 Kwak No-hyun, superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, speaks about his policy against corporal punishment during a special lecture to high school principals, held at the education office last August. Punishing students physically has been banned from all elementary and secondary schools in the capital city since November. / Korea Times photo by Ryu Hyo-jin |
By Kang Shin-who Since September when the Seoul education authorities announced a plan to ban corporal punishment at primary and secondary schools, verbal abuses by students against their teachers have made headlines.
It’s too early to say that the ban on physical punishment — spearheaded by Kwak No-hyun, superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education — increased the cases of infringement of teachers’ authority in the classroom, analysts and educators said.
Despite a recent spike in the reports of students’ rebelling against teachers, the Seoul education office’s statistics show that there have been no marked increase in cases of violence or use of abusive language against teachers in the second half of the year.
The number of middle school students who were disciplined for misbehavior against their teachers stood at 162 in Seoul during the September-December semester, up from 117 in the same period the previous year. For high schoolers, the figure, however, fell to 80 from 86 a year earlier.
The Korean Teachers and Educational Worker’s Union (KTU) believes it is premature to evaluate the policy to ban physical chastisement.
“It has been only two months since the ban on corporal punishment was introduced. We need more time before making a conclusion,” said Eum Min-yong, spokesman of KTU. “Many conservative groups are trying to mislead citizens into believing that recent cases of attacks on teachers have been sparked by the ban on corporal punishment. But it’s not true.”
The ban on corporal punishment, one of the most controversial issues that highlighted the second half of the year, has been trumpeted by Seoul City’s top educator Kwak.
It was the first time for the city education office to prevent schools from punishing students physically, although the central government stipulates that teachers need to refrain from physically punishing pupils.
Schools in Gyeonggi Province, headed by another liberal educator Kim Sang-gon, will also ban all forms of physical discipline.
Too early to ban?
Conservative groups criticized liberal educators for having hastily pushed forward the ban.
The conservative Korean Federation of Teachers’ Association (KFTA), the largest teachers’ group, called for the city’s education office to come up with alternative tools to control unruly students, and it admits that corporal punishment should disappear.
“First, there should be measures to immediately curb those who disturb other students from studying. Also, the education authorities should devise ways to protect teachers’ rights,” said Kim Dong-seok, spokesman of the KFTA.
Kim also referred to the survey results of citizens on corporal punishment. “In a recent survey by a local TV station, which was conducted after the Seoul education office started to ban corporal punishment at schools, 83.6 percent of respondents said they oppose the ban on corporal punishment,” he said.
“The British government is also considering revising its ‘No touch’ (students) policy, as many teachers are suffering from attacks by students. The Seoul education office adopted a policy which the British education ministry already failed to implement.”
Moreover, a series of ugly cases where students assaulted or harassed female teachers in the classroom have stoked skepticism of the ban. Some teachers blamed the education office, saying students misunderstand and think that they gained greater freedom as teachers are banned from punishing them.
Lack of substitute
Experts point out that many schools lack a substitute method to maintain discipline and the Seoul education office should introduce more realistic measures to cope with the change.
“I believe hitting students for bad behavior should disappear in principle, but the Seoul education office’s policy measures seem too idealized to be adopted practically,” said Kim Hyun-jin, an education professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.
The education expert suggested that each school needs to be authorized to arrange its own way to control students, instead of being governed by the city or provincial education office.
“I think it’s better for an individual school operation committee consisting of parents and teachers to decide on the disciplining measures for their children attending that school,” he said.
