VietNamNet Bridge – Educators complain that Vietnamese students nowadays are naughtier than their grandparents or parents. Meanwhile, students say Vietnamese teachers nowadays tend to “educate” students with slaps and hits.

Vu Thi My Phuong, a sixth grader of the Phuong Tu Secondary School in Ung Hoa District in Hanoi, could not imagine being beaten by her teacher over a minor transgression.

During a physical exercise lesson, when the teacher asked students to stay in order for the roll call, Phuong ran to a corner to turn off her music player and then quickly returned to her position.

Thuat, the teacher, came up to Phuong and yelled at her. Phuong repeatedly apologized for her mistake. But the teacher was not in a forgiving mood. He repeatedly beat Phuong in the face and head with a tree branch.

The student, feeling hurt and ashamed, burst into tears and continued to repeat “sorry” to the teacher. When she quickly sat back on her haunches to avoid the slaps, the teacher hit her in the legs with an iron rule and ordered her to stand up.

Some minutes later, Phuong felt dizzy and stuffy. Her parents had to bring her to a healthcare center for examination. They have since lodged a complaint with the school.

A few days ago, a teacher in Hanoi reportedly “invented” a new education technology, to be applied to misbehaving students.

Nguyen Thi Anh, a history teacher of the Phuc Xa Secondary School, was asked to preside over the students of Class 6A during a technology lesson, because the technology teacher had been in an accident and could not come.

Anh felt that she was not welcomed by the students, who were expecting a technology lesson. After failing to persuade the class to keep silent, she ordered one student, Hung, to stand in the corner for being disruptive.

Anh then introduced her unique brand of punishment: she ordered Hung to slap himself on the face.

Hung reluctantly did as he was told, but not, apparently, with enough fervor to satisfy the teacher, who lost her temper. She then proceeded to order the other students to come strike Hung in the face.

“How can my classmates beat me? Even my parents don’t beat me,” Hung cried. The teacher calmly explained that she was having the classmates beat Hung because he had talked back to her.

Teachers of the Hoang Dieu Primary School in HCM City also have a very original method of administering punishment.

Tens of fourth and fifth graders of the school were forced to eat chili last February because they did not learn their required lessons and were rowdy in class.

Fourth months ago, a teacher of the Lien Minh Cong Nong Primary School in the Cu Chi District in HCM City punished 11 students for being noisy in class by forcing them to stuff blackboard duster cloths in their mouths.

T. Mai