An online community of elementary school teachers has shared a compilation of what it described as outrageous or unreasonable complaints from parents, based on the real-life experiences of its members.
The report by Indi School carried 2,070 such cases, some of which have been shared on social media and online communities as of Thursday. They include a parent who created an exam paper for a teacher to use in class because their child "recently seemed intimidated" by the class material. When the teacher refused the request, the parent insisted and accused the teacher of "not being flexible."
Another teacher recounted a phone call from a student's mother, who said she had gotten into a fight with her husband and asked the teacher to "talk some sense into him." She claimed it was the teacher’s responsibility since her child attended the teacher’s school. The mother reportedly berated the teacher for 20 minutes, blaming the school for her marital issues.
In one case, a parent filed a complaint about a teacher who refused to provide coffee, demanding the school's principal make the teacher kneel in front of the parent and apologize. Others included parents telling a newlywed teacher "don't get pregnant this year," asking a teacher to go to their home and stop their children from fighting, and complaining about school meals that included store-bought, not handmade, dumplings.
Surveys suggest that many teachers across the country are being subjected to what they say are malicious complaints from parents.
In May, a survey by the Korean Federation of Teachers Unions showed that 46.8 percent of the surveyed 4,068 teachers said their rights as teachers had been violated by inappropriate parent complaints in the past year. When asked how the parents approached them, 84 percent said "via personal mobile phone or online communication platforms (for teachers and parents)."
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
