Teacher reprimanded for slapping 41 students who failed to follow excursion rules

Wednesday 05th August, 12:14 PM JST

FUKUOKA —

A 41-year-old public elementary school teacher was formally reprimanded by the Fukuoka City Board of Education on Tuesday for slapping 41 fifth grade elementary school students on April 27 after they failed to follow rules on what they could and couldn’t take on their school excursion.

The school in Jonan Ward had set a rule before the excursion on April 24 that the students were only allowed to eat snacks distributed by the teachers, but many students were found to have eaten other snacks brought to school.

All of the fifth grade students were in a group gym class on April 27 when the teacher asked those who had eaten other snacks to stand and line up. He reportedly told them: “You think we can have gym class today under these kinds of circumstances?” before running down the line slapping each of the students once on their cheeks with his open hand. None of the kids were injured in the incident.

The teacher told the board that he lost his cool when nearly half the fifth grade failed to follow the rules laid down before the excursion.

News reports

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Latest 15 of 53 Total Comments Show All

Badsey at 10:30 PM JST - 5th August

Are the school lunches that bad that everyone is hording snacks? We maybe slapping the wrong people here.
KitsuneYoukai at 11:16 PM JST - 5th August

Well, this was a stupid thing to do. Punishment for failing to follow rules such as the one noted in the article should have amounted to maybe not going to anymore excursions in the futurev or some other less severe punishment. In many articles you always read that the person in question seems to always say "I lost my cool," "I was stressed and snapped," or "I was frustrated." All this building up surely has been since they were very young. Shows the amount of mental stress their society ia placed on. Maybe some of their tradition needs to be left behind. Like holding everyone accountable when only 1 person does something wrong in a group and not feeling awful regret and shame when a partner commits a crime that you had no part in.

I think teachers need to have access to counseling services like mental therapy at their disposal to deal with the stresses of workign with childeren.
amerijap at 11:55 PM JST - 5th August

This teacher is an absolute idiot. He should have been fired in the first place!!!
Sarge at 10:27 AM JST - 6th August

"students were only allowed to eat snacks distributed by the teachers"

I'll bet they included those nasty ebi sembei.
Monoflow at 05:21 PM JST - 6th August

Slapping children is the parents case... Don't slap children, just get louder (or really loud) to teach them your point...
as_the_crow_flies at 06:21 PM JST - 6th August

I'd say 5th graders are old enough to get an open-hand slap to the face. They were misbehaving, clearly have no regard for consequences, and it's wrong to teach kids that it's okay to misbehave.

By the same logic then, it's also wrong to let teachers think it's okay to misbehave. In this case, the misbehaviour being that the teacher, knowing that corporal punishment is against the law, still clouts 41 kids. So therefore he should be punished so that we teach teachers that rules are there to be respected. Period.
medievaltimes at 10:10 PM JST - 6th August

Wow. A 41 year old man hitting 5th grade elementary school students. I guess he was trying to show the kids how tough he is.
Icewind007 at 02:57 AM JST - 7th August

Alright, I know this is deviant from the current mindset that is being built today, but I don't think corporal punishment is that bad a thing (in this case, it wasn't much called for). I certainly don't think kids are all innocent and I do think they learn from an old-fashioned straight forward punishment.
The whole business where kids are way overly protected from all the "evils" in the world are turning them into exactly what people are complaining about nowadays. They can now get away with so much, not allowed by law to be effectively reprimanded (like they care if you say "you shouldn't do that"). Kids are not idiots that have no idea what's happening around them. They are opportunists and learn very quickly. There are limits on what you should be able to do to them, but there should be limits on what you can't.
Fadamor at 04:19 AM JST - 7th August

So just to clear things up, IS corporal punishment in the schools illegal in Japan? I have to ask because I had thought possession of child pornography was illegal worldwide but apparently not in Japan.
amerijap at 07:54 AM JST - 7th August

No wonder the criticism of Japanese public school education system is an ordinary practice in a civil society. It's really sad to see one misbehavior by a responsible adult(a teacher) who lost a temper giving the students and parents extremely bad impressions on the whole school system.
soothsayer at 07:10 PM JST - 7th August

Wow.There are sooooo many people here who have no idea about the insolence teachers have to put up with from students!
amerijap at 11:57 PM JST - 7th August

There are sooooo many people here who have no idea about the insolence teachers have to put up with from students!

"Insolence"??? I had trouble understanding what you just said above. This is not about their academic performance or commitment to a(n) academic/social life. If you are referring to their actions that ignored what the teacher said, you are using a wrong word.
soothsayer at 04:17 AM JST - 10th August

Amerijap,

I am referring to the contempt that some, if not all of the students displayed by ignoring what that teacher had told them, so no, I'm not using the wrong word. Please refer to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insolent.

Of course, you may not think of them as having been rude, but that's a matter of opinion, not word choice. As an English teacher (i.e. a "real" one), I have a reasonable idea of both semantics and some antics of students.
amerijap at 04:43 AM JST - 10th August

soothsayer,

you may not think of them as having been rude, but that's a matter of opinion, not word choice.

Yeah, you may be right in that respect. However, that does NOT give this teacher a legitimate excuse for his temper-tantrum upon the students. An elementary school is not a military boot-camp, period.
Tigertty at 05:29 PM JST - 11th August

Soothsayer - if I were to slap an employee or every day person who did not obey me I could be arrested. Kids deserve the same rights - insolent or not physical abuse was uncalled for.