Demand for change: South Korean teachers protesting for better protection of their rights, the normalisation of public education and to mourn a young teacher found dead in July in an apparent suicide in Seoul. — Reuters
The mental health crisis of South Korean teachers may lead to the collapse of the country’s education system, doctors warn.
ON a morning earlier this year, elementary school teacher Kang Hyun Ju, 29, woke up with a sudden paralysis, unable to move her body.
After much effort, she managed to grab her phone to call her vice-principal and explain that she would have to call in sick that day. Later that day, her psychiatrist ordered her to take at least six months off work, saying that she was at risk of a major breakdown if she did not rest.
This was not Kang’s first brush with a mental breakdown.
In 2019, just two years into her teaching career, a big fight by students in her class pushed Kang to the brink, and she started having nightmares every night, with thoughts of stepping out in front of incoming traffic and slashing her wrists.
Kang is among the 26.6% of more than 11,000 teachers surveyed by the Federation of Teachers Labour Unions in April, who said that they had received mental health treatment or counselling in the past 5 years.
The spotlight has been cast on the mental health crisis of South Korean teachers, following the death of a 23-year-old teacher by suicide in the classroom of the Seoi elementary school in Gangnam on July 18, after reportedly suffering months of bullying and pressure from a student’s parent.
Over the last few days, two separate cases of teacher suicides have been further reported in other parts of Korea, with both having left letters citing their inabilities to cope with work pressure and parents’ excessive complaints.
Support and protection needed
According to government data, about 100 public school teachers took their own lives in the period between 2018 and June of this year, with 11 deaths occurring in the first half of this year.
“It is a critical situation our schools are facing,” says psychiatrist Kim Hyun Soo, in his address to the 20,000-strong turnout at National Assembly on the afternoon of Sept 4, where teachers and supporters held a memorial to mark the 49th day of the passing of the young teacher. Marking 49 days after death is an important Buddhist mourning practice in South Korea.
Earlier in July, two days after the news of the suicide, Dr Kim had led the Korean Neuropsychiatric Association in issuing a strongly-worded statement calling for an urgent need to set up an institutional mechanism to provide support to teachers and protect them from abuse.
Noting an increase in the number of physical and mental violence inflicted on teachers by parents or students in recent years, the association warned of a collapse in the country’s education system “if we continue to emphasise only the human rights of students while neglecting the rights and obligations of teachers”.
The heart of the issue lies with the country’s child welfare law passed in 2014, which states broadly that “doing harm to a child’s health or welfare or committing physical, mental or sexual violence, or cruel acts” constitute child abuse.
Teachers who are accused of child abuse are automatically suspended and are punishable by law.
Teachers say this has skewed teachers’ interactions with both students and parents, as teachers are unable to mete out disciplinary actions even if the situation warrants it, since punishments are seen as violation of students’ physical integrity and human dignity.
There has been an increase in the number of physical and mental violence inflicted on teachers by parents or students in recent years. — Reuters
Rampant abuse
In extreme cases, there have been reports of teachers being assaulted by students in their classrooms, being unable to retaliate or defend themselves.
In July, a third-grade student at a Busan elementary school hit and kicked a female teacher in her face and body and could only be stopped after other teachers intervened.
The teacher suffered broken bones and was hospitalised for three weeks.
A special needs teacher wrote in an online forum that she had a student who would frequently attack her by grabbing her hair and slamming her head against the desk.
The student would also punch her in the face, causing her spectacles to break.
When she complained to the parents, the parents berated her for wearing glasses instead of contact lenses, while another parent told her “you make money because of the kids, so do it right”.
Joy Baek, a special needs teacher, told The Straits Times that she felt that she could have been the teacher who killed herself.
“It’s just that I’m a little bit luckier than that teacher that I’m still alive. I was just a little bit luckier and met less tough students, less tough parents, and less tough principals. If I meet tougher students, tougher parents, and tougher principals next year, I don’t know what will happen to me.”
She has been subjected to abuse by a student who would hit her with a water bottle, and also by a parent who barged into her class during lesson time and screamed abuse at her while trying to hit her.
Stories of abuse by students and parents abound.
On the online community platform of Indischool, more than 2,000 stories have been shared by teachers in just three days.
One of the more serious cases involved a parent who used to be in the military turning up in school with an axe, and threatening to create a “sea of blood” after his fourth-grader son was punished for threatening a classmate with a box cutter. The incident so frightened the rest of the class, they ran out of the classroom in fear.
To teacher Won Ji Young, who has 26 years of teaching experience, the abuse of teachers by parents can be far more malicious.
She saw first-hand the suffering of a close colleague who was accused of child abuse by the parent of a disruptive child, and was only acquitted after a court process that stretched over 2½ years.
The child’s parent had hid a recorder in his clothes, and spliced recordings of the teacher scolding the child. The parent lodged the complaint a day after arranging for the child’s transfer to another school.
Won teared up as she spoke about the stressful ordeal her colleague went through.
“It is not so much about the money she had to spend on legal fees, it is not about the lack of support from the school or education ministry, it is about the teacher’s mental health. Just think about the stress of having to go on trial over a baseless claim, when all you wanted to do was to teach children whom you love.”
She told ST that the situation was never as dire as after the law change, and fears she might have to quit her job one day just to protect her sanity.
“I can handle having a disruptive student in my class, but I do not think I can handle unreasonable parents. If I do quit teaching, it would be only because I want to protect my sanity.
“But teachers quitting will not resolve the issue: we need the laws to be changed.”
Demand for change
It is the demand for change that has seen teachers like her gathering in Seoul for the past seven Saturdays, in a bid to get their voices heard.
South Korean teachers have been rallying in the last few weeks, carrying signs that read: 'Telling the truth is the only way to commemorate.' — Reuters
Last Saturday’s rally was the largest and last of the seven, which saw some 200,000 braving the summer heat and pouring into the eight-lane boulevard in front of the National Assembly.
It is said to be the largest-ever gathering of teachers in Korea. The teachers had come from all over Korea on buses and even two planes from Jeju.
The rallies were a ground-up effort by members of the Indischool community formed by elementary school teachers throughout Korea.
For the past few weeks, they have been organising chat groups to discuss logistics for the weekly rallies, running specially set up social media channels to publicise activities, and also raising donations for bus ads and subway ads to spread awareness of teachers’ plight.
Beyond the calls for revisions to the child welfare and abuse laws to prevent false accusations by parents, and to penalise parents who file malicious and unfounded complaints, the teachers are also demanding that the Ministry of Education take their feedback seriously and to do more to protect their rights.
The scale of the rally and rising tensions over the weekend led to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho changing tack and adopting a softer stance toward a separate group of teachers staging a walk-out on Sept 4, dubbed “A Day to Pause Public Education”.
Lee had earlier threatened teachers planning to take leave for the walk-out, saying it would “constitute an illegal strike”.
But on Sunday, he wrote a heartfelt public plea to the teachers, assuring them that his ministry “is in no way different from teachers in its desire to restore teachers’ lost authority”, while gently urging teachers to refrain from collective action and “to be by the students’ side”.
At the private memorial service at the Seoi elementary school on Sept 4, Lee said that he and his colleagues at the ministry “humbly accept the earnest appeals made by teachers”.
“We have learned how big and deep the wounds our teachers have suffered and how great a crisis our schools and classrooms are facing.”
He promised to “listen closely to the voices of teachers in the field” and to take a close look at reforming the education system.
The ministry has since announced it will push for legislative bills to amend the child welfare and abuse laws, and for malicious complaints against teachers to be criminally prosecuted.
It also pledged a review of teachers’ rights every five years, to be tabled to the national assembly.
But to both Won and Kang, the changes announced are still too little and may be too late.
Won said: “What the ministry is proposing are just guidelines and legislative bills. These are still of lower precedence than the child welfare and abuse laws.”
Kang, who is currently on a leave of absence for medical reasons and is mulling a resignation, said: “For the sake of passionate teachers who still want to protect children who are innocent, it is crucial that the child abuse law is amended immediately to allow for separation from students exhibiting problematic behaviour.” — The Straits Times/Asia News Network
Wendy Teo is The Straits Times’ South Korea Correspondent.
