If education tends to be viewed as an antidote to social violence, this paper turns to Freud's study of the "beating fantasy" to consider the fictional representation of psychical aggression in scenes of schooling and being schooled. It is argued that such representations both express and fend off libidinal passions at the heart of student/teacher relationships, and language itself. Drawing on clinical examples and a controversial piece of student writing, I suggest that the teacher's greatest emotional challenge will be to read with an eye for the unspoken communication of forbidden desire held in written iterations of Freud's "beating fantasy", without acting on her own.