Abused, traumatised and powerless: South Korea’s teachers on why they are protesting

South Koreans protest after the death of an elementary school teacher in an apparent suicide. The death has sparked anger about how teachers are treated in South Korea. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Park Seo-yoon* says South Korea’s teachers know why a young primary school colleague killed herself after being subjected to abuse from parents. “We’ve all had similar struggles,” she says.

“We’ve all received late-night calls from parents accusing us of disrespecting their precious children because they were disciplined for not participating in class,” says the elementary school teacher. “We’ve had parents yell at us for not providing extra materials to students who didn’t bring their own, insisting that students who don’t do their homework shouldn’t be punished, or complaining about giving three sentences of praise to one student but only two to the other.”