Teacher In India Threatens To Abuse Student Over BTS, ARMYs Enraged

The situation could have been handled much better.

Content Warning

This article includes descriptions of violence that may disturb some readers.

An Indian teacher is currently facing heat on the internet for verbally abusing a kid in his class over BTS.

Siddhartha Misra, a teacher from the education platform named Physicswallah, has been caught on video threatening violence to one of his students during a virtual class. In the clip, he can be seen saying, “If you weren’t a girl, I would’ve grabbed your collar and slapped you. Your cheeks would’ve been swollen so much that you wouldn’t be able to say ‘BTS’…I would’ve punched you so hard your nose would start bleeding.

According to another student who attended the virtual lecture, the teacher became irritated after this particular student posted a message in the live chat talking about BTS. He went on a tirade mocking the boy group and their fans and then addressed the student in a very aggressive manner.

But another user also pointed out that this is not an isolated event. Alakh Pandey, the owner of Physicswallah, has also been recorded mocking students for listening to BTS during online lectures.

Translation: (from 0:10 to 0:23) “What did you do during the break? Did you go listen to BTS’s songs? Tell me, what did you do during your break?”

For context, he made these comments after a student posted an observation in the live chat that he found way too obvious. He then proceeded to mock her by saying she must have listened to BTS’s songs during the break, which is why she couldn’t catch the obvious part of the lesson.

ARMYs are understandably enraged and concerned by the situation. Though they acknowledge that the student was in the wrong for not maintaining class decorum, they also feel that as an educator, Siddhartha Misra could have handled the situation in a much better way.

Child abuse is rampant in Indian educational institutes. According to a 2007 joint study by UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Indian government, 65% of Indian school-going children have faced corporal punishment. Given this context, the comments made by this educator become even more disturbing. Many Indian ARMYs pointed out that Siddhartha Mishra could be held accountable by the law of the land under Indian Penal Code section 506.

| indiankanoon.org

Could there be any excuse for an educator with access to vulnerable kids to behave this way?

Source: The Guardian

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