A South Korean man admitted to police that he killed a former school teacher who punished him for cheating on a test 21 years ago, authorities said Monday.
The man, who police identified only as Kim, told officers that he had repeatedly sought an apology from the teacher for the 1987 incident -- but was rebuffed.
At the time, Kim was a 10th grader, the investigating detective at Seoul's Eunpyeong police station said.
He told police he had finished a test about 20 minutes early and decided to take a nap. When he awoke, he looked around at his fellow test-takers.
The teacher, a 58-year-old man identified by police only as Song, accused him of cheating and gave him a severe beating.
Kim told police that the teacher beat him about 100 times.
Some more from The Australian:
Investigators said Mr Kim had been stalking Mr Song since January to demand he apologise but the teacher ignored him.
He repeatedly telephoned, visited or emailed Mr Song.
One email message read: "I have not been cheating. Apologise. Otherwise, I will not leave you alone.''
The suspect lurked near Mr Song's Seoul home for half an hour before repeatedly stabbing his victim.
He was caught the following day while receiving hospital treatment for hand wounds he suffered during the alleged murder.
Korean articles are also out there, such as here and here for example. Tests are really big here, the education system is basically built around them, and a person's life is guided by how well he or she performs as a teenager. If he was accused of cheating on one of the big standardized tests such as those coming up this week, it's likely those consequences would haunt him for the rest of his life. The Korean articles say the incident took place in first grade, which corresponds to US tenth grade.
Likewise, Korean schools can also be violent places at times. Not as we've come to know school violence in the West, but rather here with violence coming from the teachers. I'll bet the schools've cleaned up a lot since 1988, but corporal punishment is a daily occurrence and a punishment for even the most mundane of infractions, and we still hear about extraordinarily shocking incidents from time to time.
5 comments:
A university student last year sent me a death threat because they got an F...You only get an F if you never come to class so it was CLEARLY my fault!
Another this year threatened 2x me in class, waited for me and followed me after class and sent threatening emails because I wouldnt mark his homework that was a week late and I told him he shouldnt speak to me so rudely when he demanded that I did thus threatening his manhood.
One complaint you'll hear a lot from public school teachers is that the students don't care about their class because it doesn't count toward their grade. Same thing is said by hagwon teachers too, actually. I've worked in both situations: classes with grades and classes without. There are some pros and cons, but hearing stories like yours and others on Dave's reminds me of just how aggravating trying to grade students can be. Especially since grades outside of tests are often meaningless. Thus getting backt ot he original problem of classes being meaningless if they're not graded or not counted toward something.
But man the cheating really drives me crazy. Seems like many of my students won't even attempt a worksheet in class without copying off a neighbor (who's usually wrong, too).
I think there was a movie that came out last year about some students (or student) who took revenge on their teacher for being an asshole back when they were in highschool. I forget the name but maybe this guy thought it was a good idea to actually implement.
I've never had death threats but I have had students semi-stalk me over grade 'negotiation'. Exhausting (for everyone invloved) ...
And, as an aside, the word verification for this comment is "dicerfan". Lol.
Actually, I had some university students tell me this year that their grades/classes are pointless because they wont be able to get jobs in the future anyways since they dont go to one of the big schools here.
Had a student and the dean of students show up to my office begging for a B+. However, I had never seen the student before, nor did he ever show up for any exams or did homework. Needless to say, I soon moved on to a new job, but I never knew my life could be in dager.
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