SINGAPORE: Educators in Hong Kong have made the news in recent weeks for all the wrong reasons.
A secondary school is seeking to replace its principal who was caught on video crudely swearing at ethnic minority security guards while on a school visit in Singapore, after firing him over the incident.
At another Hong Kong secondary school, a basketball coach was arrested for alleged assault and suspended from his duties after a video showed him slapping a student repeatedly. He was later released on bail.
The incidents have cast a spotlight on standards for educators in Hong Kong, generating much societal discussion over their conduct in public and the values they are expected to embody as role models for their young, impressionable students.
The city’s education authorities have also stepped in, with the Education Bureau launching an investigation into the principal at San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, and requesting a detailed report from Hon Wah College in Siu Sai Wan over the sports coach’s conduct.
Apologies, but...
Both educators have apologised.
The former principal Lee Cheuk Hing, in the sole interview he has granted to a media outlet since the May 22 incident in Singapore came to light, told online outfit Dot Dot News that he had reflected on himself, urging his students not to learn from his example.
“Always try to remain calm in situations, use rational ways to resolve issues, and don’t impulsively spout words you will regret later, like I did,” he said in his apology video.
At the same time, he defended his behaviour, noting that their bus driver had repeatedly told them to alight where the vehicle had stopped. He added that the two female ethnic minority security guards, whom he was filmed taunting and hurling Cantonese vulgarities at, had shouted at him first.
“I admit I was wrong, but I was really terrified that my students were in danger and would get hurt, so I lost control of myself,” he said, shedding tears.
A longer, less widely circulated video of the viral incident showed him responding more civilly to a young ethnic Chinese woman who approached the group to mediate and spoke to him in Mandarin.
Lee was fired with immediate effect on June 3 without compensation, and is seeking legal recourse over the matter.
His school is now advertising for a new principal with “excellent character”, “outstanding leadership skills”, and “strong language abilities in both English and Chinese”.
Basketball coach Yung Kam Wah also apologised in a Facebook post, writing that he was “deeply sorry towards the student” he was caught on camera slapping forcefully.
The incident, which took place in 2024 but whose video surfaced only in June, showed the former Hong Kong national basketball player compelling the boy to slap himself repeatedly by holding his hand. This took place in front of about 20 other students and two assistant coaches on a school court.
Teachers in Hong Kong are not allowed to subject their students to corporal punishment.
“Whatever rules were broken, mistakes made, or under whatever circumstances, I should never have punished a student in this manner,” Yung wrote on Facebook before later removing the post.
“I have reflected over the public criticism and will never make the same mistake again.”
Yung’s current and former students have confirmed that he regularly relied on corporal punishment during training sessions.
A current student revealed that Yung often beat them in the school gym, twisted their ears, or inflicted other forms of physical punishment on them.
“We are afraid of him… He’s always been like that,” the student told local media Create City Stories.
Some students had dropped out of the school’s basketball team, feeling demotivated after repeatedly facing the coach’s “strict” methods, he added.
A former student, now in his 30s, said such treatment was Yung’s “unique way” of teaching by first breaking down students’ self-esteem before rebuilding it.
“Anyone who wants to win a championship knows they have to suffer,” he told the South China Morning Post.
Problematic responses
This response underscores precisely the problem with educators meting out physical punishment.
Years out of school, that former student who once endured such training methods, now subscribes to – and is actively reinforcing through his comments – the misguided belief that suffering degrading treatment or violence inflicted by an authoritative figure is both acceptable and a necessary ingredient for success.
Many parents today do not even resort to such methods in disciplining their own children.
Multiple studies in child and sports psychology have provided empirical evidence that positive reinforcement works far better than corporal punishment.
Rather than nurturing mental resilience in children, coercive environments can have the opposite effect, eroding motivation and instilling fear, anxiety and learnt helplessness instead.
Meanwhile, Lee’s move to explore if he can sue his school over his dismissal, along with his statements suggesting that the bus driver, security guards and his concern for his students’ safety had spurred his inappropriate behaviour, smacks of a lack of genuine remorse.
Any normal person with a sense of decorum and civility would not have responded the way he did in the bus incident.
His conduct also uncomfortably echoes the disrespect that many darker-skinned ethnic minorities often face in Hong Kong society, despite the government’s push for greater inclusivity.
It is not uncommon for companies to have contract clauses allowing for immediate dismissal without notice-period payment if an employee is found to have brought the firm into disrepute.
A big part of parenting and education involves teaching children about consequences – helping them understand the acceptability and outcome of good or bad behaviour – to develop accountability, situational judgment and self-control.
The same holds true in adulthood – Lee should learn to accept the consequences of his misconduct.
In Hong Kong, these two cases of educators gone rogue have revived the question of the standards teachers ought to be held up to: Should they not be expected to demonstrate respect and restraint in their interactions with both children and adults, whether within or outside of school?
It would be a sad day when a child’s takeaway from their teacher’s worst moment is that this is how education should be. - The Straits Times/ANN
