Pregnant junior high school teacher harassed by students’ 'Miscarriage Club'

Eleven male students of a municipal junior high school in Handa City, Aichi, formed a “miscarriage club,” to harass their 7th grade homeroom teacher by tampering with her school lunch, Shukan Post reports. The incident has been reported overseas as well.

According to the vice principal of the school, the harassment began after the teacher, in her 30s, changed the students’ seating at the end of the second semester. Although intended to assist students with developmental disabilities, some students considered the seating change a sign of favoritism. Eleven classmates decided to “retaliate” by creating a club they named “Make Teacher ‘A’ Have a Miscarriage.”

These students began misbehaving in class from the third semester, which developed into other acts of harassment such as pasting glue mixed with powdered chalk (to make it look like semen) on the teacher’s car and loosening the screws on her chair, which could have injured the pregnant teacher. Then on Feb 4, the “Club” members put powdered alum in the teacher’s lunch.

“There was a science class experiment using salt and alum, and some students took a small portion of each and mixed them in the teacher’s meat sauce while preparing to pass around the [school-provided] lunch trays to the class. The teacher ate the lunch without any knowledge of the tampering,” said the vice principal.

The rumor about this incident spread among the student body, and finally came to the attention of the school administrators on Feb 25. While alum is used as a food additive and harmless to the body, the act of the tampering itself must have been a considerable shock to the pregnant teacher who would be concerned about anything that may harm the fetus.

Five students were directly involved in this lunch incident. None of the 11 “Club” members, however, had a reputation for bad behavior or had academic problems. Why, then, would such youngsters create a club to make their teacher suffer a miscarriage? The school vice principal commented, “The naming of the club is inexcusable, but the students had no murderous intentions. We think the students were just fooling around.”

The school insists the entire incident was a prank and has not taken stringent action to reprimand the 11 students. Instead, the school held a parent-teacher conference with each student for three days to instruct the teenagers on respect for life and to learn to judge between right and wrong. According to the vice principal, the school has made the students apologize to the teacher, and he believes that they now regret what they did.

Others who know the students seem to think otherwise. A classmate of the 11 members said that they were complaining about the media reports and were angry over punishment by their parents. One 8th-grader acquainted with these students said, “Their blog was flooded with postings after the newspaper article came out and there was a comment that said ‘Hundreds of people are browsing – this is cool,’ so I don’t think they’re really sorry.”

A junior high school principal in the Tokai area commented on the difficulty in handling children. “They’re not used to being scolded at home, so they can’t comprehend why they would be reprimanded by teachers. Furthermore, they resort to running away from home and wrist-cutting… they know they can stop teachers from taking any strong action.”

The pregnant teacher, though, has defended those students and hopes that they will understand the importance of life, because “both her child and the students have a future” to live.

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Latest 15 of 89 Total Comments Show All

Coolasapool at 01:44 PM JST - 9th April

has defended those students and hopes that they will understand the importance of life

yeah, really sounds like they give a toss..

So, what kind of punishment did these little nightmares recieve??
clarity at 03:35 PM JST - 9th April

I came away impressed with the teacher's forgiving attitude. Punishment won't solve the problem. These are just kids: stupid, ill-brought-up kids, but still kids. However, perhaps Japan's institutions, families and traditional attitudes are out of sync, and need serious retuning. The teacher can't give moral education to a child who is not controllable by his parents.
andrewfx51 at 05:11 PM JST - 9th April

bdiego at 06:56 PM JST - 7th April

Actually, causing a miscarriage is murder legally speaking. The more you know.. (cue music) Is that the ruling in Japan? Not attacking, but if someone has a precedent reference (preferably japanese supreme court) I would greatly appreciate it.

In regards to the article, it just seems that the problems seem to be growing, despite those in powers (feeble) attempts to fix them. The lack of discipline is astounding. This is not just a jibe at Japan. Anyone who (shudder) watches current affairs can support me that lack of responsibility by parents is a cause of concern all over the world. Education is not just the responsibility of educational facilities, but the parents as well.

Also I'm amused how life imitates art - similar incidences have been depicted in GTO and the like
BlackBlack at 09:05 PM JST - 9th April

I find the school officials to be cowards and the parent of the 11 negligent in raising them. They should be sent to a juvenile jail for a long period of time.

BlackBlack
Bogi at 09:24 PM JST - 9th April

Punishment won't solve the problem.

Clarity: I beg to disagree. I work at a JHS and kids do this kind of stuff (not usually as extreme) because they know they can get away with it. When I was a kid, the ONLY thing that stopped me from breaking rules or committing petty crime was the fear of punishment.
mnemosyne23 at 10:27 PM JST - 9th April

Oh, good grief. That's disgusting. Fooling around? This was FOOLING AROUND? When the club was CALLED a "Miscarriage" club?

I say the school should make their parents pay exorbitant tuition to allow the children to continue attending the school. When asked why, the school should use the reasoning that the tuition fees are to reimburse the school for taking on the job of parenting and disciplining children who have shown themselves to be of poor moral character. That'll get the kids some discipline at home. Forget the fact that they're clearly mealy-brained little punks with no respect for authority; hit the parents in the pocketbook and we'll see if their apologies suddenly become more genuine.
jewel at 06:51 PM JST - 10th April

Reading comments here makes me remember why Im glad to be in Japan. I dont know if the ppl commenting here have children or not but the reactions are pretty extreme. The reactions are probably coming from ppl from countries, like myself, with high crime rates. Japan has a low crime rate compared to the rest of the world for a reason. I think it is because the ppl try to nuture the children (no ones perfect) and they tend to carefully consider situations before acting. To make a blanket statement that these kids had bad parents isnt fair. We dont have enough evidence to know that. Teens often foolishly do things that their parents would never approve of or have taught them not to do. We cant condemn parents so quickly. Also, I think throwing kids in juvenile hall often does more harm than good, and the harm can have life long effects on the person which in turn can have lifelong effects on society; then those effects can be recycled to the next generation or two. Adults are expected to know better, but kids still need to be guided, trained, and handled with much care. Prison isn`t the answer for most kids.
space_monkey at 08:31 AM JST - 11th April
I have taught at 20 or so high schools, junior high schools, elementary schools in Japan as well as a top university. Here are some of my insights.
1. Kids are not disciplined here. They basically can do anything. Especially younger ones. I have been punched at least 100 times by kids for no reason. Many times they try and punch you in the balls!! pinch your ass etc. No one teaches them that this is unacceptable behavior.
2. The attitude of teachers are that they are kids so are forgiven everything. I was team teaching once and a boy stood up dropped his pants and then pushed his private parts into the face of the boy next to him. I was speechless. The Japanese teacher did nothing.
3. Teachers are scared of parents and disciplining the kids.
4. An enormous amount of mentally disabled kids are in classes with no support for the teacher. Young kids all laugh at them and ridicule them and are not punished for it or taught that its not nice or acceptable. Everyone ends up completely ignoring them. They always pass!! They are treated the same even when they are not.
5. Some teachers can be vicious and malicious and constantly scold kids thus become truly hated. If have seen it. They even hit kids and ridicule them etc.
6. In every school I have taught I had 2 or 3 students that were so traumatized from bullying from fellow classmates or abusive parents that they could not speak!! not a word or a peep. Completely shattered emotionally. It is very common. Unbelievable. I had one kid so traumatized he sat there holding his pencil case in front of his face to hide it, every lesson. Almost nothing is done to council of help these kids.
7. Schools and the local boards of education very often get anonymous letters from students threatening suicide because of bullying.
8. Overall when someone is broken or traumatized I observed that no-one reaches out. Everyone pretends that everything is fine. When I joined my first school there was a 40 year old American teacher. I could tell that this guy was a wreck! 2 weeks later he was dead. He was type 2 diabetic and needed shots everyday or he would die. He was also an alcoholic. His wife kicked him out, he got depressed, drank, missed his shot, and died. Later the Japanese teachers told me they simply pretended he had no problem and simply didn't include him in any of their social events to avoid his behavior. No one tried to help him at all. Nice guy. Very sad. Completely avoidable.
If you are weak in Japan this society will destroy you.

Anyway, I thought I would share some of my insights with the readers to help them put this story into context. Its not all black and white.
jonnyboy at 01:53 PM JST - 11th April

interesting to have jewel's and space monkey's posts right next to each other. i'm afraid that space monkey's post explains the harsh reality that makes the society described in jewel's post possible. as a friend said recent, japanese society is a beautifully polished apple that is rotten on the inside. sure, it's a "safe" society, but at what price? i have lived in what you could call "dangerous" places in the US and UK but if you never actually become a victim then the statistics mean nothing.

school is where a society is created, so cruel and unnecessary acts such as detailed in the article are illuminating.
jewel at 03:39 PM JST - 13th April

Jonnyboy,Spacemonkey does make good points, but we have to remember that all countries have abuse and bullying. Japan is unfortunately not alone in this area. So in that respect all countries have a rottenness on the inside as well as a little polish on the outside, but the point I want to make is even if there is some rottenness in the kids (I do think they were very wrong), overly punishing them will do more harm than good. I dont know why people want to throw kids in jail when kids are reformable outside of prison. Also, even though I agree with things Spacemonkey wrote, I think he was making a one sided observation. I have also seen the bad, but Ive seen the good too. Ive been fortunate to always have teachers to tackle problems right away if there is even a hint of bullying. Ive seen teachers go over and beyond the call of duty for kids, and Ive seen teachers here with full control of their classrooms and not at all afraid to discipline. In fact, the first day of school my sons principal made it very clear that he is nice when kids are good, but if they step out of line they better be afraid, and he has lived up to his word. So Spacemonkey paints an aspect to some Japanese schools but not the full picture. We also have to remember when looking at this picture there are cultural differences in what people define as disciplined, but that is another discussion.
space_monkey at 12:56 PM JST - 14th April

I agree with you jewel 100%. I have also seen a lot of good. The point I was making is that a lot of schools don't have rules that guide kids on appropriate behavior. Many do, many don't. Also many teachers don't enforce them when a school does. Simple things like not walking up to adults and sticking your fingers up their bum or punching them in the balls is a start!! Not cool. The attitude generally is that the kids will grow out of it. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, maybe they will get worse like this story entails. My points were given to other readers to help them understand some of the negative factors that may have led to these kids being allowed to do what they did. Kids don't know what is right and wrong. Schools need to foster a community that teaches respect for other people; unfortunately many times in Japan I have not seen this to be the case. Tolerate maybe, but not respect.
jewel at 05:18 PM JST - 15th April

I think we are in complete agreement Space Monkey. I also posted about society contributing to the confusion of what is right and wrong for young people. Society gives many mixed messages. So if teachers shrug at kids jabbing an adults bum but some adults in the neighborhood say "dame", how is a child to learn if it is really right or not? Maybe the message is it is okay to jab a teacher but not a neighbor. There are many mixed messages society gives about pregnancy as well so we have to share some blame here. Anyway I hope the whole school learns a lesson from this. I would also like to think these boys can grow into responsible citizens without having to be beaten and then thrown in jail. They at least deserve a second chance. If they continue the club then of course stronger measures should be taken, but I hope the principal`s judgement proves to work for the good.
illsayit at 09:19 PM JST - 16th April

i think the teacher should leave. this would teach the kids a good lesson about being a responsible mother. the discrepency concerning handling of disabled in the class, at juniour high level, is a vital point; most kids by this stage know right from wrong concerning social rules. the kids are somewhat entitled to their viewpoint. the name and actions of the club, is very sad. the teacher should consider their view seriously. as the father of the unborn child, would you not be worried?
Sammi33 at 08:54 AM JST - 19th April

This is really sick. When I was in highschool one of our gym teachers was pregnant with twins. But she had a miscarriage and lost both of them. We were all so shocked and saddened by her loss and were really careful not to upset her after she came back to work. The thought of students trying to cause a miscarriage is just unthinkable. These kids really need to be sent to juvenile hall and taught how to be human.
L4dymercury at 02:52 PM JST - 22nd May

Where is Mr. Onizuka when you need him. Maybe he should throw them over the school roof for a bit.