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Article related informationReporter, Reporter Yuna Gu, BBC Korea
2 hours ago
“(As a teacher) I feel like my limbs have been cut off… I want to run away from school.”
Teachers dressed in black gathered in Gwanghwamun, Seoul on a hot summer day with a daytime temperature of over 30 degrees Celsius. Last month, Shin Hyeon-soo (30, pseudonym), a sixth-year elementary school teacher in Gyeonggi-do, met at the site of the 3rd rally, where about 30,000 people (according to the organizers) gathered, appealed, “Please make sure there are no more dying teachers.”
The teacher assembly, which started on July 22 and lasted almost every weekend until the 26th, is unprecedented in terms of scale and duration. It is also noteworthy that the event was conducted not by a specific organization such as the National Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), but by the online community ‘Indie School’, to which about 80% of elementary school teachers nationwide joined.
The catalyst for the rally was the suicide of a teacher at Seoi Elementary School.
Last July, a young teacher in Seoi-cho, Seocho-gu, Seoul was found dead on campus. In response, many teachers pointed to parents’ malignant complaints and stress caused by work overload as the cause of death and demanded an investigation into the truth. The police are currently investigating the matter, and it is known that they have not yet found any criminal charges, such as verbal abuse by parents.
Even until the early and mid-2000s, excessive ‘authority’ of teachers, such as corporal punishment of students and rigid class environment, was often a problem in the Korean education field. However, now, more than 20 years later, the opposite voice is emerging from the classroom.
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Teachers across the country are holding rallies demanding the truth-finding and restoration of teaching rights after a teacher committed suicide at Seoi Elementary School in Seocho-gu, Seoul in July.
Extreme ‘complaints and complaints’ stress
“My 10-year-old got angry and tore the plastic basket.”
Youngmin Park (30, pseudonym), an 8th year elementary school teacher in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, recalled what happened when she was in charge of a 3rd grade class.
Mr. Park saw a student who often showed aggressive behavior taking out scissors and a 30cm ruler made of iron in Korean language class and told him to put it in. He said, “I said three times and if you don’t put it in, I’ll take it”, but the student didn’t listen, and when he tried to take away the iron, a big commotion broke out.
“The moment I grabbed the iron ruler, the child picked up the desk and threw it. And in the process of swearing at me and hitting my hand while trying to take the iron, my hand was cut and bleeding.”
Fortunately, he said, the teachers and principals in the next class heard the commotion and came over to calm him down and help him get the other kids out of the classroom. Afterwards, when I called the parents of the child to explain the situation and asked for a visit for consultation, the first answer that came back was, “Why can’t I have scissors?” The parent said that when the teacher said she was hurt, she said, “I’m sorry,” but she replied, “I can’t go to school because I’m busy making a living.”
Mr. Park said of this incident, “I realized that I could not get any support except for teachers to solve it on their own when students were in a commotion, and I could not summon the parents to school.” He said, “I felt helpless.”
As a result of a survey of 21,317 students at Indy School last month, 96.8% answered ‘no’ to the question, ‘Do you think you can actively deal with problems when a student’s problem behavior occurs?’ One of the biggest causes was ‘parent complaints and complaints’.
Mr. Shin revealed that he was sued for emotional child abuse while tutoring a student who abused him. He said that he spoke on the phone with his parents for three hours almost every day for a month earlier, but in the end, he could not stop the complaint. Although the lawsuit was dismissed quickly without exceeding a year, he said that he was under a lot of stress at the time and even considered an extreme choice.
He said, “(As a teacher), if I am accused of child abuse, whether I am convicted or not, the fact is not accepted by my brain.” “If you can’t teach your kids about right and wrong, they ask, ‘Why am I doing this job?’”
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Choi Joon-hyeok, who works as an elementary school teacher in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, travels from Pohang to Seoul every weekend to participate in rallies. It’s from “Let’s do our best”
Choi Joon-hyeok (29), who works as an elementary school teacher in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do, said, “You need to let students know that you did something wrong and that you should reflect on it, and students should be given an opportunity to reflect. That is impossible,” he said.
“The students were having a soccer match, and I was the referee. But after the game, six students from the losing team cursed at me in front of me. I stopped him and asked him to repeat what he just said, and when he asked if what he said to me was correct, he said ‘yes’. When I asked, ‘Is that something you can say to the teacher?’, several people apologized, but one said, ‘It is true that the teacher misjudged the referee.’”
He said, “If you continue to admonish a few people who took the lead in swearing in that situation, you can report these children as child abuse, saying, ‘It seems that you have been emotionally abused’. Then I just became a child abuser,” he said. “After thinking about that, there was nothing more I could say. So I just sighed and sent it to half.”
Article 17, Subparagraph 5 of the Child Welfare Act defines emotional child abuse as “emotional abuse that harms the mental health and development of children.” Last month, a member of the National Primary School Teachers’ Union filed a constitutional complaint against the provision, saying that the provision is too ambiguous and comprehensive, limiting teachers’ life guidance.
Ahn Jung-won (40, pseudonym), an 8-year-old elementary school teacher in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi-do, pointed out that in some cases, when malicious complaints or complaints occur, the principal or vice-principal, who is a managerial level, forces the teacher to make a one-sided sacrifice to cover up the incident.
Why is a teacher who was a ‘envy job’?
Experts believe that the Seoi-cho incident served as a kind of “trigger”. It is explained that this incident caused an explosion of complaints about various problems that teachers were experiencing.
Mr. Ahn said, “Ten years ago, the entrance exam to the university of education (where you can become an elementary school teacher) was a job of envy that excellent students flocked to.” “We have faced the worst with an increase in cases, a decline in teacher welfare and treatment,” he said.
Professor Park Nam-ki, who served as president of Gwangju National University of Education, actually found out that more recent graduates of the university of education are changing jobs.
According to the ‘Status of National Public Elementary, Middle and High School Retirement Teachers’ announced in May, 589 national and public teachers with less than 5 years left the school from March of last year to April of last year. This is a nearly double number compared to the same period last year.
In particular, many teachers feel that work stress has increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Park pointed out that in order to respond to emergencies, there are more things to directly communicate with parents through personal numbers or messengers, and that tasks other than classes have increased significantly, “to the extent that I do not know whether it is a school, a village office, or a hospital.” Other than that, he said he felt that the students’ literacy or emotional capacity had declined.
In this situation, it is pointed out that there is almost no way to protect teachers from the infringement of teaching rights by students, parents, and administrators.
Song Gi-chang, professor emeritus of the Department of Education at Sookmyung Women’s University, said, “Teaching rights and student human rights must be balanced, but a problem has arisen because all policies are biased towards (strengthening) student human rights.” This should be enacted,” he said.
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Teacher organizations are demanding the revision of the law for normal educational activities of teachers, the separation of students who disrupt classes, and the establishment of a complaint management system.
What are the options for both teachers and students?
There are also voices of concern that strengthening teacher authority may lead to deterioration of student rights. However, experts point out that if teacher rights and students’ rights are not balanced, both teachers and students will inevitably suffer.
Mr. Ahn emphasized, “We fully agree that the student human rights ordinance and child abuse-related laws respect student human rights and guarantee freedom, but the problem is that teachers do not have the right to sanction them to provide legitimate life guidance in this regard.” .
“In foreign countries, responsibility and principles to be observed (students) are valued as much as student freedom, but in Korean education, the balance between the two has not yet been achieved, creating a vicious cycle in which both teacher rights and student human rights are violated,” he explained.
For example, if a teacher does not have the authority to properly guide a student with problem behavior, all other students in the classroom are eventually infringed upon. In addition, it is said that specific guidelines for guiding problematic behaviors must be prepared so that parents can transparently share the situation without relying on the discretion of school administrators.
Specifically, teachers are demanding the revision of related laws, such as the Child Welfare Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, unification of complaint channels, and preparation of guidelines for guiding problem behavior.
Professor Park emphasized that while preparing a plan to strengthen teacher authority, communication between teachers and parents should not be blocked.
Professor Park said, “As excessive corporal punishment by some teachers in the past caused social resentment, a measure was devised to tie all teachers’ hands and feet, and as a result, teaching rights were violated and education became difficult.” If we tie their hands and feet to solve the problem, the same problem will be repeated.”
Lee Yoon-kyung, head of the National Parents Association for True Education, who is working as a student human rights committee member at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, emphasized the need to strengthen collaboration between teachers and parents through the parents’ association guaranteed by the ordinance. It is argued that complaints are unified through the parent association, and in the process, trivial questions or complaints can be handled by the parent association itself.
Teachers are also emphasizing again that the intention is not to exclude parents from education. However, some teachers pointed out that some parent meetings are currently being used as a means to criticize teachers or raise objections to the school, and felt that mutual efforts are needed for positive collaboration.
Politicians are also beginning to revise laws such as the Special Act (Teacher Status Act) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to apply the ‘Notice on Teachers’ Student Life Guidance’, which strengthens teachers’ right to teach, from this month, and to improve teachers’ status and protect educational activities. .
However, when many teachers showed a movement to attend a rally commemorating the 49th death of a Seoi-cho teacher who died on the 4th by using love or sick leave, the Ministry of Education declared it “illegal” and announced that it would take tough action.
“Honestly, I wonder if this will change,” says Choi, who goes up every weekend from Pohang to Seoul to participate in the rally.
“It’s a very difficult thing to change the law. But since I’m thinking of quitting teaching, I’m thinking of trying my best so that I don’t have any regrets.”
2023-09-01 11:23:56
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