A student in Jiangxi Province killed a teacher on Sept. 14, after what seems to have been an altercation over a cell phone.
Sun Wukang taught chemistry at No. 2 Middle School in Linchuan. A student surnamed Lei cut the man’s throat with a fruit knife, North News reported. The teenager fled the scene, but later handed himself in.
Lei had complained to the vice principal Xiong Haishui that morning about his teacher, and Xiong discussed the matter with the student and teacher present. Xiong said they were both calm. “The problem between teachers and students is simple–teachers are strict, and students are rebellious,” he said, according to North News.
Using the alias Zhang Yang, a former student of Sun’s added that the teacher was quite polite to his students. “He occasionally got upset, but rarely hit or scolded the students.”
The school’s website says it is an “outstanding key middle school in Jiangxi,” one of the province’s “top 10 model schools,” and has a high acceptance rate to first-tier institutions like Beijing University and Tsinghua University.
Fang Xintian, an editor at Jiangxi Education Journal Club, said on his microblog that the No. 1 and No. 2 Middle Schools in Linchuan are very prestigious. “These two schools take students from out of town and train them very strictly. Now something finally erupted,” he added.
Netizens on Sohu commented about the problems with education methods in China.
One pointed to faults with the management system. “It uses enhancing teaching quality as an excuse to make money. The bureau of education put all the resources in key schools, key classes, and even key teachers, managing students like the military to enhance ‘performance.’ It’s all about money.”
Another noted that there is inadequate support for students. “Linchuan calls itself ‘the town of top scholars.’ Since 2000, it has been copying the model from Huanggang in Hubei–teaching middle school students with high school materials. It totally neglects psychological counseling of these teenagers and that’s why this tragedy happened.”
Research by Hsin-Yi Lin.
