‘If I Don’t Study, My Family Will Die’: Chinese Teacher Forces Students To Take Absurd Oath

Often teachers and parents devise creative ways to make sure the children focus on their studies. From being strict and making schedules for them to follow to introducing fun activities to make studying interesting, they do it all. Recently, a Chinese teacher took it up by multiple notches by almost threatening his students to take an absurd oath, asking them to study otherwise their family would die. This left the parents in utter disbelief. Persuading children to study is not an easy task. While some teachers are quite adept, there are a few who do not know how to tackle such challenging situations. Teachers need to deal with children in various ways. Teachers should be encouraging students to read and learn new things. This Chinese teacher decided to make his students take an absurd oath; and if broken, his family would die.

The teacher whose surname is Wang teaches in a secondary school in Central China’s Henan province and demanded a promise from his students in the first-year class. On January 8, an audio recording was posted online where the teacher can be heard telling his students to repeat after him, “I will do nothing but study in the classroom, otherwise my whole family will die. My dad will first die and then my mum.”

Chat records from the parent-teacher group of which Wang was a part were also released online. A parent from the group told the teacher that his students were reluctant to repeat the promise after him. The parent also questioned that there are many ways to motivate a student to study, so why use such a dreadful method?

As per the South China Morning Post, Wang later reacted by asking his students to take turns to come to his office and write this oath down. Four students refused to do so, upon which the teacher asked them to reflect on themselves at home. On January 9, when the matter came to the school authorities’ notice, they suspended the teacher and asked him to apologise to the students as well as their parents. This shocking behaviour sparked off a wave of criticism online.

Original news source