Punishment lands student in hospital, and it was group punishment

Punishment lands student in hospital

Foon Yew High School in Kulai, Johor, has asked the parents to submit an official letter over their daughter’s health condition.


PETALING JAYA: A student required treatment at a hospital for palpitations after her physical education (PE) teacher allegedly punished her entire class by making them run 30 rounds around the school’s volleyball court with a facemask on.

China Press reported that the incident occurred at Foon Yew High School in Kulai, Johor, last week, with the teacher allegedly punishing the entire class after a group of them did not complete their homework.

KT COMMENTS:

Collective punishments

The term refers not only to criminal punishment, but also to other types of sanctions, harassment or administrative action taken against a group in retaliation for an act committed by an individual/s who are considered to form part of the group. Such punishment therefore targets persons who bear no responsibility for having committed the conduct in question. Historically used as a deterrence tool by occupying powers to prevent attacks from resistance movements, collective punishments for acts committed by individuals during an armed conflict are prohibited by IHL against prisoners of war or other protected persons.

International humanitarian law prohibits collective punishment of prisoners of war or other protected persons for acts committed by individuals during an armed conflict.

The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime.

Additional comment: Exactly what US and Europe are doing to Russians, in outcome a war crime

Yesterday, the mother of the 15-year-old teenager posted a photo of her daughter lying on a hospital bed on Facebook and shared her child’s ordeal.

The post went viral, with netizens criticising the teacher and school. It also sparked a debate on physical punishment on school students.

The teen’s aunt also took to Facebook to explain that the girl had run 15 rounds before she started feeling some discomfort. The teacher then allowed her to complete the punishment by walking.

The girl continued to feel discomfort even when she came home in the evening, prompting her family to take her to the hospital for treatment.

The school’s principal, Ng Fui Choo, told China Press that the PE teacher had erred and that the girl’s parents had accepted an apology from the teacher after they came to meet the school’s management today.

She also told the Chinese daily that the school wanted the parents to submit an official letter over their daughter’s health condition so that she could use the school’s elevator.


This letter would also serve as proof that the girl was not fit to participate in intense exercise. Her PE and co-curricular teachers would then be informed so that they could monitor the student’s health condition.

*********

On group punishment, please peruse my experience when I was a school student from an extract of my post The day we felt God's wrath on Earth:


The Principal, having been alerted to an unmitigated ruckus going on in the top class of our school, silently popped into our room via the door next to me. He stood beside my desk for a while, surveying the bedlam going on in the so-called premier class. Except for Kuaking Kaytee, everyone else was still unaware of his ominous presence.

I gave Michael a gentle kick on his foot to alert him. Michael stopped his love poem (or more probably, pleading), turned around and saw what he later joked as 'verily I say unto thee, Satan was standing there'.

The Principal decided that, save for one, our class including angelic M and innocent me, would get 3 of his mightiest on our behinds. Oh yes, the Olde Man did acknowledge that some of us weren't guilty but he wanted ALL of us to share the Methodist understanding of Christian discipline in class, especially when there was a lady teacher present, and a Scripture teacher at that.

The one exception was Peter who was handicapped. Oh no, Peter wasn't let off at all, definitely not when we had an equal opportunity Principal. Instead he gave Peter the nasty 3 on his palm.

Peter was handicapped in his legs but not his hands, which he employed rather skilfully from time to time to throw paper balls at his classmates while the teacher was writing on the blackboard. I don't know till today whether Peter was better or worse off than us in that group punishment.

For students of The True Teachings of Jesus Christ (don't forget, by St Luke), was it then better to give than to receive? That day, we believed most ardently Christ's advice.