Corporal Punishment Video Gets Teacher Fired
You know, if stories like this are really going to generate such shock, shock every time they come out, maybe they should just consider actually banning it for real instead of just pretending to.
Shock is spreading over a video depicting a homeroom teacher at an elementary school in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, administering corporal punishment to the students.
The video shows five scenes of the teacher, A, punishing a child for fighting with over 10 blows to the buttocks and shoulders, then calling three other children to administer four blows.
The video shows the teacher repeatedly hitting the children with a broomstick while they scream in terror, leading to accusations that it is impulsive violence and not corporal punishment.
Within 24 hours the video, recorded by a child in the same class on a cameraphone and first uploaded to Daum’s “Agora” cafe on the 21st by the child’s mother, spread to the homepage of the Gyeonggi-do Office of Education and the homepage of the school itself.
The school took administrative action the same day, relieving A of homeroom duties.
On that day A wrote on the bulletin board of the school homepage asking for forgiveness from her students’ parents. “I ask for forgiveness from the parents and students who have been shocked and emotionally hurt by this corporal punishment intended to control the classroom. When I think of the shock I have caused to the parents I have nothing to say.”