Over 200,000 Korean Teachers Protest After Recent Suicides; Demand Change to Child Abuse Laws

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.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Flyingsword
Flyingsword
8 months ago

Another carry over of commie moon’s disaster administration.

setnaffa
setnaffa
8 months ago

There are enough unemployed folks in South Korea to bust any and all union strikes.

People want to work, to earn a paycheck, and take care of their families.

These teachers ought to get back in their own lane.

GrayBlack
GrayBlack
8 months ago

I used to part time teach in a school as a substitute teacher. In the US, there has been a complete breakdown in classroom discipline which makes the job extremely difficult. Schools used to use corporal punishment to enforce discipline, when that was removed, schools relied on teachers to call parents to enforce discipline on their behalf. That naturally undermines the authority of teachers and the school. As those undisciplined kids grew up and had their own kids, they held no respect for authority and refuse to discipline their kids even when the teacher calls home.

I’m no stranger to hardship be it physical or mental. I’ve dealt with close family having sudden medical emergencies, calling 911 and doing CPR with only for them to die. The rush of the adrenaline, the euphoric high, met by the crushing horror and ensuing guilt as the senses normalize. I’ve known physical pain, attempting to hid multiple broken bones for nearly a month during military training. I know what heart damage (totally not the “safe and effective” vaccine) and being bedridden for over a year feels like. None of those experiences broke me like teaching did.

The job is miserable (especially for young men who care) and the (female) workplace politics even more breaking. I won’t get into specifics, there’s too many, but to give an idea, GySgt will smoke you for fucking up for entirely understandable and fair reasons whereas kids, parents, and even the school admin will gaslight you and punish you for doing the right thing and at the same time punish you for not doing the right thing. It broke me down to the point of crying in despair. If South Korea is emulating American style education, which they appear to be doing, I can see how some teachers could be driven to suicide. I can see why teachers would be protesting this.

At the same time, I have disdain for most teachers. Those who stay long term are mostly those who don’t care about the kids and those who are there for more uncouth reasons. That’s the result of liberalizing/feminizing education and punishing those who get invested. You get the lowest dredges remaining. In hindsight, I shouldn’t be surprised. The best teachers I had (who happened to be men) were constantly butting heads with other teachers/admin (who happened to be female).

The coed workplace experiment has been a complete failure, and handing over education to women has had the same results of single mothers raising children. Of course, I’ll be denounced as a misogynist racist bigot by all the usual crowds, yet for all of the screeching, the results speak for themself.

setnaffa
setnaffa
8 months ago

Grayblack, you wrote a very good post here. Never fear, the worst the chinabots here will do is call you my sockpuppet… Like Liz, CH, Mcgeehee, and whomever else doesn’t lap up their CCP-inspired filth like nectar.

However, it seems there was a news story about one of them on an airplane recently:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/barcelona-diarrhea-plane-delta-flight-b2405625.html

Liz
Liz
8 months ago

GrayBlack, you are not wrong.
I was a science teacher (and substitute teacher…I was emergency certified to replace a science teacher who had a nervous breakdown one day and left while the class was in session, so you can imagine what those students were like) years ago.
It was terrible. Beyond terrible. I only taught half a year and knew I never wanted to teach again (it was middle school, Fayetteville NC).

5
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x