Kindergarten teacher caught on camera 'kicking and beating' Beijing toddlers
“You all like this, right?" teacher is heard saying as she makes children scream in terror inside classroom
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 29 April, 2014, 11:21am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 29 April, 2014, 1:23pm
Keira Lu Huang [email protected]
A video still from Weibo shows the 27-year-old Liu allegedly kicking one of her students. Photo: Weibo
A 27-year-old kindergarten teacher was caught on camera allegedly beating and berating her students, prompting outraged parents to come forward with proof that their children were abused.
The incident is a latest in a series of kindergarten scandals in recent months, including physical assault by teachers and even the alleged "drugging" of children.
Dozens of parents, clutching doctors’ papers and pictures, gathered yesterday morning outside the Beijing school along Qingyuan Road, Chaoyang district, to demand an explanation and see security camera footage from the classroom, according to The Beijing News.
What they saw in the video shocked them.
In the footage, the teacher, surnamed Liu, was heard asking all 21 students, aged three to four, to stand in a corner of the restroom, which was not visible to the camera. Two boys were seen trying to run away, but a furious Liu caught them.
Then the children were heard screaming and Liu yelling, “You all like this, right? You all like this, right?” The children’s screaming lasted for about five minutes.
According to the parents, the teacher beat the children on the head, calves and back. Doctors who were asked to examine eight of the four-year-olds said the children had leg bruises and multiple soft-tissue injuries.
Ten minutes later, another security camera showed Liu bringing the children to the cafeteria, where she separated two students, who were not allowed to eat.
The rest of the class was apparently instructed to finish the food within five minutes. Noticing that one boy was slower to eat, Liu walked up to him and kicked his leg, shouting, “Can you learn from mistakes?” He quietly replied, “Yes.”
A parent shows a photo of a child's leg bruises, allegedly due to abuse from their kindergarten teacher. Photo: Weibo
Liu then walked on and kicked two more children.
The teacher was arrested yesterday and the education commission of Chaoyang district has formed a special team to investigate the matter.
Liu, who taught at the school for two years and was described as “responsible” by fellow teachers, admitted to the authorities that she started beating the students last April.
A father surnamed Ma told The Beijing News that he found bruises on his son’s legs on Friday evening when he was helping the child take a bath.
The boy was hesitant to say what happened, but eventually told Ma that Liu beat quite a few students each day and threatened them so that they kept their mouths shut.
“Since last October, I saw bruises on my son’s legs constantly,” said Ma. “My son has woken up crying several times at night, screaming, ‘Don’t hit me.’”
One parent said Liu saw the surveillance video and showed remorse. “After watching the video, she screamed, ‘I can’t believe I did this!’” said one parent. “She didn’t admit [it] in the first place. [She] said she just pushed and shoved them.”
Last month, a nursery school in Lanzhou was found to have given pupils antiviral medicine without their parents' knowledge in order to keep them strong and boost attendance. This and similar incidents have sparked a nationwide inspection into primary schools.
In Hong Kong, a photo of a kindergarten student with his hands tied together triggered a police investigation. And in 2012, two kindergarten teachers in Wenling, Zhejiang province, were detained after photos circulated online of a teacher lifting a little boy by his ears.
Later, the authorities discovered that the teacher, Yan Yanhong, had posted other photos of students being ill-treated. One photo showed a boy's mouth sealed with tape, with the caption "you deserve it". Another showed a boy upside down in a bin, with the caption "I threw him in".
