On a June afternoon in 2022, in the hallway of an ivy-covered high school in Ottawa, 15 year-old Matthew Morris was dragged into a bathroom by a fellow student, knocked to the tiled floor and punched and kicked repeatedly in the head. Several students stood around watching, and one filmed the assault on his phone.
The video ends when a lanky kid in green shorts walks over to the assailant and pulls him off. “Chill,” he says.
Similar scenarios are playing out in school bathrooms, hallways, playgrounds and stairwells across Canada. Violence in schools is on the rise and the implications are concerning; either kids are becoming more violent or the education system that once contained their aggression no longer can. Or both.