be an immediate report to the Ministry of Children and Family Development. There would be investigations, plans, and action. Because what is described in these stories meets the legal threshold for abuse.

As Kim Block writes:

“Children are self-harming due to the school environment. If they were self-harming due to their family environment, MCFD would be involved. But if this kind of trauma is occurring at school, it’s government-approved.”

That line should stop every one of us cold.

When the same harm happens within our education system, we call it something else.
We soften the language to protect our comfort.
We call it “limited funding.”
We blame it on “staffing challenges.”
We frame it as “behaviour.”

And in doing so, we erase what it really is: systemic abuse.

When children stop wanting to go to school, we label it as refusal instead of asking what they’re trying to tell us. If a child were afraid to go home, we would be concerned.

We blame parents for not being “team players,” for being “difficult,” or “overprotective.”
We issue attendance letters, forcing compliance instead of creating safety.
We call it “noncompliance” instead of what it truly is: ongoing trauma.

And those who do describe what they’ve endured are often framed as resilient. They’re praised for their perseverance, their “growth mindset,” their ability to “do hard things.”But we should be honest about what we are really seeing. These are not examples of grit or character. These are survivors of a system that has repeatedly failed to protect them.

Children should not have to be resilient to survive school.

Let’s stop pretending we don’t see it.
Let’s stop excusing it.
Let’s stop rationalizing harm under the language of scarcity and system fatigue.

Because the truth is this: our schools are not always safe havens.
For too many students, especially those with disabilities and neurodivergence, they have become places of systemic harm and power imbalance.

These are not isolated experiences. They are patterns, consistent, predictable, and preventable. Patterns that reveal an education system that has turned from prevention to reaction, from equity to scarcity, from belonging to exclusion.

This is systemic abuse.
And naming it is an act of courage.

But courage is not comfortable.
It requires us to stand in the truth even when it shakes the ground we stand on.

As Brené Brown reminds us:

“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”

We have gotten comfortable with our education system, with its language of inclusion that masks exclusion, with its rituals of compliance that pass for learning, with its silence that protects the system instead of the child.

It is going to be very uncomfortable when we face the reality that the place our children spend the majority of their time is not always safe.
But that discomfort is where truth begins. It is where courage is born.

Courage starts when teachers stop protecting and start speaking.
When we stop defending the system and start demanding change.
We are in positions of power, and the weight of this issue cannot be placed on parents alone.
Integrity is not quiet.
And courage is often terrifying.

This is what collective courage looks like, the kind that does not wait for permission, that risks being uncomfortable, that chooses truth over silence.

May Kim Block’s blog have wings, but may we all give it the power to fly.

Share it. Talk about it. Confront it. Let it ripple through classrooms, boardrooms, and ministries until the truth becomes impossible to bury.

This is not a call for charity.
It is a demand for justice.
A reminder that inclusion is not optional. It is a human right.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Mead

Be brave enough to name what’s happening.
Be strong enough to stand with those who can’t.
Courage is contagious.

When we choose to speak, others find their voice too.
That is how systems change.

Break the silence.
Stand with the students.
Stand for the truth.

Because silence protects systems, not students.