By Cho Jae-hyon
A district court ruled that hitting a student on the head once and two times on the palm with a wooden rod bigger than authorized constitutes assault.
The appeals court in the southwestern city of Gwangju upheld a lower court’s ruling that found a female teacher, 37, guilty of assault. She received a suspended sentence along with an 800,000 won fine.
“The teacher, using a rod that is bigger than allowed by the school, hit students on the head with considerable force,” judge Song Hee-ho said in the ruling. “This cannot be viewed as an authorized act.”
On Nov. 20, 2008, she called nine middle school third graders to the front of the classroom and hit them with the rod — 38 centimeters in length and 2 centimeters in width — once on the head and twice on the palm.
The school allowed corporal punishment on a restricted basis — the length of the rod should not bigger than 60 centimeters or wider than 1.5 centimeters.
During the corporal punishment, one of the students fainted, and sustained a chin injury, which took eight weeks to recover from, due to the impact of the fall to the floor.
The court, however, ruled that the teacher was not guilty of assault for the student’s fall as it had nothing to do with the physical punishment.
1 | Korea eyes launch of 4th Nuri space rocket in 2025 |
![[ANALYSIS] China's ban on Micron tests Washington-Seoul alliance](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/1785a57b07ae45a7b7db49fdf4acd720.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
![[INTERVIEW] Long-awaited extension of Korean Pavilion at Venice Biennale to be pushed forward](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/d8d5090875824ce08a90bb2c5a8f8c05.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
