Bad Students Still Get Smacked in Taiwan

In Canada, if a student was lipping off or being an idiot, the school really has no power to do anything about it. If it gets to the point where the teacher is pissed off enough to take matters into their own hands, then the student is a victim and the teacher is evil. Take it another step, if a teacher ever laid their hands on a student, the teacher would probably be fired, and the paper would have a story of a young student being beat by his teacher, regardless of the possibility that the kid was being that big of a punk. Things are a bit different here.

I cracked the local Taiwan News (June 4th English Edition) to see a headline that said that teachers here were still hitting students. Still? Apparently their Education Basic Law was only ammended in 2006 to include a no hitting rule. In fact, the article went on to say that around 1.45 million students in the first half of the school year were already smacked around. Assaults included flogging, spanking, slapping of the face, and pinching or jabbing. Because of the law, some teachers have gotten around it by having misbehaving students smack eachother around. That’s certainly creative.

Punishment isn’t all about smacking either. Some teachers use other forms of behaviour modification such as getting pupils to stand in a corner, deprivation of food or water, or suspension of bathroom breaks. They’ve even used punishments like squat jumps and push ups. Since teachers aren’t allowed to hit anymore, Taiwan will probably see more use of these sorts of punishments. You’ll also probably see a population of very buff looking teens after doing enough squat jumps and push ups. Talk about a way of killing off childhood obesity.

It’s interesting to note that the lowest percentage of physical punishment was in Taipei at 36.7 percent while some other areas see as high as a 69.1 percent rate. This is all post Basic Education Law Ammendment which outlaws it. The question is, do students really misbehave that much? Or are teachers really just being too severe? Granted, there are some kids that have a serious attitude problem, but to have such a high percentage of them out of line and requiring punishment? Sounds a little off.