Bullying behaviour by some teachers in Japanese schools has frequently made the news over the past year, often due to its tragic consequences.
In January this year, investigations revealed that a student had committed suicide over corporal punishment by his coach, and education committees all over the country have been keen to get to the source of the issue of bullying culture in their districts.
Now, a story has emerged about an 11 year old boy who threw himself from a 4th floor bathroom window after a teacher berated him for not submitting his homework, bringing the issue of how teachers treat their students to the fore once more.
In this case, however, netizens say that the student was being overly sensitive, and that the teacher is certainly not at fault. What do you think?
From Yomiuri Shimbun:
Year 6 Student Seriously Injured After Falling From Window Had Been Warned “Don’t Treat Your Homework Like It’s A Joke!”
[Source: Asahi News]
On November 6 at around 1:45pm a boy (11) in the sixth year of elementary school in Saiwai ward, Kawasaki, was found collapsed behind the school by his male homeroom teacher (28). The school called 119 for assistance.
According to Kanawgawa Prefectural Police, the boy is assumed to have fallen from the window in the fourth-floor toilets of the school. He was rushed to a hospital in the city, but has serious injuries over his body, including a fractured skull, and is unconscious and in a critical condition.
The prefectural education committee say that after the boy had finished his home-time activities, when the children were doing their committee activities in a separate classroom, the homeroom teacher had two children remain in the classroom and cautioned them for forgetting their homework. One of the boys ran to the toilet in front of the classroom. When after a few minutes the teacher went to see where the boy was, he discovered him collapsed on the ground 12 metres below the toilet window.
The distance between the floor and the window is around 1m, and the window had a 20cm guard to prevent the children from falling out. Saiwai police are investigating based on the assumption that because there was no one else in the toilet at that time, the boy must have jumped out of the window.
According to classmates, even during the activities before the student committee meeting, the teacher had warned this boy “Don’t treat your homework like it’s a joke!”. They also said that the boy had told them “I’m going to jump off the building then”.
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Wonder if he intended to do his homework after jumping from the window?
Reckless.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
If he’s going to commit suicide after something like getting a row for forgetting his homework, then no matter how many lives he has in the future, this kid ain’t gonna do well…
名無しさん＠１３周年：
If you’ve got that kind of guts just do your homework, fool.
Major pain in the ass.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Feel sorry for the teacher who had to be with this idiot kid.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
I wonder how you raise a child to think like that.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
“I wasn’t born yesterday! Where’s your homework?” There’s something else in those words. I wonder what he meant by it…
名無しさん＠１３周年：
That little shit could have died for all I care.
We can’t have a world where selfishness is acceptable.
He should definitely have been made to do his homework.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
In this case I don’t think it’s the teacher’s fault.
You can clearly see how strange the kid who jumped out of the window must be.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Even if they saved this boy’s life, then he’s going to be known for the rest of his life as “that kid who jumped out the 4th floor window because of his homework”.
Wouldn’t it have been better if he’d rested in peace?
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Depending on the atmosphere it could be the teacher’s fault.
And meanwhile, there will be fewer and fewer people who really want to become teachers.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
You can’t really tell who’s to blame just from this article.
Comments from Twitter:
山音蜜春:
If he’s like this the kid’s not going to be able to get through life.
ivehan:
He may have broken some bones, but the kid’s got backbone at least.
わたしのもの ほーくん:
I’d like to hear some details about the exchange between the teacher and the student. If it’s exactly what is said here, then the school and the teacher have done absolutely nothing wrong. I wonder how the boy’s parents disciplined him?
ＭＳＤ:
Completely pointless. Guess teachers are going to be criticised again over this.
獅子村たぬきδ＠阿呆の血:
As usual, there’s very little information to go on, but kids these days don’t have much experience being told off, so sometimes they don’t know how to respond to it.
西@冬コミ１日目L38a:
Poor teacher _(:3 」∠)_
あもみ:
That kid’s a spoiled little brat.
ひらまつ:
If he’s going to want to die over something like homework, then when you think of everything that going to come in the future, it would have been much better for him if he’d been allowed to die.
まさおANK:
Well, if the teacher gets blamed over this then all the teachers will disappear from Japan 、、、
MAO:
There’s so much we don’t know about the way that children think. I feel sorry for the teacher.
こみるく【美幼】:
As long as the content and volume of the homework wasn’t inappropriate, then it’s the child who has the problem, and not the teacher. But the child’s parents are even more of a problem.
