Download Education in South Korea is taken very seriously.
For centuries, parents compelled their children to study hard and earn degrees in order to gain a higher position in society.
Some say corporal punishment at schools was part of that tradition.
But starting this year, South Korea banned direct physical punishment.
And now teachers and students there are mixed over what alternative should take its place.
From Seoul, reporter Jason Strother tells us more.
Cho Eun Ae has one memory about high school that she says is hard to forget.
The 23 year old recalls when she was a freshman, a teacher got really angry with her for chatting with a friend during class.
“He shouted, open your hand, and I opened my hand and he smashed it with a stick on my hand."
Q. How many times did he hit you?
"I don’t remember exactly, but it hurt a lot, several times.”
Most Koreans have had a similar experience as Cho.
Teachers here were permitted to use what many called the ‘stick of love’ and used it to discipline students for various things.
Corporal punishment was seen as one symbol of Korea’s Confucian educational tradition.
But some teachers took it too far.
Last year, a student used a cell phone to secretly record the beating of a classmate at the hands of his 6th grade teacher.
The teacher pushes and punches the boy, as other kids look on.
The video was uploaded to the web and many parents, students and teachers were horrified.
And on March 1st, the beginning of the school year in Korea, a nationwide ban on corporal punishment went into effect.
But the prohibition has left some educators looking for new alternatives to maintain order in the classroom.
Ra Dong Chul is principal of the Jung-ang girl’s high school in Seoul.
He gives some examples.
“Students could be made to stand up for long periods of time during class. Or they could run laps around the school’s playground, pick up trash in the neighborhood or participate in school campaigns, like standing in the hall and telling other students not to be late for class.”
Ra says he’s waiting for the Ministry of Education to release its new guidelines on school discipline before implementing these alternative punishments.
But other educators say those methods aren’t much better.
Dong Hoon Chan is a committee chairman at the Korean Teachers’ and Education Workers’ Union.
He says all forms of physical punishment, whether direct or indirect are wrong.
“We support educational non-physical discipline. Like sending kids to a self-reflection room or having the student go on a mountain hike with their teacher to help improve their communication.”
Dong says the Ministry of Education should have held more discussions with teachers on how best to control their students before the ban on corporal punishment began.
But it might be surprising, that some students here say the ban was a mistake to begin with.
18-year old Park Bum-jun says teachers have been left with no authority and bad kids are taking advantage of it.
“Since the ban, some teachers are being abused by their students. Some kids hit their teachers because they know they can get away with it, without punishment. I know the ban was supposed to protect a student’s human rights, but it’s really hurting the teachers’ rights now.”
17-year old Lee Chun Joo agrees.
“I think our society needs some kind of punishment to make students change their behavior. Teachers didn’t hit students out of anger; it was to make them better students. They want their students to succeed. This was our tradition.”
Lee says it was for those reasons that the ‘stick of love’ got its name.
