Saturday, July 22, 2006

Chinese Teachers & Bullies

A chinese language teacher ordered her pupils to beat up a fellow classmate for failing ting xie (Chinese spelling test) and not handing up homework. Well, it sure brings back memories of the good old days. In my school days, I can say that we only fear the the chinese teachers. Chinese teachers seem to be using violence as an everyday teaching tool.

Remember this instrument of terror?......It's a meter long SOLID wooden ruler about half an inch thick.

I remembered the weekly queue for those failing ting xie. They would line up before the teacher's desk, and waited in turn to receive a number of strokes on the palm depending on your degree of failure. Girls were usually exempted from this (sexist!). Well, after such display of force, not many girls failed the weekly ting xie anyway. The caning is not limited to the palm, stubborn cases would be given "specials". Putting the hand (palm faced down) flat on the teacher's desk, and caning the knuckles was the one that I feared most.


The punishment strikes fear into all of us. Well, even a hardened veteran of my mother's cane like me, tried my very best to get a decent grade. To be honest, I didn't receive many of those caning. I came from a mandarin speaking family and generally did OK in Chinese. However, like most fears, it strikes more deeply in the hearts of the eyewitnesses.


Not all Chinese teachers used violence, but I am almost positive that all of them have this soul penetrating "death stare" that seems to bring all the little brats to their knees. Looking back, those rather brutal punishment don't seem to leave us any permanent damage and they definitely injected a good dose of discipline into our young souls. But, I do question the education value of such caning especially with today's children. Today's society is no longer tolerant of such "teaching tools". I mean in my time, if I complained to my parents that my teacher gave me a caning, my parents would gave me a caning of their own. Today, most parents would called up the school to complain how "unfairly" his/her child was treated.


Furthermore, on the average we are rather well off compared to then and have other more effective modern educational tools at our disposal. Yes, corporal punishment is the most quick and effective method form of discipline for unruly children. but as it is, it no longer has any place in today's society.


Coming back to this case, the teacher is clearly and seriously in the wrong. It's very different when a person in authority applied punishment and when a classmate gave you some "punishment".

The teacher has practically encourage bullying and giving the children the impression it's OK to do so. In doing so, it might really hurt a child self esteem as it makes him feel very inferior to his classmates. Worse of all, the victim would not be the only one affected, the classmates who beated him up might turned out to be bullies later in life. Yes, a child will beat another child up no matter what we do. It's human nature to inflict pain on other human beings. However, it is particularly damning for an educator who is in a postion to influence the future outlook and behaviour of the young, to encourage such behaviour. It is her very job is to guide a child so that he will grow up learning how best to resist such a base aspect of human nature. In this, she had clearly failed.


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ANGRY TEACHER ORDERS CLASS TO BEAT UP PUPIL
I will pretend not to see


By Crystal Chan
July 21, 2006

A TEACHER was so angry at one of her pupils that she instructed 30 other pupils in the class to beat him up.
The incident happened in a school in the north-east on 11 Jul. It started when the Primary 4 pupil failed to hand in his homework. The Chinese-language teacher involved in the incident is in her late 20s, Lianhe Wanbao reported.


She is said to have told the pupil to stay put while his classmates hit and pelted him with rubbish.
The teacher reportedly told the pupils: 'If you want to beat him, go ahead. I'll pretend not to see anything.'
The other children then surrounded the boy and:
* Stuff rubbish into his uniform
* Kick and pinch him
* Draw on his body with colour pencil


When The New Paper called the teacher on her handphone, she declined to comment and referred us to her principal. We then contacted the school principal, who confirmed the incident. In an e-mail reply to us, the principal said: 'I regret that such an incident had taken place on 11 Jul. There was no sign of physical injury to the child.' He added that the teacher is a Singaporean who had been teaching in the school for 12 months without incident.


'SERIOUS MATTER'


'We view this matter very seriously and I personally counselled the teacher and the pupils involved accordingly. We will take the necessary steps to prevent such an incident from happening again.' The principal did not answer our question about whether the boy has disciplinary problems.


But Lianhe Wanbao reported that the boy often failed to hand in his homework, on top of not studying for his Chinese spelling tests. His mother, who gave her name only as Madam Lin, found out what happened when her son went home crying and told her about it. Madam Lin said her son told her he had been assaulted by his classmates, and wanted a transfer to another school.


She said: 'After questioning my son, I learnt that he was punished for not handing in his assignment.' According to Madam Lin, the teacher allegedly told the pupils that she would cut their marks for the assignment because of her son. And if they were not happy, they should beat him up.Madam Lin also claimed that on the way home from school that day, some of the pupils harassed her son and ruined his school bag. She told Lianhe Wanbao that the recent incident was not the first time that the teacher had humiliated her son.


She claimed: 'During the first week of July, the teacher got my older son, who is in Primary 6 in the same school, to come to the classroom to beat him. That incident also happened in front of my younger son's classmates. I confirmed this with my sons.' Madam Lin also claimed that some parents had blamed her for bringing up the incident as they were worried the teacher would also punish their children. She said she had trouble eating and sleeping because of the matter and hoped that the parents would not put pressure on her.


APOLOGISED


However, Madam Lin said that since the incident came to light, the teacher and parents of the other pupils have apologised to her.She said the teacher had reacted on the spur of the moment after losing her temper with the boy.After her son's complaint, she called the school to speak to the teacher but she was not around. The teacher later called Madam Lin.

'She said she was angry as my son frequently failed to hand in his homework and never studied for ting xie (Chinese spelling test),' said Madam Lin.She said the teacher had admitted to her that she told the pupils to beat the boy.While Madam Lin admitted that her son was naughty, she felt the teacher should not have ordered the other pupils to beat him up.She said her son is still studying in the same school and the other pupils have begun talking to him again.


'For now, I just want to put the incident behind me,' she said.



Source : The Electric New Paper


posted by wert | Saturday, July 22, 2006 | Email This!


2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

such things ain't happening for just the first time. and in such coincidence that its always been chinese teachers who have been the violent ones. recalling many years back, when ive witnessed one of such case myself where the teacher's seriously gone berserk! she threw a chair at a 16 year old, hence caused massive injuries on her face and neck. but somehow this case has nv manage to get to the press.

Sun Jul 23, 03:02:00 PM 2006  
Blogger wert said...

It's the first time I ever heard of a teacher getting her students to do violence on fellow students.

Well, a chinese teacher beating the crap out of some hapless student is no news for I, myself had received such "education".

As I had pointed out the two instances are very difference in nature. Personally, I think it's OK for a teacher to discipline my child as long as she don't cause any permanent damage. But I am certainly NOT OK with the teacher inciting other students to "discipline" my child.

Sun Jul 23, 07:03:00 PM 2006  

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Disclaimer: This blog is not intended to be authorative or clever in any way. It was based on rambling of a half crazed creature, so treat it as such and let it be! I was asked to keep my dangerous thoughts and unbalanced views all in one safe place , and so I did. Objectivity, Accuracy, Responsiblity and any High Standards are certainly not part of this blog's features. However, I must stress that I do not strive to mislead people, confuse people, and much less undermine our national strategy.