In June 2024, the Nunavut Teachers’ Association released findings from a territory-wide survey that captured what many educators already knew: violence and burnout in Nunavut schools are endemic—and escalating.
- 76% of teachers reported being victims of violence at work.
- 87% had witnessed or responded to school violence.
- The most common experiences included verbal abuse, property damage, and physical assault.
- Over half said the violence had impacted their mental health or personal relationships.
Teachers weren’t asking for harsher discipline. They were asking for help.
Violence isn’t the story—it’s the signal
Educators in the survey overwhelmingly described these behaviours not as malice, but as the downstream result of unmet needs, trauma, and system failure.
“Children need tools and strategies to manage their emotions,” one teacher explained. “When those aren’t available, they react the only way they know how.”
In Nunavut’s chronically underfunded education system, those tools are often missing. There are not enough educational assistants, not enough mental health professionals, and not enough trauma-informed training. Teachers are being left to manage crises without support—and it’s harming everyone.
The Nunavut Teachers’ Association is calling for urgent action:
- More mental health supports
- Increased staffing, especially for classroom and one-on-one support
- Comprehensive trauma-informed training for school staff
President Justin Morrow was blunt: without serious investment, the education system is at risk of collapse.
Where this fits in the national picture
This survey doesn’t mention collective punishment—but it helps explain the conditions that make its use more likely. When staff are overwhelmed and supports are scarce, disciplinary shortcuts can emerge—whether it’s a group consequence for one child’s outburst, or a revoked event because the system has no capacity for individual support.
Nunavut is not unique in facing these pressures. But it is one of the only jurisdictions in Canada with no clear policy guidance on group discipline—and no legal prohibition of collective punishment.
That absence matters.
Because when policy is silent, harm is often hidden.
Children deserve more than crisis response
We can’t build safe, inclusive schools by asking teachers to absorb the weight of systemic neglect. And we can’t protect children by punishing them in groups because we lack capacity to meet them individually.
What this survey shows, more than anything, is that violence in schools is a policy failure—not a moral one. The path forward isn’t fear or surveillance or escalation. It’s care. It’s investment. It’s dignity.
And it starts by listening—to teachers, to families, and to the children most affected.
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Collective punishment in Canadian schools
Across Canada, children are still being punished for the actions of others—recesses cancelled, field trips withheld, and classroom privileges revoked based on group behaviour. This practice, known as collective punishment, has no place in an inclusive, rights-based education system.
