Last year, the ordinance of elementary and middle school education was revised. Before this change, there were some big events that shocked many people in the country. Especially, the video clip of 오장풍 incident was spread quickly and it formed the atmosphere of making corporal punishment prohibited. As a result, all elementary and middle schools in Seoul and Gyung-gi province must not use any kind of punishments.
Many people including a number of teachers have negative ideas toward this policy. They claim corporal punishment has been an effective way of discipline since long time ago. They insist students are still young and immature so that corporal punishement is needed in some cases. Also, teachers will lose their power and it will become hard to educate students if it is banned.
However, people who support this policy have a different point of view. They think letting corporal punishment make teachers depend too much on it. Moreover, students have right not to be punished physically by anyone like adults do.
This is very controversial issue these days. Do you think all kinds of corporal punishments should be banned?
Q1: Does inflicting corporal punishment make students more violent? or Conversely, not inflicting it make students violent?
Q2: Is corporal punishment really needed in some special cases?
Q3: Do students also have a right not to be physically punished even though it is used for educational purpose?
