Bullying case sparks widespread outrage
Print Edition
A Beijing mother’s article describing how her 10-year-old son was bullied at school has gone viral, bringing back memories for some people who were picked on and triggering widespread discussion on parenting.
Zhongguancun Second Primary School, a renowned primary school in Haidian District, issued a statement on Saturday morning saying it had been communicating with parents of both the victim and bully, and called for the public to let the school handle the situation.
“The school has been actively talking with the relevant parents to solve the dispute objectively and fairly. Further effort will be made to achieve an outcome that is recognized by all parties,” it said.
After having a toilet wastepaper basket “thrown on his head” and being mocked by classmates, the fourth-grade boy was diagnosed with acute stress disorder, a mental illness characterized by severe anxiety, according to his mother’s article published online last Thursday.
It said the school had described the case as a “joke that went too far,” and that the parents of the boy who threw the basket believed their son was “just being naughty.”
The mother wrote that her son had been bullied for almost a year by his classmate.
The father said his son was still emotionally unstable and not attending school. “We are accompanying him to adjust, and he will not return to school until the case is closed.”
The parents of the bully have not responded to phone calls seeking their response.
The article has been shared more than 100,000 times on WeChat, and read over 6 million times on Weibo, a Twitter-like service.
People expressed their outrage over the matter, and recalled their past experiences of being bullied.
One web user, an apparent left-behind child who grew up with her grandmother, said she had been dragged by her hair and spat on during kindergarten and up to fourth grade in primary school.
‘Teacher turned a blind eye’
“When I reported it to my teacher, he threw a question back in my face, ‘why were you the only one being bullied?’” she recalled in her post, adding that the bullying did not stop until she was transferred to another school.
Another web user said she was sent to hospital for a week. “The violent guys had good academic scores, and I was ugly and slow in school. The teacher just turned a blind eye.”
“My sense of inferiority has haunted me since then,” she said, adding the bullying she suffered at school had influenced her life.
The case has sparked discussion online on how to educate children to prevent them being bullied. An online survey on Weibo, which has drawn 100,000 participants, showed nearly two-thirds of parents would advise their children to take “a tooth for a tooth” response to bullying.
“I will tell my kid not to initiate a violent fight, but if he is bullied he has to fight back,” one web user responded in the discussion.
Bullying and violence at schools and colleges have been widely reported in recent years. In April, a video that showed a schoolgirl being repeatedly slapped by a group of older girls went viral.
In June 2014, an online video showed several teenagers in eastern Zhejiang Province burning a first-grade boy with cigarettes.
Last year a junior-high student jumped from the fourth floor of a school building as he “just could not tolerate being bullied every day any longer.”
Last month education guidelines, including advice on how to deal with bullying, were released as the country moves to address violence among students.
The guidelines, jointly released by nine organs, including the Ministry of Education, the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry of Public Security, ordered schools to be aware of the consequences of bullying and violence, and that officials should be held accountable for serious incidents of bullying or violence in areas under their jurisdiction.
Students with severe behavioral problems should be transferred to special schools suitable to their needs, the guidelines said.
The Beijing Education Commission said it had ordered the district education commission and the school to properly deal with the case.
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