Chinese Teacher Detained for Beating Students

From:
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/NewsBreak/20081014124102/Article/index_html

A teacher in Beijing has been sacked and detained for beating his students, with the abuse including shoving one child’s head into a blackboard, local police and state media said Tuesday.

Gao Xiaopeng beat 11 of his grade three students at an elementary school in southeast Beijing on Tuesday last week for not finishing their homework, the official China Daily reported, citing local authorities.

“He slapped us first,” the newspaper quoted one of the students as saying.

“Then he used a paper fan and a broom to beat the students, and even shoved one ... student’s head into the blackboard.” A duty officer at the Xuxingzhuang police station confirmed that the teacher was in custody.

“The police station has detained Gao for 14 days and given him a 500 yuan (73 dollars) fine for beating 11 students,” the officer, who refused to be named, told AFP.

The school has also sacked Gao and apologised to the parents, the China Daily said.

Gao has been ordered to pay the medical bills for those he injured, the China Daily quoted Jia Dawei, an employee at the local education commission, as saying.

The incident was only uncovered when one of the students — all of whom would have been about 11 years old — was too afraid to go back to school, and his parents asked him where he got his bruises.

The newspaper report gave no other details about the extent of the injuries.

China has made corporal punishment against children in schools illegal...

Commentary: In the U.S. they give you a medal for doing this kind of thing, and in 21 states it's perfectly legal. Mao Mao Mao Tse-tung!