Teacher Assaults Female Student in Class

Here's a story (linked to a video) from Korea that's disturbing on several levels. It's about a high school teacher punching a 1st-year female student in class with the whole episode being captured on a video phone. When they appeared on the Internet, the images produced thousands of complaints, causing the teacher to be fired.

Jeff at Ruminations in Korea reports on the incident and has a comment thread where some readers state that Korean culture considers punching students to be acceptable. In fact, some people seem to think it's ethnocentric bigotry to criticize the Korean practice of violently pounding on students. Jeff and others disagree and rightly consider it as abuse. Nonetheless, the fact that some people are trying to justify and defend the practice indicates that, at least in one regard, Korean culture is warped and less ethical than cultures that don't abuse children. And, even if there is only a minority of Koreans who approve of teachers beating students, it still exists as a significant cultural difference between Korea and societies that believe child abuse is a crime. It should also be noted that this cultural disparity provides support for the contention that total multiculturalism is unachievable.

For some reason, a couple other important aspects of this story seem to be ignored. Not addressed is what prompted the beating. It would surely make a difference if the girl was chewing gum as opposed to having kicked the teacher in the groin. It's probably somewhere in between, but, whatever it is, it's not explained. Nor is it explained whether beating students is widespread and common or isolated and infrequent.

In summary, subjecting children to violence is criminal and no debate about ethnicity, culture, or geographic location is going to make it acceptable.

Hat tip: Marmot's Hole