One of our most popular stories in January was of the teacher in the city of Machida who hauled off and hit a student – an incident that was dramatically captured on a cell phone camera and uploaded to Twitter. While initial reaction was strongly against the teacher, when it came out that the entire thing was a trap engineered by students to get the teacher in trouble, public mood quickly shifted. Some famous celebrities even called for the students to be expelled.
Our post on this subject generated over 260 reactions on Facebook, and let to a spirited discussion. How should the students be punished – if at all? And whose responsibility is it to punish them? What should happen to the teacher? And how can the school prevent this from happening in the future?
We shared our readers’ top comments with Misaki, an English language YouTuber and – as luck would have it! – former Japanese schoolteacher for her thoughts and reactions to our readers’ comments, and dug into such issues as corporal punishment in Japanese schools, as well as how Japanese schools should respond to such situations going forward.
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Misaki is a native of Kagoshima in Japan. She currently lives near Seattle, WA, where she works as a dental hygienist. Misaki maintains her own YouTube channel where she teaches English to Japanese speakers, and shares tips and tricks for getting by in America.
