Brian Deutsch found this story at Dave’s ESL Cafe. Get ready to get mad.
Here’s a story for you. Recently, one of my students was gang … beaten almost to his death on a saturday.
. . . I was then told, “…the principal and the vice principal are trying to cover up the incident.” I was surprised. I learned they were afraid their reputations would be damaged because they’ve been aware of the group of students picking on this boy for YEARS! They broke his nose a few months ago. They haven’t even punished the group of students that almost killed him. They also tried to hide this from the police. Thank god, the parents decided to get the police involved a week after the kid was beaten. So the school knows who did it, knows how long it’s been going on for, knows how much money this kid’s family had to pay, and they are pretending it never happened. They let the kids who did it, run free!
So I was really pissed off when I found this out. I wanted some kind of justice. So I tutor a kid in his final year. He’s a good student. I do it for free too. So I just asked him what he knew and I told him the story. Now this one really surprised me. His reaction was, “AGAIN?!” So these stupid lowlifes, had the same thing happen 2 years ago. One junior was beat to the point he landed in the hospital, and the same VP covered it up from everyone. She didn’t even punish the students. The kid just quietly disappeared from school.
IS THERE NO JUSTICE HERE?! HOW CAN THESE PEOPLE BE IN CHARGE OF KIDS! THEY ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!
If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do about this, anyone to tell or something, please let me know.
Add to this Gord Sellar’s “How To Mess Up Your Kid” — where’s the Korean Kids Help Hotline, and the videos Galbijim brought to Zenkimchi’s attention, about a teacher in Daegu caught on cellphone camera, beating a student, and we have a pretty grim picture.
On the comment board to his post, I mention the way people are often told not to get involved, especially as outsiders. . . Gord answers,
You see, I’ve heard “Don’t get involved” and I suppose I’ve taken it to heart. But this engenders resentment on my part, because, “Don’t get involved,” really translates — to someone like me, from my background, upbringing, and culture — into, “Don’t give a crap about other human beings, especially vulnerable ones who actually need help.” It’s another way of saying, “Abandon empathy and stop thinking of the human beings around you as people,” which is really, really hard to do.
He also links to a quite old post (2004) about the state of Child Protection Services in Korea.
I’ve seen, with my own eyes, women beaten so badly they can barely stand, driven to police boxes near Jongno. I’ve seen, with my own eyes, a man slap a woman across the face in a restaurant, hard enough that the sound made the entire restaurant fall silent. We’ve heard before, in the news and on youtube clips (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), about the Korean Police’s sometimes lackadaisical approach to protecting the vulnerable. So what do we do?
Talking about it is a start, but good God, I hope that’s not where it ends.
Let’s start with getting as many people talking about this as possible. If you are, or know, an international reporter, get on this garbage! As the recent Singapore textbook incident proves, one thing that DEFINITELY gets Koreans’ attention is negative international media coverage (more here about that). . . what would it take to get the powers that be to lean their decision-making power in THIS direction, instead of asking Singapore to edit some textbooks?
I’m collecting links that would be helpful to any investigative journalist looking for a starting point for a discussion of this topic. Send your links to hubofsparkle[at]gmail[dot]com or post them on the comment board. Original news sources, or news articles in translation with links to the original, carry the most weight; send in links to your blog posts and stories as well, but hard news sources will give any journalist the best stuff to work with.
For starters:
The Daegu Sex Abuse Case (no charges laid: 100 kids involved in systematic sex abuse, and the parents and teachers stopped cooperating with the police) (covered by Yonhap News here and SBS here) Came to nothing: no charges laid. THE PARENTS refused to cooperate.
Little girl attacked by a convicted kidnapper/rapist in an elevator. Police do nothing, and parents have to go to the press instead, to get stuff done.
Man stalks and kills ex-teacher over 21 year grudge. (CNN)
The Miryang Gang Rape Case: 31, maybe more, boys repeatedly gang rape middle and high school girls. Parents of the victim are insulted and the victims are threatened, there is concern about “bringing shame to the town” rather than concern about “punishing the offenders”. Police fail to protect the identities of the victims who spoke out from the attackers and their families, who threaten revenge. The write-up at The Marmot’s Hole blog is quite shocking, but the links to primary source news articles there have gone dead. Attackers basically got away scot-free. Popular Gusts also wrote this one up, with most links still working. Joongang Daily 1. 2. 3. 4. Korea Times 1. Hankyoreh 1. Donga Ilbo 1. Naver News 1. (Brian first reminded me of this one.)
Teacher indicted for molesting students returns to work. (Hangyoreh) (link from comment board)
January 2008: Police Refuse to Investigate Sexual Assault on High School Student, because it wasn’t in their jurisdiction. (Korea Beat) Naver story.
Schoolyard bullying on the rise, getting organized, continues to be ignored by school admin. (link from comment board)
Popular Gusts has this story about a middle-school student beaten to death by bullies.
(November 20th, 2008): 6 out of 10 Student Athletes Sexually Harassed by Seniors or Coaches (Korea Times) From the article:
“If physical violence is added to sexual harassment, the percentage of victims rises to 79 percent. Of them, 25 percent said they suffered physical violence once or twice a week, with 5 percent reporting they were victims of abuse everyday.”
(November 27th, 2008) Egregious failure to protect the vulnerable: Extended family members look after handicapped girl, repeatedly rape her, get suspended sentence in order to take care of her in lieu of parents. Covered first here by Brian, here, and at the Korea Times
(February 24th, 2009) Women’s organization publishes a list of court decisions that are setbacks for women’s rights, including some of the instances mentioned on this post. (Korea Beat)
(March 4th, 2009) Vice-Principal who looked the other way while his principal molested students is given the opportunity for promotion. (Meanwhile, the kiddie-fiddling principal was only given 18 months in jail and 2 years of probation) From Korea Beat.
(April 20th, 2009) Contract-based, temp teacher arrested for molesting and raping female teens. Upon arrest, it was discovered that he had seven counts of sexual assault and other crimes. Korea Times. However, if it happened a while ago, convictions disappear from one’s criminal record check, if you’re Korean. From the article:
Current law provides that criminal background checks will not refer the existence of fines after two years have elapsed, of prison sentences of no greater than three years after five years have elapsed, or prison sentences greater than three years after 10 years have passed.
(April 20th, 2009) Korea Beat translates this April 7th Yonhap News retrospective on other recent sexual assault cases by Korean teachers. (Headline: Report: Serious Loopholes in Background Checks for Korean Teachers)
(April 20th, 2009) Popular Gusts also reports a man getting a mere six month sentence, for engaging in paid sex acts with an eleven-year-old (Article in Korea: Chosun Ilbo). That’s right: six months for an eleven-year-old.
Popular Gusts also links an article about the state of Korea’s human trafficking situation.
A teacher forced students to remove their skirts as punishment. Joongang Ilbo story translated by Korea Beat.
Brian in Jeollanamdo talks about corporal punishment in Korea’s schools. Also reports a Gwangju student committing suicide after a teacher hits him 110 times for failing to show up for a self-study session. (Korea Times) Related (05/25/2009): another student, also in Gwangju, commits suicide, possibly because of corporal punishment at school.
Hankyoreh Column: “Why Don’t We Just Fire Pervert Teachers?” Translated by Korea Beat. (thanks Paul)
Feb 16 2009: Also from Popular Gusts: a shocking report of a man who used his Vietnamese wife to bear him two children, whom he took from her to be raised by his Korean ex-wife (with whom he hadn’t been able to have children). After her second child was born, and also sent to the man’s ex-wife, he divorced her, got back together with his old wife, and a Korean court denied her custody of the children. The more you read about this case, the more of an outrage it becomes: the court basically tosses her a “F*** You” 4 hours per month to meet her kids. (Korea Times)
June 8th: Teacher in Ulsan beats students’ calves till they bleed, and does not allow them to go to church on Sunday, in order to come to his study room. One student says, “Coming to school now is frightening.” Korea Beat and Naver News
A celebrity is sued for being beaten by her husband, and appearing in public with bruises on her face: she damaged the reputation of a company whom she was endorsing. Later she commits suicide because of depression, but the company continues pressing the charges against here estate. The Korean Supreme Court UPHOLDS the lawsuit, and awards damages to the company: in effect, it’s her fault for being beaten by her husband, and is liable for damages! The Grand Narrative, The Korea Herald, Korean Pop Wars Hangyeoreh’s original report 5 years ago.
Korea continues handing out ridiculously light sentences to rapists. ROK Drop, Korea Herald, and Brian in JND, and ROK Drop plus irony.
Extra Korea: Man videotaped having sex with a middle-school girl, and tried to blackmail her for it. Korea Times, which also reported on another, earlier, similar case.
September 30th: Korean judge gives a mere 12 year prison sentence to a man who anally raped a young girl, then violated her again with a plunger, to try and remove the evidence of his rape, permanently, almost completely destroying her lower intestines and genitals. The man appealed his sentence; the sentence was upheld. His defense: “I was drunk” – was used by the court to justify his short sentence. (news Hankuk) (Brian in JND) (Korea Beat) (to be fair: Korean netizens are also outraged by this one)
Oct. 12, 2009 Editorial from the Joongang Daily about increasing punishments for sex offenders in schools.
October 19, 2009: At Popular Gusts, Matt has an excellent post looking at some of the sex-crimes against children in Korea, and some of the shockingly light sentences, and the failure of the Korean government to respond in a tangible, effective way, once the media circus blows over.
07/11/2008 at 7:29 pm Permalink
I’d like to commend this cause that you are taking up. One of the first things that I saw in Korea was the slapping and flogging of some highschool girls in a highschool that had a taekwondo team. Now I work in a middle school. I’m divided when I see kids getting smacked on the wrists or flogged. There is one girl in particular in my school who seems particularly withdrawn from studying. Recently she got her hands whacked for shortening the length of her skirt. The teacher who did it is a kind woman, but seems to target girls especially when they violate regualations. Students are also forced to keep their hair at a certain length. I find these hair restrictions particularly ironic since controling hairstyles was one of the things that the Japanese did when they were the colonizing power.
So yeah get the international press involved. That would provide a good response to the Joohee Cho article exploring foreign teachers and drugs. Where probably a very small percentage of foreign English teachers use drugs, a high percentage of Korean teachers abuse children to an extent that would criminalize them in a western country. In truth though the issue isn’t about trying to embarrass Joohee Cho, it is about trying to end the culture of brutality that is the Korean education system. I feel sorry for both the students and teachers who have to participate in it. On the one hand I seriously question the ability for students to learn anything in an environment where violence is a weekly occurence. It seems that the students who get punished the most get calloused to the point where corporal punishment is no longer effective, and these students also don’t put any effort into studying either because they no longer care.
On the other hand Koreans have created a system where grown adults have to care about how long student’s hair is. I know that I would quit my job if it included having to make girls put their hair into pony tails calling parents and telling them that their son needed to get a haircut. Last year in my school a boy put his hair into a faux mohawk like David Beckham. He got spanked, and then the guy doing the spanking grabbed the mohawk and pulled his hair.
This isn’t anything that is new either. Over the summer, I visited my home in America and had a talk with my taekwondo Grand master, (we’ll call him Mr. Jeong) a man in his seventies. He told me a story about how his teacher lined everyone up and kicked their legs. When he got to Mr. Jeong, Mr. Jeong successfully evaded all of his attacks. He latter told me that this teacher was so hated that the students conspired to jump him after school. So it seems that this violence can go in two directions in extreme cases.
But Robosayo you are right. If Korea would like to make its self seem like the developed nation that the FTSE says it is than this is definately one of the things that it would look at changing and changing for real, but its not about looking good to the outside. This is something that would really help children and help Korea.
07/11/2008 at 8:24 pm Permalink
Just to add a little perspective (I teach at a hawgon), my second week here I yelled at a kid. She was being mean to other students and generally disruptive. I didn’t lay a hand on her. My boss (nice Korean man) found out and politely told me that this was not the way to handle things, and I adjusted accordingly. (I teach kindergarten mostly, so when they’re bad they get something like “Time Out” in the States, and they have to sit by themselves in the corner.)
I’m not trying to lessen the seriousness of what I’m reading about here, just throw out the fact that at least anecdotally this has been pretty much the opposite of my experience teaching in Korea. Granted, I’m teaching younger kids, and I’m at a private school where the parents are generally upper-middle class professionals of one sort or another. Simply put, I’m kind of shocked at how _lenient_ my hagown is towards kids who really need some discipline. Certainly not physical discipline, but even if I do things like keep them from playing in the gym for 10 minutes or so when they _truly_ need some sort of lesson on behavior control, I can tell my boss cringes. (And fwiw, when I taught in the States many of my fellow teachers thought I was usually way too lenient with kids. It’s all relative, I guess.)
07/11/2008 at 8:25 pm Permalink
err, hagwon that is
07/11/2008 at 10:19 pm Permalink
I had that experience too. . . now Jaim, I’m assuming you’re a westerner, and guessing that you don’t “look” Korean. . . but I’ve found there’s a huge difference, even in hogwans, between what I (a whitefaceblueeyedbignosewithcurlyhair) could get away with, and what my Korean co-teacher could get away with, as far as student discipline; meanwhile, in the public schools, where the teachers are socially recognized as “REAL” teachers (because they had to pass a big, really hard test), I imagine they have (or at least assume) even more liberty to discipline as they see fit. . . .all that to say, how it works in a hogwan (which is primarily a business, and completely the opposite of unionized) is way different from how it works for members of a schoolteacher’s union working in a public school.
08/11/2008 at 12:29 am Permalink
Here’s the thing that gets me about my school. (I work in a private middle school that is some how a part of the public school system.) I’d say about 70% of the teachers carry some sort of stick or piece of bamboo that they use to point things out and get kids attention. In the cases where students make some sort of mistake the most common form of corporal punishment I’ve seen is a smack to the palm with the stick. A disturbing aspect about these sticks is the fact that the teachers tend to customize them. A Korean English teacher with whom I work carries a some kind of magic wand looking thing that is covered with electrical tape.
In the co-teaching environment, corporal punishment is often times incredibly distracting. Imagine trying to teach a class and midsentence some kid gets scolded and hit while others watch. What’s worse is that it is too often the first resort and doesn’t solve anything. Jaim you are right the dicipline is lax even in lew of kids getting hit. Imagine this situation in a western classroom: Four friends are sitting together, they are not paying attention and they are talking too much. What does the western teacher do? They separate them or something else, in my school at least the co-teacher just goes right in with the stick, and afterwards the kids go right back to their conversation.
08/11/2008 at 2:35 am Permalink
Sounds about par for the course in Korea.
09/11/2008 at 8:14 pm Permalink
One of the schools I used to teach at (I teach at 3 schools, and used to teach at 7) had a teacher who would take scissors to the hair of students whose haircuts he “didn’t like”. We’re not talking girls who had hair that was too long, it was just “not a style he liked”. The kids were pretty horribly traumatized, and he always cut it in such a way that it looked awful and the kids are made fun of until they can get it fixed.
Not exactly hitting the kids, but still rather abusive, I feel.
09/11/2008 at 8:21 pm Permalink
“What does the western teacher do? They separate them or something else, in my school at least the co-teacher just goes right in with the stick, and afterwards the kids go right back to their conversation.”
Exactly. Hitting the kids does exactly zilch. Nada. Nothing. When I have separated students for similar behavior in the past, my co-teacher always looks at me like I have grown a second head or turned purple. I can’t believe this basic concept of classroom management isn’t taught.
10/11/2008 at 8:35 pm Permalink
I dunno, I think unless you’re willing to get fired for your beliefs, you’d better not get involved when a teacher is hitting a student. Seeing teachers hitting students is such a regular occurrence at my schools that it barely even registers. Every break between classes there are students in the office on their knees getting smacked, or getting swatted across the calves, or getting hit on the hands with rulers. I’ve seen a teacher headbutt students, I’ve seen a teacher punch a girl in the head, I’ve seen a kindly middle-aged woman break a broom across a student’s back, and I’ve seen a gym teacher beat a girl with her own shoe. Pretty horrible, but that’s par for the course.
If I got in between it’d cause all kinds of problems. First of all it’d make the teacher lose face. Face isn’t important compared to a child’s safety, but most teachers don’t see it that way. I don’t know if I’d necessarily get *fired* for getting involved, but it would be an ugly situation, and I would be ostracized even more than a foreign teacher already is.
In a case like the OP, he should get in touch with people from the newspapers and get the word out. In a case like that . . . f*** em, screw “face,” the only way people around here is when they’re shamed. Then they can go on TV with their blurred faces and say it was a misunderstanding and go right back to work. qru38uwaoefjofwe0.
10/11/2008 at 11:37 pm Permalink
I kind of want to see someone loose face some time. I think it might be kind of fun.
11/11/2008 at 5:46 am Permalink
As for compiling such incidents, I looked at beatings by teachers caught on cell phone camera here last year. Also, there are other forms of abuse perpetuated by teachers, as this Korea Times article illustrates:
This was written 10 years ago, but you really have to wonder how much has changed.
11/11/2008 at 8:50 am Permalink
Actually, my comment was in response to something I misread in driftingfocus’s post. When I saw the “What does the western teacher do?” I at first thought it was rhetorically asking what we should do if we see this kind of abuse. That’s why I went on about not getting involved.
I hear all the time, literally all the time, about how K-teachers are having more difficulty controlling kids these days. Matter of fact whenever I ask teachers for help in class—-you know, since coteachers are actually, like, supposed to come to class—they say that it’s not just my class, but that other teachers are having trouble, too. God I hate that excuse. If empathy were an important part of culture here—sorry for stereotyping, but it needs to be said—then coteachers might think about how difficult it is, then, for a teacher who doesn’t speak Korean or who doesn’t want to resort to violence, to keep a handle on the class.
With respect to the CNN article you talked about in the other post, on my site teachers are sharing their stories about grade-changing in university. I have no doubt that happens, considering westerners often come from college settings where grades actually matter, and where students have to work to earn the grade they want, whereas the other courses here are generally impossible to fail. But what caught me about the article was the cheating aspect, that the kid might have been caught cheating on a big HS exam. That type of cheating could be disastrous for one’s whole life. But what I also remembered was how commonplace cheating is here. I’m not even talking about Hwang Woo-suk or all the cases of academic forgery. I just mean on tests and worksheets. Seems like kids don’t even try to do anything on their own, but are always looking at their friend’s paper (or hurrying to copy the homework three minutes before class). There’s enough for a huge post on that topic, and I recall The Grand Narrative writing about how sharing work helps strengthen group bonds. But in schools I see violence and cheating as two huge problems, and in that story they came together.
BTW the “submit” button is still hidden. There’s a little strip in the corner that I can see and click, but that’s it.
11/11/2008 at 11:58 am Permalink
In the email I sent to the above-given address I also reminded Roboseyo of the Miryang gang rape case, where 41 students were accused of gangraping 5 middle- and high-school girls. The families of some of the boys threatened the girls and their families, and one of the police officers is quoted as saying that the girls brought shame on his hometown. I believe that quotation was either proven to be false or to have been taken out of context, but nevertheless the case is another example of people in authority failing children.
11/11/2008 at 4:19 pm Permalink
For what it’s worth I thought that I would mention that a large percentage of Principals and VPs are former PE teachers. It seems that the best way to move up in Korean administration is to garner points and they have more opportunities for points by having students win in sporting competitions.
Why do I mention this? Well, maybe the mentality one might find in a PE teacher is that if you can’t stand up for yourself then you don’t deserve their attention or concern. Add that to the fact that they might look bad if an assault is reported, well…..
As to the sticks, in the middle school I teach at the percentage of teachers carrying them is close to, if not actually, 100 percent. Many of these sticks have only one purpose, and it sure aint pointing at a map. However, if they use them in my class I politely ask them to leave them behind next time we have a class together. I guess I am fortunate though as I am a gray beard which gives me a little more respect in that area.
11/11/2008 at 9:59 pm Permalink
“I dunno, I think unless you’re willing to get fired for your beliefs, you’d better not get involved when a teacher is hitting a student”
—–
I got fired for my beliefs back in ‘96, working in a small rural middle school in Kyeonggi-do. I lasted an entire week. Started work Monday, was fired on Friday. The co-teacher I was paired with was an Army goon who did nothing but yell at and beat his/our students. I kept it in until Wednesday, but when he smacked a girl across the face with a ruler and drew back for another swing, I took it out of his hand, shook my head, and simply (quietly) said “No”. Nothing more was said, but the look in his eyes told me I’d made an enemy that afternoon.
When Friday came, he was back to his screaming abusive self. After coming back from the copy room, I interrupted him beating and kicking 3 boys (I mean laying in the boots to boys prone on the ground trying to protect themselves). I broke that up rather forcefully. Thirty minutes later I was walking out the front door by orders of the principal. Thankfully, it wasn’t my visa-sponsored job, but a part-time gig my boss farmed me out for, but even if it had been I would have done the same thing.
I was very surprised to learn that the parents were on my side. They heard about what I’d done, and wanted the school to hire the “hero teacher” back again because I was “the only one who cared to protect their children”. Principal called and begged me to come back, but I told him to get bent. If they were going to fire me once, they’d do it again.
I heard the goon was “fired” about a month later. Actually, the parents said he was just moved to another school district where no one knows what had happened. The parents were happy with the result (the goon would no longer teacher their children) and my boss was happy because many of the parents ended up sending their kids to his hagwon because they wanted me to teach them.
Do it over again? Willing to get fired over such an event? Damn straight!
27/11/2008 at 12:49 am Permalink
You should add the Cheongju case to this list.
27/11/2008 at 12:51 am Permalink
I will. I’ve been busy.
04/03/2009 at 4:07 pm Permalink
I recently heard a podcast, from the seoulpodcast site, which discussed the unexplained deaths of three foreigners in Korea. One panelist was led to believe that youth had been involved in one death, but also discovered that they would never be charged by police. This is due to a complete lack of juvenile laws, which I don’t understand a thing about, but it seems that since there are no laws that cover minors here then they can’t be charged. You made reference to the Daegu child rape cases, in which all the victims and abusers were underage children and none were charged in the case. They weren’t charged because no one has the authority to do so. At most, the victims’ parents can negotiate with the abusers’ parents for a cash settlement, but if they decide to not participate in the negotiation then there is nothing the victims’ parents can do further, legalwise.
13/03/2009 at 1:04 am Permalink
The untold violence that takes place within Korean public schools (middle and high schools) is an indication that proves South Korea to be a moral equivalent to North Korea. I am personally political about this because it bothers me to see South Korean people like Lee Myung Bak criticize North Korea for their human rights abuses against people up there when South Koreans have bad human rights records, especially in the public school system.
As a teacher of conversational English, the only corporal punishment I have seen in my school was teachers pinching or hitting students, but that is done only at an extremely moderate force because I work in an elementary school and it’s a good school too. But my concern is when these kid graduate and enter middle school my heart sinks for them, because of the extreme abuse they would face if any one of them should ever make any slight mistakes, such as going into class late for legitimate reasons.
Yes, it’s true that all rules in the schools must be obeyed, however when the power of authority begins to abuse human rights, that becomes a problem. Students do have their human rights although they cannot vote. This goes to the old saying that children are to be seen and heard, unfortunately my mother taught me the wrong message, saying that children are to be seen and not be heard. (She herself had an abusive barbaric background). In Korea the way it goes is that children are to be seen and not be heard.
I believe in obeying authority, but when you are denied the right to question authority, you will become a victim of human rights infringement. That has always been a problem in South Korea, even in the schools. If any middle or high school student should ever question the authority of their teachers or school administration, they will be bruised. Questioning authority is not culturally accepted in Korea because of the dominating influences of Confucianism that has existed in Korea since the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). This is why I believe that South Korea and North Korea are moral equivalents.
If these abusive teachers in Korea think that the only way to solve their problems with students is through brute force, they better think again after they criticize North Korea for their brutal treatment of resisters. And if North Korea should ever invade the South again, (as long as they don’t touch my black butt), 70% of South Korean teachers will have a much harder lesson to learn.
15/05/2009 at 1:03 pm Permalink
Add this article on sexual abuse by Korean teachers:
http://koreabeat.com/?p=3654
29/09/2009 at 1:57 am Permalink
Stuff like this is yet another reason why I would never raise children in Korea. And yes, I’m a kyopo.