Who said it would be easy  

“It’s still not good enough, ” “You’ll never succeed, ” “I won’t waste my time on you.” Children often hear these words addressed to them in class. From a teacher — an authority figure, a role model, a critic in the eyes of students, but in reality — just an ordinary person. Like many others, I heard them in music school.

A teacher often becomes a source of pressure on children who are directly dependent on them. My project reveals a painful and often hidden problem — emotional abuse within the educational system. The vulnerability of a child, positioned in a strict hierarchy with the teacher, can easily be exploited for control. Authoritarian methods of upbringing create and reinforce school trauma, which is then passed down from generation to generation.

The legacy of the Soviet educational system still preserves harsh practices of interaction with children. Abusive behavior is normalized, and its consequences affect not only students but also teachers themselves, who are under constant pressure from demands and performance metrics. Teachers, being victims of the system as well, take on the role of aggressors, passing their own traumas onto their students.

Emotional violence is often justified: “I only wanted the best, otherwise there would be no results.” This process is reinforced by authoritarian behavioral practices in society, which perpetuate the cycle of psychological trauma.