Gongshang Primary School teacher under MOE probe for allegedly abusive conduct

Days after one pre-school teacher was suspended for abusive behaviour (humiliating a young boy for having long hair), another schoolteacher is in trouble after complaints from anxious, protective parents. 

At Gongshang Primary School, a female teacher has been relieved of teaching duties pending investigations — apparently due to brutish punishments she regularly doled out to her students.  

Daphne Ling — who runs parenting blog Mother, Inc — had heard from a friend about a teacher who has been “abusing the kids in her class both physically and emotionally for several months”. Ling’s concern stems from the fact that her kids go the same school, though they haven’t experienced the abuse personally. 

Like the case in Zoo-phonics, it seems like the teacher is simply very old-school in her disciplinary handling. According to Ling, the punishments include:
 

• Making difficult students kneel down in front of the class, next to her desk
• Taunting and insulting students, including calling them “retarded monkeys”
• Throwing objects (such as markers, a water bottle and a stapler) at students
• Telling a Christian student that “he was a disgrace to God”
• Intimidating students over complaining to their parents about her

Complaints against the allegedly abusive teacher have been piling up since March — even the school principal was confronted by concerned parents about staging an intervention. TODAY reports that the school has since informed parents and students about the teacher being transferred to teach non-core subjects such as art and social studies. 

Ling noted that the reshuffling will still pose issues, including the fact that the teacher remains present in the school, where she can “ambush” the students “to exact revenge”. Furthermore, getting her to teach other subjects will just give her “new victims to abuse”, wrote Ling. 

In any case, the Ministry of Education is still carrying out investigations into the case, and she’ll be subjected to disciplinary action should she fail to comply with their standards of conduct.