Suicide of teacher victim of ‘parental bullying’ in South Korea

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Episode triggered wave of protests by teachers across South Korea; over 100,000 took to the streets over the weekend in Seoul Teacher’s suicide sparked massive protests in Seoul News1/via BBC On June 5 this year, 23-year-old South Korean teacher Lee Min-so* described in her daily the fear that took over her body when she entered the classroom. “My chest is really tight. I feel like I’m going to fall somewhere. I don’t even know where I am.” On July 3, Lee wrote that she was so overwhelmed with the madness of work that she “wanted to drop it all”. Two weeks later, she was found dead in her classroom closet by her classmates. Lee had taken his own life. The episode triggered a wave of protests by elementary school teachers across South Korea. Tens of thousands of them went on strike this Monday (4/9) to demand better protection at work. Teachers claim to be frequently victims of harassment by authoritarian parents, who call them at all hours of the day and on weekends, with unfair and incessant complaints. Suicide: is there any sign? How to prevent and talk to my child about the topic? Lee’s cousin, Park Du-yong, struggles not to cry as he cleans up her small, empty apartment, which is now home to only her goldfish. The bed is unmade and next to it is a pile of drawings of her first graders telling her how much they loved her. And, just below that, another pile, this one of library books, about coping with depression. Park says her cousin had been teaching for just over a year, fulfilling her childhood dream of following her mother’s profession. She adored the children, he says. So in the days following Lee’s death, which police were quick to blame on a recent breakup, Park took on the role of detective. He read hundreds of his cousin’s diary entries, as well as work reports and text messages. That content revealed that in the months leading up to her suicide, Lee was bombarded with complaints from her parents. More recently, one of her students had hit another child’s head with a pencil, and she was involved in heated arguments with parents who called or texted her late at night. In the past six weeks, tens of thousands of teachers have staged protests in the capital Seoul, claiming they are now so afraid of being called child abusers that they are unable to enforce authority in the classroom or intervene when children fight. They accuse parents of taking advantage of a child welfare law, passed in 2014, which mandates that teachers accused of child abuse are automatically suspended. Under this legislation, teachers can be reported for child abuse for restraining a violent child, while a reprimand is often labeled as emotional abuse. Suicide: learn how parents and educators can work on prevention Such accusations can cause teachers to be immediately removed from their jobs. A teacher has received a formal complaint after denying a parent’s request to wake their child up with a phone call every morning. Another was reported for emotional abuse after berating a boy who had cut his classmate with a pair of scissors. Tribute at primary school where 23-year-old teacher committed suicide News1/via BBC Pressure and aggression In one of the protests accompanied by the BBC report, teacher Kim Jin-seo, 28, said she had had suicidal thoughts and had to take three months off leave after two particularly aggressive complaints from parents. She says that she once asked a disruptive student to take five minutes to collect her thoughts in the bathroom, while the next she reported a child to her parents for fighting. In both cases, the school forced her to apologize. Kim says she got to a point where she felt she couldn’t safely teach. “We teachers feel extremely powerless. Those who have experienced this firsthand have fundamentally changed, and those who haven’t have seen it happen to others, so it’s debilitating either way,” she says. Experts say this culture of complaining is being fueled by South Korea’s hypercompetitive society, where almost everything depends on academic success. Students compete hard for top grades from a very young age, to one day get into top universities. Outside of school, parents send their children to study at expensive extracurricular schools known as hagwons, which are open from 5 am to 10 pm. Whereas families in Korea used to have five or six children, most now have just one, which for many means they have only one shot at success. Professor Kim Bong-je, who trains future teachers at the Seoul National University of Education, also blames rising inequality. Traditionally, South Korea had a very strong culture of respect for teachers, he explains, but due to the country’s rapid economic growth, many parents are now highly educated. “That means they often look down on teachers,” he says. “They think that by ‘buying’ teachers’ salaries with their taxes, they can do whatever they want. In other words, they feel superior.” Another teacher, Kwon, tells the BBC that in the 10 years he has been teaching, he has taken two periods of sick leave to deal with depression and panic attacks, both triggered by stress from parents and students. Until four years ago, a teacher could expel a student from the classroom, he says, but then parents started suing teachers for child abuse. Kwon recently moved to a school in a poorer community and confirmed that parents’ behavior in wealthy areas was much worse. “Their mentality is ‘only my child matters,’ and when all you can think about is sending your own child to a good college, you become very selfish,” he says. He has no doubt that this pressure rubs off on children, affecting their behavior as well. “Students don’t know how to relieve that pressure, so they act like they’re abusing each other.” Bullying and violence among students are known problems in South Korean schools. The popular series The Glory, for example, centers on a woman seeking revenge against her former abusers. Based on true events, it portrays some disturbing acts of violence. In a plot twist, the show director himself was accused of bullying and forced to apologize. In February, the government, under pressure to resolve the issue, announced that students’ records of bullying would be included in their university applications. While hoping to encourage students not to bully each other, this ended up fueling even more parents’ anxiety, causing them to put pressure on teachers to erase their children’s mistakes. Shin Min-hyang, who runs the organization Solidarity for the Protection of the Human Rights of Students and Parents, says this behavior is unacceptable, but argues that cases like this are atypical. “The vast majority of parents are on good behavior and we are concerned that the channels we use to communicate our concerns are now being cut off. Parents are being blamed and that is not right,” she says. But Shin admits that she has complained about teachers in the past and would like more information about her son’s education and how he was disciplined. One of the parents, who declined to be identified, says he fears the complaints have gotten out of hand. He showed the BBC the contents of a chat between parents on a messaging app, in which they encouraged each other to harass a teacher because of a decision she had made. “If your number is blocked, use your family and friends’ phones to call,” one parent instructed in the chat. “If teachers are not empowered to intervene with troubled students, others will be negatively affected,” says the parent, who declined to be identified. According to a recent survey, less than a quarter of teachers (24%) were satisfied with their work, down from 68% in 2006, when the survey began. The vast majority say they have thought about leaving the profession in the last year. The government acknowledges the problem and has therefore issued new guidelines for teachers. Under the new rules, they will be able to expel disruptive students from the classroom and discipline them if necessary. The rules state that parents must agree with teachers on the date and time of meetings in advance, and teachers can refuse to hold them after work. South Korean Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said he hoped such measures would “get schools back to the way they were before”. But there are many here who argue that the problem is much broader and argue that South Korea’s entire education system needs to be reformed. And that has to happen with a change in how the country’s society views academic success. *We changed the name of the teacher at the request of her family. Collaborated Hosu Lee and Lee Hyun Choi

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