An assistant foreign language teacher was stunned when a colleague pushed a student by the arm, violently grabbed another student’s shoulders and angrily shouted at them.

The American man, who wishes to remain anonymous, saw the shocking scene in the teachers’ lounge of a junior high school in Niihama, Ehime Prefecture.

After finishing his term as a language teacher at the school in July, the informant told The Asahi Shimbun that he does not want any such cases of corporal punishment to occur again.

The man came to Japan from the United States in 2018. He then started working as a language assistant at a junior high school in Niihama.

The incident occurred in his third year there.

A teacher directed a group of boys to stand near a door of the staffroom. He then shoved one of them toward the wall and held another’s student uniform, all the while threatening them.

The language assistant was unable to understand the details of their conversations in Japanese, leaving the cause of the teacher’s rage a mystery.

But the whistle-blower said the students had obviously been scared as they stared at their feet. The assistant added that none had been trying to attack the teacher.

He was also surprised that other teachers nearby had not attempted to step in to prevent the situation from escalating.

FILMED, EXPOSED

The man recorded what had occurred with his cellphone camera for other foreign language assistants in Japan to see.

Those he showed the video to said they had never seen such excessive physical behavior before.

Seeking the opinions of his followers primarily from the United States and Britain on a social media site, he posted the clip late last year after he, the male colleague and the victimized students had left the school via personnel relocation or graduation.

He was afterward summoned by Niihama city’s board of education as it became aware of the video.

The man contended he was told to delete his post. Expressing distrust of the educational panel, he said he had been aggressively questioned about why he had not reported the issue at that time.

The Asahi Shimbun confirmed the contents of the video, and the education board generally acknowledged its interactions with the assistant teacher.

However, Yoshimitsu Takahashi, the head of the board of education, said his panel had not ordered the man to erase the video.

“We asked (the language assistant) whether it would be possible for him to delete the video after we provided (the abusive educator) disciplinary guidance and convinced him to never employ such actions again to prevent a recurrence at any school,” Takahashi said.

The problem was reportedly shared with the educational panel’s prefectural counterpart. The abusive teacher was subjected to some form of disciplinary action, but he was not named and shamed as part of his punishment.

UNFORGIVABLE IN U.S.

The American served as a senior high school teacher in the United States for six years. He applied for Japan’s foreign language assistant program, given the global reputation of the nation’s education system.

He said that in his home state in the United States, an event of this kind is supposed to be quickly reported to the school’s principal and police. The perpetrator could be temporarily transferred to another school on suspicion of excessive use of force.

The educator said abusive teachers are bound to be dismissed and deprived of their teaching licenses in the United States if they admit their wrongdoing or when videos and other types of evidence are presented.

The language assistant referred likewise to the risk of young victims’ parents and local governments filing lawsuits against such problematic school staff members.

He insisted that educators must respond in non-violent ways, no matter how badly the children behave. He said the only exception to this rule is when students, themselves, resort to force.

His belief did not change after he learned of Japan’s culture and customs as a foreign language assistant, taking into account even the likelihood of the teacher pretending to be angry for disciplinary purposes.

The assistant teacher said he strongly believes it is important to show students why their acts are inappropriate not through violence, but with dialogue.

Out of consideration for relevant officials and students, the teaching assistant has refrained from disclosing his name.

He fears he might face some form of retaliation for having reported the matter, but he said the anger should be directed at the abusive teacher and the corporal punishment rather than at him.