From Tencent QQ:

11-year-old youth hangs self with Young Pioneers red scarf, had been punished to copy lines from textbook

Exactly what happened to the 11-year-old ZhouZhou (pseudonym) for him to hang himself by his red scarf [红领巾 hónglǐngjīn, a uniform item worn by the Young Pioneers of China, in remembrance of the martyrs who died in the revolution]? Before his death, he didn’t leave any last words.

At noon on December 29th, Zhou Zhou was forced to stay after school by his teacher, who required him to copy the <<Language Training Materials>> textbook by hand. It wasn’t until 1pm in the afternoon that the teacher allowed ZhouZhou to go home. After having lunch, he tied his red scarf to the top of his bedroom door, and ended his own life.

Before the incident, was punished to copy textbook

ZhouZhou’s home is separated from his school, Wuliduo Primary School, by a brick wall. 12:15pm on December 19th, after Zhou’s mom returned home after her morning work, she discovered that her son fifth grade son ZhouZhou had not yet gotten home, so she decided to call her son’s head teacher and language teacher, Teacher Tang. However, despite calling 3 times back to back, the other side did not pick up. Zhou’s mom stuck her head out to take a look at the school, “the school was almost empty, looked very quiet. Teacher Tang was walking back and forth in the classroom hallway, busy with something.”

Since there was still urgent matters she had to return to the work place to deal with in the afternoon, Zhou’s mom’s could only try calling Teacher Tang again. After a while, ZhouZhou appeared at the school exit, and said while crying: “Mommy, my tummy is really hungry, teacher punished me to copy lines from the textbook.” ZhouZhou then said to his mom that what he had copied from was a supplementary teaching book called <<Language Training Materials>>. That day after school, Teacher Tang had him copy by hand from asked him to copy <<Language Training Materials>> from Lesson 11 to Lesson 14 by hand, a total of 7 pages.

Hanged himself with his red scarf

Because there was still work at her work place, Zhou’s mom took Zhouzhou home and hastily boiled some tangyuang [汤圆, glutinous rice balls], and then rushed to work, urging her son to finish copying the homework his teacher had assigned as she left.

ZhouZhou was supposed to go to school at 1:45pm in the afternoon, and at 1:20pm Zhou’s mom called home to remind ZhouZhou to get ready to go to school for class. However, no one answered, and feeling that something was wrong, Zhou’s mom rushed to the school asking to enter to check if her son had already arrived, but [she] was stopped by the security guard. Afterward, when Zhou’s mom returned home, the scene before her eyes shocked her: her son sat on the ground, tied tightly around his neck was his red scarf, the other end of the red scarf tied to the top of bedroom door. She rushed forth to pull off the red scarf, but her child already had no heartbeat or pulse and after the ambulance arrived, the doctor declared that the child had passed away.

This reporter saw that Zhouzhou spent an entire noon and had almost filled a small notebook with his copying, but still had not finished copying the text his teacher had required. “See, even the filler content had to be copied. My child was afraid he couldn’t finish it all, his handwriting got sloppier and sloppier. I really don’t understand the point of copying these exercises” said Zhou’s mom.

Before his death, the child’s schoolbag weighed 7 kilograms

After the incident, the principal of the school actively came forward to handle the matter, while Teacher Tang is currently in the hospital getting an intravenous drip, unable to accept this reporter’s interview. At present, the deceased’s relatives and the school are discussing issues concerning the incident.

There are several details to be noted, the weight of ZhouZhou’s backpack reached 7 kilograms, something Zhou’s mom specifically determined with a scale yesterday. Zhozhou previously had to sweep the floor at school continuously for a month. Head teacher Teacher Tang is a very experienced, near-retirement teacher.

School claims the child had been kept after school to help him with his homework

Principal Huang of Wuliduo elementary school said there is a discrepancy between what he heard from Teacher Tang and what Zhou’s mom has said about the situation. According to what Teacher Tang said, the last class before the noon break is language class, that ZhouZhou didn’t finish the in-class assignment, so Teacher Tang stayed to instruct ZhouZhou with the assignment. At 12:30 noon, when Zhou’s mom called, Teacher Tang allowed ZhouZhou to go home to have lunch.

Principal Huang expressed that they will definitely investigate the truth and appropriately settle this matter appropriately. At present, the police have already entered the investigation of this matter.

Reporter: Jiang Min

Relevant regulations

Provincial education department long ago enacted regulations strictly prohibiting teachers from assigning homework punishments

Exactly what kind of homework is regarded as scientific and reasonable? In fact, in response to the current situation of too much homework for middle and primary school students, the provincial department of education long ago enacted <<Yunnan Province Regulations To Reduce The Middle and Primary School Student Homework Load And Strengthen Youth Physique>>, providing clear regulations regarding the assignment of out-of-class schoolwork, amongst them, strictly forbidding the assignment of simple but repetitive punitive homework.

This reporter learned from the provincial education department that the aforementioned regulations clearly require that the homework assigned by teachers abide by the principle of “moderate difficulty, appropriate quantity”, in accordance with the ability of the average student, and the exercises/problems be carefully selected.

Amongst the regulations, for the first and second grades of compulsory education, written schoolwork must be completed in class, and after school homework cannot be assigned; for the third and fourth grades, written schoolwork should usually be completed in class, and the time required to complete after school homework (as measured by mid-level students, below the same) cannot exceed 30 minutes; for the fifth grade, the time required to complete daily after school homework cannot exceed 45 minutes; for the sixth grade, the time required to complete daily after school homework cannot exceed 1 hour; for the 7th grade, the time required to complete daily after school homework cannot exceed 1.5 hours; and for ordinary high school, the time required to complete daily after school homework cannot exceed two hours.

The provincial education department promotes assigning activity-related, practical, and exploratory homework. The schools are required to monitor and investigate the homework workload assigned by teachers and the time required to complete them by students, regularly collecting and analyzing the data.

Chief reporter: Li Chao



Comments from Tencent QQ:

腾讯广州市网友 临风笛:

Don’t use copying the textbook the issue. Who hasn’t had to copy lines as a punishment when they were children? If you can’t even deal with copying lines, when you enter the real world, who is going to care if you commit suicide or not?

腾讯兰州市网友 荷嘉:

When you’re in school, you’ll feel teachers are hard to put up with, but when you begin working, you’ll discover that bosses are even worse!!

腾讯内蒙古网友 1:

This is the education in China!! [It] cannot be helped!!

谷善雨:

What does this have anything to do with the teacher, this is the fault of the education system!

腾讯郑州市网友 北斗七星:

Nowadays:

The most poor are the students;

The most sad are the parents;

The most unhappy are the teachers;

The most helpless are the schools;

The most happy are after-school tutoring classes. Reading up to hear even I am afraid my son has too much homework, but what can you do, it is the father’s fault if children are not properly educated.

腾讯成都市网友 默默丶:

When I was in primary school, I’ve even had the teacher spit on me before, and it was when I was already punished to stand in the corner, [weeping sound]~~~~~~

腾讯太原市网友 依虹:

May the kid be reincarnated in America in his next life. There studying is relaxed and the homework load is light too.

吉祥千秋:

No matter if you’re a teacher or a child’s parents, I just want to ask, do you have any respect towards the student?

腾讯网友 地球人:

Sigh! Truly sad! But kids these days are too fragile/weak too!

台州市 胜利森林:

There are only unqualified teachers, no unqualified students.

What do you think happened?