‘Eat pig brains to enhance yours’: China teacher fired for tirade in which he called students dogs, attacked their abilities
- Frustrated by insubordination, teacher launches stinging attack on intellectual capacity of students
- ‘Is there anything in your brains except mobile phones?’ annoyed academic asks
A teacher at a vocational school in China has been dismissed after he called students dogs and told them to eat pig brains to boost their intellectual capacity.
The teacher, surnamed Sun, was a class counsellor for first-year students at Anhui Senior Industry Technical School, a tertiary education institute for skilled labour in Anhui province in southeastern China.
His outburst, which has sparked a fierce debate over teacher behaviour, came on October 9 when he became frustrated by students who failed to follow his instructions despite multiple requests, according to The Paper.
The teacher had told students to prepare a photo and stick it to a sheet of paper because they were scheduled to go through their physical checkup on October 10.
However, on deadline, several students said they had not yet taken a photo, according to an unnamed school official.
This infuriated Sun, who began to berate the offending students via text message.
“Is there anything in your brains except mobile phones?” he asked.
“You cannot take care of yourself independently. I repeatedly reiterated such a small task, but you still ignored it. Now I know why you are not clever. You should eat pig brains to enhance yours.”
A shocked student, surnamed Zhang, asked: “Why are you talking like this? As a teacher, how can you act in this way?” To which the teacher suggested Zhang was a dog.
The conversation between the teacher and his students was seized upon by mainland social media observers after a screen capture of its contents was shared online.
Following public pressure, the school told Sun to apologise in front of his class and make a written apology to the student he suggested was a dog.
Sun was then fired after school management had a meeting to discuss the incident, the official said.
His dismissal gained traction online where many people expressed anger at the outburst.
“This teacher’s brain is also not functioning well,” said one online observer.
“He is not qualified to be a teacher,” wrote another.
Physical or verbal abuse by teachers often trends online in China.
In August, a court in southeastern Jiangxi province heard a case against a teacher after the parents of an 11-year-old boy said his verbal violence caused their son’s suicide.
Also in Anhui province, a training institute publicly apologised after one of its teachers cursed at a student and encouraged other students to beat their classmate.
