Nicholas English of City Weekend posed as a parent and walked straight into a parent-teacher meeting Wednesday night at Shanghai Rego International School’s Minhang campus. Teachers at the school, he found, were not here on proper work visas, and the school was having trouble paying them on time: more ›

A popular American English teacher has been helped out with her medical bills by her students and former colleauges at Xiamen University, after she made notice her struggle with Parkinson was financially and mentally engraving on her too heavily. more ›

The Shanghai police has sent out a reminder of its warning to foreigners without work visas not to look for employment in the city. If found out, you'll be fined and deported, they said. more ›

One October afternoon after school, two primary school girls in Funan, Anhui province made a pact to kill themselves in their empty classroom. Before drinking the poison that they hoped would lead to their death, the students scrawled "blame our deaths on our math teacher" on their classroom's blackboard. After being treated in the hospital, the girls explained that they were upset that the teacher "deliberately found fault in the girl's work after the two did not attend their make-up lessons." The teacher denies these allegations. more ›

In a video spreading like wildfire around the 'nets, two students who reportedly caused their class's school bus to leave late are forced by their teacher to stand for five minutes and repeatedly hit each other across the face. more ›

Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), the PLA general who is famous for being the grandson of Chairman Mao and little else, has a new part-time gig -- teaching at the Guangzhou University Songtian College. The general will be the new brainwasher instructor for 66 students in Mao Zedong Thought (is anyone surprised?), which, far from dying out, has been enjoying something of a resurgence with the revival of the left in recent years. more ›

Featured on the homepage of Youku today is this video of a teacher performing push-ups on knives that has gained 130,000 views in just 18 hours. Kids, do not try this at home.
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Remember Li Yang (李阳) of Crazy English fame? The self-styled English guru who believes that the best way for his students to master English is to yell out phrases after him combined with hand gestures? more ›

We've had some ill-tempered teachers in the past but nothing as bad as this. A 24-year-old kindergarten schoolmarm, frustrated by her wards, took a page from recent spiky activities in Xinjiang and began stabbing them with syringes as a form of discipline. She was taken into custody after parents, justifiably angry about the abuse, complained to police. One mother said her four-year-old daughter had been stabbed multiple times. The school (an unlicensed one in Jianshui) said it knew nothing about the incident and that the teacher's performance had been "good." more ›

Bullying is a part of adolescent school life: it's sad and disheartening when you're singled out for being different in an unfamiliar place. But, then again, it's probably worse when the bullying is facilitated by a teacher. Sina has a bizarre story on the hazing of an eight year old student, started by his teacher and ultimately ending with him being likened to a monkey's red ass. more ›

Despite the low pay, it seems that there's nothing that Chinese people admire more than their teachers. According to a recent survey by the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology, teaching ranked as the most widely admired profession, followed by scientists and doctors. About 1,500 adults from ages 18 to 69 were polled in a survey about the most desirable jobs for the next generation. Thanks perhaps to all the news of corruption crackdowns, government official ranked only fourth on the list and trailed the top three by a long shot. Not mentioned was who exactly these 1,500 adults were - Urban professionals? Country farmers? Migrant workers? We would think that the various income levels would have all their own ideas of what they want for their children. Source: CRI English Photo from China Daily more ›

The saga of problems and setbacks that China has faced in attempting to implement the controversial Green Dam internet censorship software just keeps on going. After postponing the software's release indefinitely this summer, the government has attempted to find ways to censor the 'net without provoking massive public outrage. Which is funny, because the government is sneaking around trying to do things on the internet without anyone noticing, just like us! more ›

This is an advertisement. From July 6 to 19 Shenzhen High School, south China's best public school, will organize an American culture summer camp for gifted sixth-graders. We are looking to hire 10 bright and motivated Americans to teach four hours a day for 12 days. Our compensation is 8,000 yuan, free food and hotel room, and 1,000 yuan travel allowance. Go to specialcurriculum.com for more info. Interested applicants should e-mail a cover letter and resume to shenzhongabroad@gmail.com. More job ads. Place a job ad. more ›

ChinaSmack points us to this shocking and sad story of 11 year old student Zhang Yaoyin in Hunan Province who had her had smashed against the desk by her teacher numerous times, then hit savagely with a metal bar before going thrown out of the window of the fourth storey classroom to her death. more ›

The Peoples Daily reports the Ministry of Education has added new rules for primary school teachers to "take care of their students' safety" and "teachers should pay more attention to the health of students", spurred on by the public condemnation of secondary school teacher Fan Meizhong who ran for his life, leaving behind his students during the May 12 Sichuan quake. No word on what they'll do with errant teachers next. Will all teachers be expected to give up their lives for students when the next earthquake strikes? more ›

"Resolutely love and protect the entire student body. Respect the students’ selfhood and treat students fairly and equally. Help students by alternating discipline and kindness, and act as a mentor to students. Protect the safety of students. Defend the students’ lawful rights and interests, promote the students’ complete, active and healthy development. Do not mock, satirize or discriminate against students. Do not subject students to corporal punishment or disguised forms of corporal punishment." All inspired by the Running Teacher. [Source] more ›

At this point, this is only an unsubstantiated rumour but a highly plausible one given what we've seen and heard in the last few months. Here is an email sent to us by one teacher at an international school in Shanghai, and we quote verbatim: "I don't know anymore specifics, but I received an Email from my principal warning us about our online behaviour after an international school teacher was deported from China. I don't know the name or the location of the school, teacher or offending website. If more details emerge, I will share them with you." Watch what you put on your website, y'all. Someone's watching. more ›

Fiery episode of 《针锋相对》on Phoenix TV hosted by Hu Yihu (胡一虎) discussing whether Fan Meizhong (范美忠), teacher at the Guangya School in Dujiangyan, was "morally corrupt" for being the first to run away when the earthquake struck (If you missed this story earlier, read this backgrounder by Danwei). Unfortunately, we won't be able to translate everything said in these four videos, but a few things are worth pointing out. First, Fan starts by saying that unlike most of his Chinese compatriots, he did not see the teacher's job as "sacred" (神圣) and that his vocation was just one among many, and that his responsibility was to impart knowledge and wisdom, not to sacrifice his life for his students. In the days following the earthquake, Fan was pilloried online by netizens for some of the things he said, but also many quotations (including those shown on a board in the studio) were wrongly attributed to him. Fan reiterates what he said on his blog by admitting his own weakness saying he too was made of flesh and blood, and when the earthquake struck the only thing he could think of was his own safety first. For that Fan maintains that he broke no law, and whether his actions made him "morally corrupt" was not for anyone to decide. Former military man and social commentator Guo Songmin (郭松民) lambasts Fan, saying, "Even animals know how to save their offspring. I have never met such a shameless man in my life," to which Fan cooly retorts, "I am happy such a morally upright man exists in China today. If everyone were like him, I'm sure all of China's corruption problems, tofu construction projects, etc would be solved very easily." Fan also adds that sacrificing one's life for his students was over and above what one should expect of a teacher, but not "minimum moral responsibility" (底线道德). more ›

The government has announced the start of a massive probe to find out why close to 7,000 schools classrooms have been destroyed and promised that anyone found responsible for shoddy construction will be severely punished. A great many of the casualties we've seen so far are students and teachers who were still in class when the quake struck. more ›