School authorities look away from violence

Teachers call for effective alternative discipline for student misconduct

This is the second of a series of articles on school violence brought into the public spotlight following recent student suicides. ― Ed.


A 28-year-old middle school teacher who reported an in incident of violence to the school’s teacher in charge of student discipline received a shocking response.

“He first asked me back, ‘Did the student break something? If not, deal with the case by yourself,’” she said, declining to be named.

Under regulations, if there is student violence, a special committee involving parents, doctors, lawyers and police should be convened.

In reality, however, such committees hardly ever meet.

The middle school teacher refused to handle the incident quietly. She fought against authorities that wanted to keep outsiders in the dark, and managed to force them call the meeting. The committee gave the bully community service and had his parents apologize to the victim.

Her success is an exception, though. So far, schools have generally avoided confronting bullying, except for intermittent high-profile outbreaks. When bullying incidents have taken place, schools have often swept them under the rug.

A passive response from teachers has aggravated the problem, experts say, resulting in a recent spate of bullying victims committing suicide.

According to teachers, when it comes to incidents as bullying, schools are afraid that their reputation may be tarnished by the revelations in the process of resolving it under the regulations.

“Schools have been passive in resolving school violence,” said Kim Bok-in, a Seoul-based counselor at one of the Wee Centers, which are state-funded student counseling centers. “One of their biggest worries is that others will know they have problems.” 

Paradoxically, the anti-bullying system to benefit those schools with no or few reported cases of school violence contributes to pushing the problem underground. It is one reason why schools try to brush their problems under the rug.

Lower evaluation points due to reports of school violence mean less government subsidies for schools and fewer incentives to teachers.

As a result, schools focused more on their reputation rather than on helping harassed students, and students have lost trust in schools. They do not believe that schools are able and willing to protect them from bullies even if they report school violence.

According to a recent survey of 4,119 students from elementary school fifth graders to high school juniors by the School Violence Prevention Foundation, a majority of students hardly ever reported violence to schools.

Of the respondents, 53.7 percent believed that reporting would only make matters worse or would be of no help.

As to school violence, private schools are reportedly more passive to than public schools.

“People think school violence happens more frequently at public schools than at private schools. But in reality, private schools have a stronger tendency than public schools to conceal or underreport school violence incidents,” a 27-year-old teacher surnamed Choi said.

“Headmasters of private schools, who have no choice of school transfer, think that student violence at their schools will leave a stain on their career as well as on the history of the school. In public schools, headmasters are rotated every four or five years, so they usually try to make as many documents as possible, which are required by their successors to take over from them,” she explained.

As school authorities try to hush up violence, teachers have a hard time dealing with students’ misconduct.

“We have little autonomy in managing student conduct and correcting their misbehavior,” said Bang Myung-hwan, teacher at Jinsan Middle School in Incheon, at a recent consultative meeting with the education minister on school violence.

Another teacher from Pullo Elementary School agreed, saying “students do not buy teachers’ words any more.”

Many teachers say they find it harder to manage their students effectively as corporal punishment has been banned at schools. They say the ban has left them without effective alternative means to discipline troubled students.

“We need to work out an effective discipline plan acceptable to the whole society,” Bang said.

Under the current system, most school bullies are ordered to do voluntary work. Only a few are transferred to another school as a last resort.

Teachers are skeptical of its effectiveness.

“Bullies are to be transferred not to a school far away, but to a nearby school. Even if a troubled student is transferred, another problem student fills the spot, becoming another source of school violence,” Choi said.

Kim Jun-gil, teacher at Buil Girls’ Middle School in Incheon, noted the responsibility of schools, among other things.

“In the end, sending troubled students away doesn’t help in solving school violence. Schools that know their students the best should take care of them.”

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)