Difficult times are coming for children and young people who want to disrupt classes in South Korea’s schools. They soon face penalties that, from their point of view, go in the direction of forced amputation. Their smartphones are becoming a target for teachers in their fight for more attention. So far, this has not been possible in the tiger state because there were no rules allowing teachers to confiscate such devices in an emergency. If they tried to do that, they risked complaints from the parents, because a child’s development naturally requires a mobile phone that is always ready.
That changes on September 1st. What is common elsewhere – for example in Germany – is now also being made possible by South Korea’s Ministry of Education. That must come as a shock to the cheeky students of the online nation.
It is said of this generation that life without a smartphone is not life for many of them. It has become so much a digital extension of their existence that one wonders why these multimedia cameras still have the word “telephone” in their names. And because super-fast Internet has more of a tradition in South Korea than in other countries, the connection to the portable data slingshot is particularly strong here. The mobile phone withdrawal should therefore have a deterrent effect. The government has also enacted further rules to strengthen teachers’ rights. For example, in the future they will be able to “physically restrain students and separate disruptive students”. Department head Lee Ju-ho promises the announcements “a new opportunity to restore order in the classroom”.
That’s probably necessary. Recently there have been heated protests from teachers and those who want to become teachers about the conditions in South Korea’s schools. They complained about violence and harassment by students and parents. The trigger was the suicide of a young elementary school teacher in Seoul’s chic Seocho district in July. It wasn’t the first in the country. According to authorities, 100 teachers have taken their own lives in the past six years.
The crisis has to do with a development that was actually very good. In 2010, Gyeonggi Province set a trend with an “Order on Students’ Rights,” which banned caning and mandated respect for each child’s personality. Seven regional education authorities followed, including that of the capital Seoul. But it was probably given too little consideration that consideration cannot mean no strictness at all. The result: teachers have already been reported for child abuse because they ended a schoolyard fight or warned disruptive students. At least that’s what many teachers’ unions say. The new rules are a reaction to their criticism.
South Korea’s youth don’t have it easy. Many parents want the best possible career for their children and send them to private academies in addition to state schools. Stressed people don’t always behave properly. Less pressure on the next generation might therefore also be a remedy for the teacher crisis. There is nothing wrong with withdrawing smartphones as an educational measure. Renunciation is said to have helped others as well.