Corporal Punishment

Gym teacher in Shenzhen forces entire class to do yoga pose for 40 mins

Posted: 10/18/2012 3:12 pm

After some members of a Grade 5 class in Shenzhen’s Xili Subdistrict were being too noisy during a gym class, their teacher punished the whole class by forcing them to stand on one leg and keep one arm in the air for 40 minutes, according to Nanfang Daily.

Needless to say, parents of the students at Fuhua Primary School were outraged and the teacher has been temporarily relieved of the responsiblity of teaching them.

A meeting for the parents was called at the school yesterday and the teacher was forced to explain himself. While he was trying to teach, students wouldn’t stop talking over him, so he forced the whole class to do the pose.

The pose looked something like this

If any student let their arm go down or their leg to touch the ground, he would extend the punishment. The ordeal lasted for 40 minutes.

Education authorities in Nanshan District said this fell under the category of corporal punishment and forcing students into humiliating situations.

Mr. Liu, the principal of the school, said he saw the teacher’s action not as corporal punishment but a “lesson” in balance. No joke. But he yielded to parents and said it would never happen again.

We recently told you about the teacher who stamped students’ faces with ink as punishment. Shenzhen-based anthropologist Mary Ann O’Donnell wrote about it on her blog.

What ever happened to giving students lines?

Tagged: Corporal PunishmentFuhua Primary SchoolGymNanshan DistrictpunishmentXili Subdistrictyoga

Mother beating son in Guangzhou goes viral after being filmed by witness

Posted: 09/13/2012 7:00 am

A woman was seen holding her son down to hit and scold him on the street outside Gongyuanqian subway station in Guangzhou on September 9. You can see the video here.

The mother is yet to be identified and it is not yet known what the child did wrong, but a 3 and a half minute video of the incident was taken with a hand-held camera and picked up by news organizations such as Jiangxi Television.

It was suggested that punishing the boy so publicly may have been the mother’s idea of an effective way of disciplining him. It was also suggested that she is simply crazy.

China has a distinct history of corporal punishment withone of the most common forms being forcing a child to kneel.

There is also a history of standing around doing nothing while something bad happens in public, as we have told you before.

Tagged: Corporal PunishmentdisobedientGongyuanqianJiangxi Televisionpunish

Kindergarten teacher ‘attacks students with scissors’

Posted: 07/3/2012 7:00 am

To spank or not to spank? Any discussion about corporal punishment is sure to provoke heated debate. China has a complicated relationship with the issue. The Ministry of Education is proposing that schools crack down on teachers who violate, or try to skirt around, the nationwide ban on corporal punishment after a student in Shanxi Province was beaten by a teacher for not bringing an I.D. card to school.

Violence towards children is thought to be common in the country. Now Shenzhen has seen a corporal punishment scandal of its own.

A kindergarten teacher surnamed Liu has been accused of attacking three female students with scissors, causing minor injuries, according to local television. During afternoon nap time, Liu allegedly warned a student named Liang Zhi to stop talking. According to Liang, the teacher waved a pair of yellow-handled scissors while making the threat, and when Liang didn’t stop, she slashed the girl’s ankle.

On the evening of June 28, Liang’s mother, Su, was giving her a bath when she noticed a cut about 3-4 centimeters deep in the child’s ankle, she told local media. Su asked her daughter what had happened, and whether she had been naughty. The child explained what had happened, and now Su is demanding an explanation from Qingshuihe Kindergarten in the city’s Luohu District. The other two girls are said to have sustained wrist injuries.

An emotional Su added that she understood the need to discipline children. But insisted that a teacher’s punishment should be no more severe than a slap to the butt.

The head teacher of the kindergarten claimed that Liu had been using the scissors to do handicrafts. Liang was tossing and turning and had shaken off the blanket, the teacher moved to put the blanket back over her and accidentally cut her with the scissors. Liang did not scream, so the head teacher did not hear anything. The first she heard of the incident was when Su came to the kindergarten to complain. Liu resigned the day after the incident.

Although Liang claimed that two other students were injured, no other parents have come forward and complained.

Who do you believe?