Teachers suffer violence, insults from aggressive students

SEOUL, June 22 (Yonhap) -- Concerns are rising that teachers are becoming victims of violence at schools as shown in recent cases in which several teachers were attacked or insulted by unruly students, according to educators and officials Wednesday.
In late April in the southeastern city of Ulsan, a high school student severely beat his teacher, leaving him with serious injuries in his face and eyes that take about eight weeks to heal, according to school officials.
The male student in the first grade attacked the teacher who was trying to rein him in as he yelled angrily in the staff room after another teacher seized his cell phone as punishment for using it during class, officials said.
In another case earlier this month, four high schoolers were found to have humiliated a teacher who caught them smoking near their school in Paju, north of Seoul.
One of the students defiantly patted the teacher on the chest, telling him to deal with them "according to the law," according to school officials.
A December survey by the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations revealed that there is an increase in cases in which teachers are being insulted by their pupils in classrooms, particularly since a ban on corporal punishment went into effect last year in schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
The education ministry in January started taking steps to ban corporal punishment and introduce various other forms of punishment, such as push-ups and walking laps around a track.