Two teachers and a student were injured in a knife attack by a student at Borsa Istanbul Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in Çekmeköy Taşdelen; the union announced that one of the injured was in a serious condition... This incident is not a judicial case alone. This is a crystallization of the state of education, public authority and social culture in Turkey.
Calling it an “isolated incident” only eases the conscience. Not the truth.
This article is not a text of mourning. It is a polemic, a diagnosis and a political call.
“The Ideology of the ”Individual" Discourse
Every case of violence in Turkey is isolated. Because the word “isolated” is the most useful tool to suspend the responsibility of the system. However, an attack with a sharp instrument in a school indicates a three-layered weakness:
- Physical security vulnerability - Entry control, crisis protocol, risky item control.
- Institutional vulnerability - Disciplinary processes do not work or are not deterrent.
- Psychosocial blindness - Failure to identify risky behaviors early.
This is why Eğitim Sen's emphasis on “violence is on the rise” is important. Violence is not just an individual outburst of anger; it is a chain of institutional negligence.
It is not isolated. It is structural.
Erosion of Authority The Systematic Isolation of the Teacher
The authority of the teacher has been consciously or unconsciously eroded over the last two decades.
- Parent pressure has been normalized.
- Complaint culture has been institutionalized.
- The teacher's pedagogical discretion has been narrowed.
Today, many teachers are not afraid of discipline, but of being complained about. They are nervous not when grading, but when receiving messages from parents.
Pedagogical authority is not arbitrary power. It is based on knowledge and professional competence. When this authority is weakened, what emerges is not freedom but chaos.
The vacuum of authority does not remain in nature. Either the norm or violence fills that vacuum. If you weaken the norm, violence will come.
Marketization of Education: The Collapse of the Customer Logic
Education is no longer a public right and has been reduced to a performance and satisfaction graph. The school is designed as a service sector that produces results, not as a field that builds knowledge.
The result of this transformation is this:
- Student customer,
- Parent supervisor,
- Teacher service staff.
The logic of customer satisfaction erodes pedagogical authority. Discipline is repression. Setting limits is considered trauma. The teacher makes decisions based on potential complaints, not pedagogy.
This system is not sustainable.
Political Climate: Hardening Language, Hardening Youth
The school is not independent from society. The harsher language in the public sphere is reflected in the classroom. It is unrealistic to expect high tolerance and self-control from young people who grow up in a political culture that is constantly polarizing and antagonizing.
Violence is not only an individual psychology. It is a cultural and political climate.
When power is sanctified in society, knowledge is devalued. When knowledge is devalued, the teacher becomes a target.
Boundary Crisis in the Family
Education is not an area where parenting is outsourced. A child who is not given boundaries at home will perceive it as an attack when confronted with boundaries at school.
Justifying every behavior as “self-esteem” prepares the child for conflict with the real world. The first serious encounter with discipline turns into a traumatic break.
The school cannot work miracles when the family does not fulfill its responsibility.
This is a harsh sentence, but it is true.
Neglect of Guidance Services
Violence does not come out of nowhere. It signals beforehand:
- Behavior change,
- Social isolation,
- Academic decline,
- Intense outbursts of anger.
Without a strong mechanism to systematically monitor these signals, a crisis is inevitable. Guidance services are weak in terms of staffing and authority.
Installing metal detectors is not a solution. Security cannot be ensured without strengthening psychosocial support.
State Responsibility
The Ministry of Education can make a statement. But a statement is not politics.
Actual policy includes:
- Aggravating sanctions for violence against teachers,
- Standard national school safety protocol,
- At-risk student early warning system,
- Strong guidance staff,
- Legal protection of the teacher's pedagogical authority.
Without them, every incident is archived as a “sad incident”.
Solution: Tough, Clear and Systemic
This issue cannot be solved with slogans. The picture will not change unless the following steps are taken:
- Automatic severe punishment for violence against teachers.
- National school safety and crisis protocol.
- Early warning and risk monitoring system.
- Reform of counseling and psychosocial support.
- The legal framework governing parental responsibility.
- Explicit legal guarantee of the teacher's pedagogical authority.
Without these reforms, each “isolated” incident will set the stage for the next.
Education Crisis is a Regime Crisis
If teachers are afraid in a country, the state is weak.
If a teacher cannot exercise authority in a country, norm production has collapsed.
If violence becomes commonplace in a country, the problem is not the individual but the system.
The attack in Çekmeköy is a threshold.
The problem is not a knife in the hand of a student.
The problem is that the knife made it all the way to that school.
This article is hard because the issue is hard.
This article is polemical because omission requires polemic.
Either we will make education a public, safe and dignified space again;
or our schools will continue to be lines of tension.
Preference is politics.
And when politics is postponed, the price is human, not pedagogical.