Tag: teachers

This lawmaker had to get a whole decade of suicide death data to reach this 144 number which to me does not seem very high considering the huge population of teachers in South Korea. This number would be more meaningful compared to other professions with similar numbers of employees. For example how many truck drivers or delivery workers have committed suicide over the past decade?:

Wreaths of condolence flowers are laid in front of an elementary school in the central city of Daejeon in this file photo taken Sept. 8, 2023, after a teacher there died by an apparent suicide. (Yonhap)

The number of elementary, middle and high school teachers who took their own life over the past decade amounted to 144, a ruling party lawmaker said Wednesday, citing data from the Ministry of Education.

The suicides occurred between 2014 and August this year, Rep. Lee Tae-kyu of the ruling People Power Party said, noting the annual number spiked from six in 2014 to 20 in 2018 and 25 in 2021.

The number decreased to 20 last year but as many as 14 teachers died by suicide in the first eight months of this year, Lee added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is horrible what the mother did, but Korean teachers may not want to hold this case up as a shining example of what they are fighting for if in fact the day care worker was negligent and led to the child’s hospitalization:

A photo provided by a day care center worker shows herself with baby excrement smeared on her face. Screencapture from JTBC

More than 50,000 citizens have called on the legislative body to take action to better protect teachers’ rights following a recent assault of a day care center staff member after a parent threw a diaper with baby excrement.

The alleged assault began to gain attention after the worker’s husband posted a petition on the National Assembly’s website, Sept. 12, to call for public support for legal protections for workers and teachers at day care centers and education facilities.

Earlier this month, the parents in question claimed that their two-year-old child received insufficient care at the center in Sejong, which resulted in an injury after a scuffle with another child. As the injured child was hospitalized for treatment, the worker and the head of the center visited the hospital to apologize for their oversight. The mother then threw the child’s diaper containing excrement at the worker’s face.

The worker’s husband then took the humiliating case to the Assembly’s website, and his petition gained more than 50,000 endorsements from the public in four days, which will oblige the relevant Assembly committee to review the petition.

“I’ve witnessed many unpleasant incidents involving teachers and education workers, but never something like this: a baby’s excrement on a worker’s face. And the worker is my wife,” stated the petition filed by the husband who is also a teacher. “Inadequate teachers can be reprimanded, but how about inadequate parents? Do we have measures to hold them accountable? Teachers and education workers need protections and I seek your help.”

Korea Times

You can read the rest of the article at the link that explains the parent’s side of the story.

The massive protests by Korean teachers has less to do with the recent teacher suicides and more to do with wanting to get the child abuse law changed. None of the teacher suicides has been linked to the child abuse law, but the activists are creating the impression the law caused the suicide to get it changed:

On Saturday, around 200,000 teachers from around the country gathered in Seoul’s Yeouido near the National Assembly to commemorate the recent deaths of teachers and to call for the better protection of their rights.

It is very rare for teachers to stage such a large rally on their own without the involvement of labor unions.

The Education Ministry maintains that any teacher taking a leave of absence to join the collective action will be dealt with sternly in accordance with the law and principles. 

Education Minister Lee Ju-ho on Sunday asked for teachers to refrain from taking a leave of absence to attend the planned mass rally while pledging to take measures to enhance their rights and authority in the classroom.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what is going on is that a change in the child abuse law caused any teacher accused of abuse to be suspended. This allowed parents that maybe do not like a teacher to claim abuse of their child to get the teacher suspended until cleared of the abuse allegations. Some of these suspension have lasted an entire year. This has caused teachers to not inflict discipline in classrooms because of fears of being accused of child abuse.

It isn’t really surprising that some parents would abuse the changes made to the child abuse law to go after teachers:

It was the second weekly gathering of teachers and aspiring teachers, as the organizers seek to hold rallies regularly until early September, which will be 49 days after the death of the 23-year-old teacher who took her own life in an elementary school classroom in Seocho-gu, earlier in July. The rally last week saw some 5,000 participants.

Saturday’s rally indicated that parents’ abuse of the right to report a child abuse case against teachers has been obstructing teachers’ responsibility to manage their behavior and discipline them appropriately, as often teachers believe no actual child abuse was committed.

Once a teacher is accused of abusing a student in his or her classroom, the teacher is suspended and the rest of the child’s classmates and their parents face the change of the teacher into a substitute teacher, and the accused teacher cannot return until they are cleared of the abuse allegation.

“Consequently, the classroom (ecosystem) is imploding,” an unnamed teacher said before the protesters.

“We are seeing the children’s right to be protected being respected at all times, while teachers’ responsibility to teach children how to behave appropriately is being dwarfed by the law to prevent child abuse. This needs to improve.”

Also joining the rally was another unnamed teacher with over 20 years of work experience, who was acquitted of her child abuse allegation earlier in July after a year of litigation.

The teacher was accused of child abuse by the parent of a student who beat up their classmates. She had flipped a table to get students’ attention when a student was exerting violence, and tore into pieces what was supposed to be a letter of apology by the student as it contained no show of apology and the student told the teacher she should let go of it.

Wearing sunglasses, the teacher claimed that a teacher who tries to break up a fight between classmates faces allegations of physical abuse, and a teacher who yells at children who picked a fight will face allegations of emotional abuse.

“Is it normal to take our courage in both hands to teach what we are supposed to teach?” she said.

“I feel like I’m walking on thin ice every day. … The law to prevent child abuse should not be abused to allow parents to handcuff or threaten teachers.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but flipping a table may not be child abuse, but it does seem a bit unhinged on this teacher’s part.

The case of a 23 year old elementary school teacher that committed suicide inside her classroom before school started has drawn big headlines in South Korea:

An elementary student on Tuesday pays his respects at a memorial set up for the 23-year-old elementary school teacher in Seoul’s Seocho-gu who took her own life last week. (Yonhap)

The bereaved family of a 23-year-old junior elementary school teacher who took her own life last week released part of her diary indicating that she had struggled with too much work and an unruly student on Tuesday, amid the ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.

“After going to work on Monday, I was bombarded with an immense workload and chaos caused by a student. I just wanted to let go of everything (at that point),” a diary entry presumed to have been written on July 3 reads.

Another entry read, “I was out of breath. My hands were shaking, and I almost burst into tears while eating.”

Amid rumors that the teacher may have been bullied by several parents’ excessive complaints and reports filed at her school regarding her teaching and handling of school affairs, police said Tuesday that they had summoned a parent who had allegedly complained in an attempt to determine the exact cause of her death.

According to reports, the late first grade teacher had been verbally harassed by the parent of a student who had suffered from school violence in the first semester. The parent had allegedly complained about the teacher’s lack of qualifications for failing to prevent the bullying from occurring.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but in my opinion she was working in the wrong profession if she could not handle one unruly first grader and a parent complaining about their kid being bullied. I would not be surprised if there is more going on here.

This is something you don’t hear very often happening in South Korea:

A female high school teacher in the southeastern city of Daegu has been under investigation on suspicion of having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students, police said Tuesday.

The unnamed teacher in her 30s, who has taught at a Daegu high school on a term contract, is suspected of having sex with a male student of the same school in late June in violation of the Child Welfare Act, according to the Daegu Bukbu Police Station.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Another pervert has been uncovered and this time it was a school principal spying on his own female teachers:

Teachers’ groups are calling for a thorough investigation and heavy punishment for an elementary school principal who was arrested for allegedly installing a hidden camera in a restroom for female faculty members. 

Members of the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations and its Gyeonggi Province branch issued a joint statement, Friday, calling for strong punishment of the principal to discourage others from committing such voyeuristic sex crimes. (…..)

Meanwhile, a local court issued an arrest warrant for the 57-year-old, whose name was withheld, Saturday, for violating the law on sex crimes, saying he was likely to flee or destroy evidence, according to Anyang Dongan Police.

The principal allegedly installed a spycam inside a tissue box beside a toilet in the restroom for female teachers at his school in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, which was found by a teacher.

The principal allegedly tried to dissuade teachers from reporting the incident to police, but the teachers reported it anyway. 

The police, suspicious of the principal’s reluctance, talked with him and found out he installed the camera. He claimed he bought the camera for security purposes and installed it the previous day to check if it works, and he had no intention to commit a sex crime, according to the police.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but besides being a pervert this guy is a total idiot if he thought no one was going to notice that easily spotted camera in the restroom.