Being a teacher is a tough job anywhere, but it seems especially hard in Indonesia. We have seen quite a few stories about students attacking teachers, as well as teachers abusing students, all of which seem indicative of a larger culture of disrespect and violence within the country’s schools.
That culture was once again thrust into the spotlight recently when a video of students at a school in Central Java harassing and bullying their teacher went viral and made national headlines over the weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Eja699mztY
In the video, the teacher can be seen being taunted and harassed by his students (who almost all seem bigger and taller than their diminutive guru) who laugh and egg each other on. After a few moments, the teacher tries to retaliate by hitting one boy with a book and then a spinning kick that causes his shoe to fly off, leading to more laughs.
Eventually the kids back off enough that the teacher can hesitantly put his shoe back on before he goes back to his desk to opens an assignment book as if nothing had happened and this was just a standard day in his class.
Video of the fight quickly went viral on Indonesian social media, with the vast majority of commenters criticizing the bullying boys for abusing their teacher and saying it was a sign of the lack of respect teachers in Indonesia are generally given.
The incident took place at SMK (Vocational School) NU 03 Kaliwungu in Central Java’s Kendal Regency. Soon after the video went viral and was reported on by national news outlets, the school’s principal, Muhaidin, released a statement confirming that it happened in one of his SMK’s automotive engineering classes on Thursday but claimed that it was actually not a serious incident and that the teacher and his students were just joking around.
https://www.facebook.com/TurnBackHoax/photos/a.1087798087939387/2107962949256224/?type=3&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCQBXTto_Rc72GYiwljfR09FpH2ASU-OYuswqVqjFUGirI7XvegsU_U_Z09rW0GHNRdofE8AlZ42VWYRjkNlcUfDYmerO8x53n0cBmV10MH1F5v_PQMhxl3yOeAzxXzjF6ParK_tFZFMZO7yDmvi9aVP8wGFZSazYp0wEnEMr4OSS9LF5hMtkch5hnp-TDtXMyBW5kZu17TxGsyCau94sd3AfD-T1roxlFAA0X2eGQkoGpg59tOPq4FE3ux6MmKo3U0yhww_m79soH9vseyTQN6p9QdWR3oI87rgK975lGzcinuTfkVOOJVJ77Eb8OkO7HD&__tn__=-R
Muhaidin said that just prior to the video, somebody had thrown a piece of paper and the teacher, Joko Susilo, asked who had done it.
“So some children came to the front of the class to joke with him in the hopes that Pak Joko would not be angry because Pak Joko is basically a teacher who likes to joke with children while they are learning,” Muhaidin explained in his statement.
He went on to say that Pak Joko soon ended the class with a group prayer, which proved that the incident was just the children kidding around and there was no actually assault against their teacher.
Whether or not that is actually the case or simply an attempt by the school’s principal to save face is hard to say. But Muhaidin did admit that even if what they were doing was just joking around, it was beyond what was reasonable and said the students would be disciplined in some way and their parents would be involved.
While stories about Indonesian students disrespecting and even attacking their teachers are disturbing, on balance we’ve probably seen more stories about teachers forcing awful punishments on their students such as the elementary school kids who were recently punished for smoking by being forced to smoke more and the teacher who forced one of her students to lick a disgusting toilet because they didn’t do their homework. Clearly there is something seriously needs to be done to reform the culture of discipline at a lot of Indonesian schools.
