The most common explanations for school violence sound like this:

Children are aggressive because they play violent games and watch violent movies!

Children are aggressive because their parents don't pay attention to them!

Children are aggressive because today's youth are spoiled and good for nothing!

Almost never is it mentioned that the education system itself has a large share of responsibility for violence in schools! Instead, completely different faults are sought in the system!
School buildings are renovated, windows replaced, walls repainted, salaries updated, textbooks rewritten...
However, nothing significant has changed in the educational process itself for decades!

Let’s consider the life of a high school student (since verbal and physical aggression runs rampant mostly in high school).

First, to get into the school of their choice, in the most general terms, a prospective high school student must pass the compulsory matriculation exams in Bulgarian language and mathematics, regardless of whether they are good at math, which is generally a rare gift or inclination. Therefore, most children do not actually attend the high school they wanted simply because they were not accepted there. With that, one of their first dreams has evaporated into nothingness! Either way, whether in an elite or a less elite school, the curriculum remains the same for everyone! Compulsory subjects are compulsory for all! Teaching is exactly the same for everyone! The outcome is the same for everyone, and that is — no matter how specialized the high school is, you don’t graduate with any adequate profession! Everyone in Bulgaria automatically lives with the attitude that to have a valuable profession, you must absolutely attend superior education! It’s another matter that very often even after higher education you still don’t come out well prepared for practical professional life... but of course, ambitious parents plan higher education abroad!

Thus, the average high school student goes to school for five whole years with the clear knowledge that a large part of what they learn will not be needed at all.
Most of those things don’t even interest them! It’s human!
It’s exactly the same for us adults — we are interested in only a few fields!

Every day, the high school student comes home from school and, if conscientious, begins to do homework, bringing their working day to eight or more astronomical hours almost daily!
The average high school student doesn’t have much free time or energy to devote to their favorite things!
But how on earth would they have other favorite things?! Is there anything more important than school?!

This brings us to the first giant contradiction that neurotizes the average high school student’s mind — on the one hand, they know high school won’t make them an independent and self-reliant person (after all, five more years of study await them!), but on the other hand, it is imposed on them obligatorily and they are told it is extremely important!
If they don’t think only and exclusively about their lessons, they are a scoundrel!
How can they not be haunted by a feeling of meaninglessness and a sense of injustice throughout high school education!

In the national education system, everything is averaged out!
Teaching moves at an average pace, in which those who grasp more slowly than average have to manage on their own or fall behind anyway... and those who grasp faster simply die of boredom!
There is no individual approach! The education system doesn’t care what you like or what you are good at! It doesn’t matter! Everyone will learn math, chemistry, physics, biology, geography, etc.... the more, the merrier... as Winnie the Pooh said!
In the end, the averaged pace leads to average and even mediocre results!
You are not given the opportunity to improve what you are good at, and you become mediocre in all subjects! Quantity matters!

The second giant contradiction that neurotizes the modern high school student is the message that they are still small!
“Don’t philosophize too much because you don’t understand anything yet!”
At the same time, they are expected to behave responsibly because they are no longer children!
They are both children and not children! The high school student is a half-person, expected to have the responsibilities of an adult but the rights of a child, i.e., almost none!
They get a modest allowance and don’t have many options to live independently or earn money through paid work!
Generally, adolescents feel grown up already at 15-16 years old, but the law treats them as children up to 18!
And suddenly, hop, turning 18, you become an adult and have to be ready for life!
At 17.364 years old you are still not an adult, but exactly at 18 you suddenly are!

High school lasts five whole years, and if effective, it could easily last no more than three!
Modern kids have the capacity to be adults at 16, but we forcibly keep them “in prison” for unnecessarily long!
It was the same with us, but when we become parents, we seem to forget everything or the system has already broken us, we obey it and impose it on our own children!

The average high school student spends their time every day locked in a room with people they did not choose and with whom they have almost no common interests!
The individual interest of each of them is to get their grades and leave!
Every day they spend 6-7 hours with 25-30 people, most of whom are completely indifferent or downright antipathetic.
On the very first day of school, only the teachers introduce themselves to the class, but the students are not given the opportunity to officially introduce themselves to each other.
Do their names and personalities have any special meaning?!
Isn’t it enough that they have a serial number in the diary?!
The class is just a group of randomly assembled people who must sit passively in front of a board, watching each other’s backs and recording the precious knowledge poured out by the almighty teacher!
A student class is just a collection of people of the same age, not a collective/team!
For there to be even rudimentary understanding in a group, there must be a team, and for a team, a common goal!
Students have no common goal! Everyone has their own personal goal!
Nor is there a leader who works to turn them into a team.
The class teacher only deals with organizational issues and explains their duties!

And what rights do students have?
Almost none! Only duties!
They don’t have the right to choose their program, no free time because homework is mandatory, no right to study at their own pace...
You are told when to get up, when to go to bed, and exactly when you have vacation!
You also don’t have the right to dress exactly as you want!
And what do you call an institution where you have no rights, only obligations? Prison!

Forcibly imprisoned people without much choice can’t help but become aggressive!
Gathered without a common purpose and without mutual sympathies... what do we expect these adolescents to feel for each other? To love and respect each other?
Who exactly teaches them that in school?!
They are taught to respect the system, to respect knowledge (a complete abstraction!), to respect teachers, parents, the state, Vasil Levski, Hristo Botev, and so on...
Where exactly in the learning process are they told how to respect each other?
Who exactly creates any common goal, common interest or meaning for them?

Is it so hard at least to arrange them to sit in a circle and see each other's faces, not their backs?!
Is it so impossible to allow them in high school to develop what they are talented at and not kill their energy with things that don’t excite them?!
Is it so hard to admit that the real purpose of education is to teach them to survive and can’t we finally teach them to survive together and not separately?!
This notorious Bulgarian “saving ourselves one by one” starts in school and the education system does nothing to teach us to live as a society!
With rare exceptions, none of the teachers work on these issues and it’s not their fault! It simply isn’t provided for in the curriculum!
So why are we surprised at aggression in school? It’s perfectly natural, as in any similar prison-like institution!
If it’s not reformed and updated, the school will continue to produce embittered inmates!