{"id":642,"date":"2026-07-16T12:15:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/?p=642"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:15:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:15:25","slug":"dealing-with-intimidation-in-south-korean-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/dealing-with-intimidation-in-south-korean-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with intimidation in South Korean Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recently released drama series from South Korea, called\u00a0<\/span>Teach You a Lesson<\/span><\/i>, addresses the relations between teachers and students at Korean schools, in which intimidation sometimes play as role.\u00a0\u00a0Even though the drama itself is fictional, some episodes are based on real life events. The series revolves around the fictional Teachers\u2019 Rights Protection Bureau, a government agency which has the authority to use physical means to correct students\u2019 behaviour. The idea of a government agency having the authority to physically harm the students is opposed by parents. Teachers, on the other hand, believe that their protection used to be insufficient, and they welcome the creation of a new government organization dedicated to defending teachers\u2019 rights to protected them against being exposed to physical intimidation. That the series has struck a chord is\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0by the fact that it is ranking first\u00a0on Netflix\u2019s global top 10 non-English TV shows chart.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The show\u2019s adaptation of real-life stories\u00a0illustrates\u00a0how much pressure South Korean\u00a0teachers endure\u00a0because of\u00a0student\u00a0behaviour, parental complaints, and the\u00a0nation\u2019s highly competitive educational system.\u00a0This is illustrated by a\u00a0case\u00a0which\u00a0centres\u00a0on a 23-year-old Seoul elementary school teacher who was\u00a0discovered\u00a0deceased\u00a0at\u00a0her school in July 2023 in\u00a0what\u00a0appeared\u00a0to be a\u00a0suicide. She\u00a0reportedly suffered\u00a0from extreme stress and anxiety prior to her passing,\u00a0caused by the fact that the parents\u00a0of her students\u00a0where\u00a0constantly\u00a0criticising\u00a0her.\u00a0The parents where constantly looking over her shoulder and challenged sanctions meant to correct unruly behaviour and grades\u00a0deemed\u00a0too low.\u00a0The teacher also felt let down by the school because of a and lack of support from school officials.\u00a0The incident caused national outcry because many teachers have similar\u00a0expediencies, such as harassing phone calls,\u00a0and\u00a0unfounded allegations of child abuse for correcting children.\u00a0After forcing disruptive students to stand during class, one teacher, only known as \u2018B,\u2019 claimed to have been accused of emotional abuse. She was penalized by education officials, lost her job, was moved to a different school, and\u00a0kept worrying\u00a0even after a court declared her not guilty. Stronger legal protections and the restoration of teachers\u2019\u00a0authority\u00a0in schools have been widely demanded because of these incidents, which have brought attention to the severe stress that many South Korean teachers endure.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Intimidation at Korean Schools is not limited to relations between teachers, students, and their parents but is also part of pupil-to-pupil relations. Thus, the son of the head of the Korean National Office of Investigation, attorney Chung Sun Sin, had been accused of bullying a classmate at the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy in 2018. The school\u2019s Committee for Countermeasures against School Violence had found Chung Sun Sin\u2019s son guilty of verbally attacking and bullying his classmate during an eight months\u2019 period. Chung Sun Sin filed many lawsuits on his son\u2019s behalf against this ruling, but the courts rejected them all. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided that Chung Sun Sin\u2019s son had to be expelled from the school. By then, the victim had already left the school. Chung Sun Sin\u2019s son went on to study at Seoul National University. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As the parents in the series argue, allowing teachers to use physical violence in the case of intimidation would go too far. However, duress, intimidation and unruly behaviour have become part of classroom culture around the world. Thus, teachers in Kenya, who are facing pupils in their classrooms who are drunk and stoned, sometimes feel that they have no other\u00a0option\u00a0than to use corporal punishment to\u00a0maintain\u00a0order, even though such punishment is banned by law.\u00a0Probably the\u00a0best way to deal with this problem is to ensure that the pupils as a group keep each other in check through peer influence: members of the group ensure that pupils who misbehave will fall in line. There are indications that in Korea peer influence is more effective than parental authority in changing behavioural patterns of the young.\u00a0\u00a0It is worthwhile to research whether this might work as part of a pilot.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bronnen:<\/p>\n

Netflix\u2019s \u2018Teach You a Lesson\u2019 turns teachers\u2019 rights into real policy debate – The Korea Herlad<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES – Korean International School<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Chief of national office of investigation resigned due to son\u2019s school bullying – The Herald Insight<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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School bullying in South Korea worsen among students – The Herald Insight<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Real School Bullying Case Behind Netflix’s ‘Teach You a Lesson’ – YouTube<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Abused, traumatised and powerless: South Korea\u2019s teachers on why they are protesting – The Guardian<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Korea\u2019s Teacher-Parent Complaint Crisis: Why Schools Are Entering a Risk-Avoidance Era – Klitreads<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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South Korea\u2019s Teachers Say Classroom Violence Is No Longer an Exception – Klitreads<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

South Korean teachers seek protection as Child Welfare Act fuels safety crisis – YouTube<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recently released drama series from South Korea, called\u00a0Teach You a Lesson, addresses the relations between teachers and students at Korean schools, in which intimidation sometimes play as role.\u00a0\u00a0Even though the drama itself is fictional, some episodes are based on real life events. The series revolves around the fictional Teachers\u2019 Rights Protection Bureau, a government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgM5DJ-am","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-27.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pionaculture.com\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}