A teacher has been removed from a northeastern Thai school today following a viral video that shows her putting a student’s shoes on his head and making him bow to the shoes for not taking them off before entering her classroom.
She also handles the boy roughly, seemingly hitting him on the back of his neck and head with the shoes before balancing them on him.
The incident happened on Aug. 4 at an Thung Thueng Ying Pattana, a high school in Ubon Ratchathani province. The footage received nearly 1.5 million views on social media, drawing criticism from Thais, whose culture value teachers as their “mothers” and feet and shoes as the lowest, dirtiest thing imaginable.
After investigating, Adul Kongthong, director of 29th Educational District Office, said that the teacher, who was not named, admitted to what happened and said that her action was a punishment for the student who did not take his shoes off, Thairath reported.
Many Thai public schools, especially in rural areas, require students to take shoes off in the classroom for cleanliness while staff are allowed to wear shoes.
Adul added that the teacher had actually told the boy to hold the dirty tennis shoes in his mouth, but he refused, so she put the shoes on his head and made him perform several deep, seated bows to them, called kowtow in Thailand, as seen in video.
“This type of action…it is unacceptable for anyone to do, especially someone whose profession is teaching. She needs to have the ethics of a teacher. We have ordered the teacher in question to leave the school in order for the committee to assess whether she has violated disciplinary regulations,” Adul said.
The teacher was transferred to perform other governmental works for two weeks while the assessment continues.
Adul added that the teacher is stressed out by society’s criticism.
“As far as I know, she’s very stressed out. She can’t sleep. Her diabetes got worse. Her blood pressure increased,” Adul said.
Last week a professor at Chulalongkorn, Thailand’s top university, was in hot water for putting a student in a chokehold for refusing to participate in a statue worshipping ceremony, which was held in the pouring rain.
