SEOUL, South Korea – For weeks, a younger South Korean instructor was bombarded with texts and calls from mother and father irate at how their baby had been handled. Then she was discovered lifeless in her classroom.
The suicide of the 23-year-old lady, in simply her second yr of instructing, has triggered an outpouring of grief and rage and set off widespread protests, together with a uncommon strike, as academics push again towards what they name untenable working circumstances.
For many years, bodily abuse by academics was tacitly tolerated in South Korean colleges, specialists say, however within the early 2000s the nation launched a serious drive to stamp it out, culminating in sweeping 2014 laws on baby abuse.
This, academics now say, has brought on the pendulum to swing too far the opposite manner.
They say the laws, as an alternative of defending susceptible pupils, has stripped institutional and authorized protections from academics and empowered pushy mother and father to bully them.
“I felt an overwhelming weight and wanted to let it all go,” the late instructor wrote two weeks earlier than her demise in her journal, which was launched posthumously by the Seoul Teachers’ Union.
One of her first-grade college students slashed one other baby within the face with a pencil and, after the instructor intervened, phone data present she was topic to repeated calls and messages together with on her private telephone by the perpetrator’s mother and father.
“I couldn’t breathe,” she wrote in considered one of her ultimate entries.
Multiple academics advised AFP her expertise deeply resonated with them: that they had been topic to relentless, offended exchanges and threats of kid abuse complaints from mother and father.
They additionally described continuous stress to expunge data of faculty bullying or any blemish that may mar a toddler’s prospects for top-tier universities — a vital consideration in South Korea’s hyper-competitive, education-obsessed society.
‘Branded a toddler abuser’
Every weekend for the reason that instructor’s July 18 suicide, academics have gathered in central Seoul to protest — of their lots of of 1000’s final week — demanding higher safety for his or her occupation and an finish to parental bullying.
Choi Jun-hyuk, a 27-year-old elementary college instructor who has joined the rallies, advised AFP that educators had been at the moment in an unimaginable place.
He has been topic to specific, foul language from considered one of his third-grade college students, however when he confronted the boy, he rudely pushed again.
“I should have disciplined him, but the fear of being branded a child abuser hung over me, so I let him off the hook,” he mentioned.
Another instructor advised AFP she had no method to stop unruly college students from disrupting a whole class.
“If I separate them from other students, for example, asking them to stand in the hallway, I could be accused of child abuse,” Seo Chan-yang, who has taught elementary college students for 15 years, advised AFP.
Parental calls for are sometimes absurd, she mentioned, describing a case the place she wrote in a report {that a} scholar had a “fairly good academic performance”.
The mother and father demanded she revise the report, claiming it might have an effect on the kid’s future college prospects. The baby was seven years previous, she mentioned.
Innocent till confirmed responsible?
The concern, academics say, is that the 2014 legislation outlined “child abuse” broadly however required that or not it’s instantly reported to police.
Parents now really feel empowered to accuse academics of “emotional abuse” over what are, they are saying, regular classroom disciplinary measures.
Any police report triggers months of investigation and potential sacking for academics, with academic authorities typically suspending them pre-emptively.
“The principle of innocence until proven guilty does not apply,” instructor Seo advised AFP.
Even Seoul’s training superintendent, Cho Hee-yeon, has acknowledged the imbalance, with academics “viewed as being guilty from the beginning” when mother and father complain.
After the protests, Seoul’s Education Ministry mentioned academics had been allowed to separate disruptive college students from courses with out worry of being labelled baby abusers, a transfer welcomed by academics’ unions.
Many mother and father might have themselves skilled abuse within the Eighties and 90s, and faculty violence has featured in South Korean popular culture, from 2001’s “Friend” a couple of instructor smacking children to the ground, to the more moderen Netflix hit “The Glory” about college bullying.
“I myself was subject to corporal punishment growing up,” instructor Choi mentioned.
“But times have changed. There are no teachers who would do such things to students now.” — Agence France-Presse
If you’re searching for somebody to speak to, the National Center for Mental Health hotlines are additionally open at:
1-800-1-888-1553
0917-899-8727
0966-351-4518
0908-639-2672
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
