Teacher may be fired for naked punishment

A naked girl stands outside a child care center in Yongsan, Seoul, in this photo taken by a New Zealander on Jan. 25. [YONHAP]

A female teacher at a day care center in Seoul may lose her job after forcing a 4-year-old girl to stand outside naked in subzero weather last week in Itaewon, Seoul, according to a Yongsan police official.
The Yongsan District Office, which operates the day care center, filed a complaint against the 25-year-old teacher on Tuesday and also asked the Gender Ministry to cancel the certificates of the teacher and the center’s 71-year-old principal.
The incident came to light after a New Zealand woman photographed the incident and posted it on Dave’s ESL Cafe, a Web site popular with English teachers here.
According to the district office, the teacher made the 4-year-old girl stand naked outside an emergency exit on the second floor. On that day, temperatures in Seoul ranged from a high of minus 1.8 degrees Celsius (28 F) to a low of minus 9.6 degrees.
According to the police official, the teacher told the police, “[The girl] was so upset when I stopped her from harassing her friend that she took her top off. I was so mad at the moment that I took her pants off, too.” She said, “[I] told her ‘if you keep doing that, I will send you to a nursery school for bad kids and opened the emergency exit door. She went out, and I let her in after about one to two minutes.”
The woman who took the picture, however, said in her posting that it happened one other time, with a little boy. “Both times they’ve been out there for about 15 minutes, shaking and screaming,” she wrote.
The Yongsan District Office and the city government confirmed the teacher gave the “naked punishment” to another 4-year-old child last month.
The woman, a university graduate with a major in child education whom police did not name, holds a teaching certificate, according to the district office. She started working at the center in March of last year.
“How can someone make a girl stand outside naked? I am worried she will be ashamed for the rest of her life,” said the girl’s mother, who refused to be named.

By Lee Chung-hyung JoongAng Ilbo/ Kim Soe-jung Staff Reporter [soejung@joongang.co.kr]