On the hot afternoon of Aug 8 just outside Korat, 58-year-old physical education teacher Paithoon Klaengkratok was mightily exasperated at those snippy young girls in his outdoor class at Chokchai Samakkee School. They would not sit down in the sunlight to hear his wisdom, and were even standing up to try to get some shade.
Such arrogance towards the orders of a teacher owed respect and obedience by teenaged students was clearly unacceptable. It was just as unacceptable as walking over in the hot sunlight to talk to his class members. So what could he do, really, but toss his ceramic mug at them? Then the stupid mug bounced off something and hit the face of a girl who shouldn't even have been there.
At this point, everything is clear. The girls of the class, the girl who was struck and the mug made everything happen and must share full blame.
The trouble-making mother of 17-year-old Narudee Jodsanthia, chief victim of Mr Paithoon's tantrum, didn't buy any of the above. Narudee suffered major neurological damage that maimed her and left her face twisted, a physical and mental disability. Mother Pranee did what hundreds of other parents have done in cases of vicious assault of their children, and negotiated with police and the school head. Unlike many others, she persisted, and has won rare, partial justice in a system designed to harbour and protect violent criminals and give them access to children and control of their actions and minds.
The (literal) mugging of Narudee by her teacher is well-known to everyone who didn't just return from a long trip to an outer planet. She might -- might -- recover, thanks to the media, Yanhee Hospital and especially Pavena Hongsakul. (Who is arguably the most-demeaned person who has done the most for girls and young women in the past century.)
But when the Narudee mugging incident ends happily, it won't be for ever after. Tomorrow morning at 7am, almost all the children in the country will be in actual danger of assault by adults supposedly devoted to caring, but actually employed in a system designed for the opposite. The biggest-spending ministry in government zealously guards privileges, demands respect and provides safe-haven for brutality against children by government-employed adults.
Corporal punishment in schools is illegal under the Child Protection Act, specifically by the Regulation on Student Punishment issued in 2005 by the Ministry of Education. But wait, there's more. That law does not simply and narrowly ban corporal punishment. It bans all employees, at all schools, public or private, specifically but not only including teachers and directors, to apply any form of physical abuse.
Bear that in mind for the following random headlines chosen with little thought from dozens of sadly similar stories from the recent Thai media.
- Child splattered in blood from teacher's face-slapping (Sanook.com, Aug 26). The school head requested the mother let it rest because the teacher -- another old man -- would retire at year's end. The criminal phoned the mother to apologise after police threatened to prosecute him if he didn't.
- Video shows male teacher bashing female high school student in the head (Thai Rath, June 23). The young woman was horrified the video was posted online because "I was in the wrong. I wasn't badly hurt."
- Phuket father files charges against two teachers (Phuket Gazette, July 18). Teachers made his hand bleed but also bashed the nine-year-old's head and gave him double vision and headaches. Police negotiated an apology so the case would not be prosecuted.
- Maths teacher under investigation for slapping schoolgirls (KhaosodEnglish.com, Feb 25). The school head said that the 59-year-old maths teacher was understandably enraged by the girls' failure to turn in their homework. He had good intentions to teach them a lesson, physically.
- Seven-year-old assaulted by PE teacher (Phuket News, June 17). The teacher kicked the boy, and he fell against the edge of the swimming pool, opening a wound that required stitches. The school head thought that moving the student to another class would be too much punishment for the teacher.
One can and should argue that Narudee and her teacher-mugger are both caught inside a system that parents and concerned citizens continuously describe as broken and in obvious need of both a legal and attitude fix. But this is not a broken system.
The problem is that the system is working as designed.