Students assaulting teachers in class, a common occurrence in Canada

A CBC investigation turned up a surprisingly high incidence of reported assaults by students against teachers. Teachers say many assaults go under reported, every school year. We hear from a teacher who's still scarred by a student assault from years ago. And ask what can be done to make our classrooms a safer place... both for our students, and school staff.

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Standing up in front of a class full of students to teach is often described as a challenging, occasionally frustrating, but ultimately fulfilling job. It's rarely thought of as a dangerous one. But a new investigation by CBC News is teaching a different lesson about the dangers that teachers face... from their own students.

CBC Winnipeg's I-Team looked into reported violence in Manitoba's capital and found that between September 2012, and January 2014, there were 134 physical attacks on school staff reported in one school division.

And Winnipeg isn't alone.

According to the British Columbia Teachers' Federation and WorkSafe BC, 115 worker's in that province's education sector take time off work every year due to injuries inflicted on them by students. It's a problem that doesn't get a lot of attention, but can have very serious consequences for teachers who do experience assault in the classroom.

It happened to Janice Wilson in 2006. She's a teacher in the northern Saskatchewan village of La Loche.

Janice Wilson's story is a particularly tragic example of classroom assault on a teacher. But as we're hearing today, violence against teachers is a more common problem inside our schools than many understand.

We brought together a panel now to talk about the issue, and what can be done to keep both educators and students safe.

• Larry Swartz is an instructor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, or OISE. He was in Toronto.

• Bill Belsey is a teacher at Springbank Middle School in Cochrane, Alberta and president of Bullying.org He was in Calgary.

Have thoughts you want to add to this discussion?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Sarah Grant, Shannon Higgins and Pacinthe Mattar.