Flogged

These poor kids. A friend of mine has started planning to move to America so that his children (which he does not yet have) won't grow up in schools where teachers regularly beat the shit out of them.

A 17-year old high school student in southern Kwangju City committed suicide by hanging after being punished by a teacher, JoongAng Ilbo reported Saturday.

The male student was flogged on his foot for about 110 times along with another classmate Thursday evening for being "absent without notification" for two hours during self-study session, by a 28-year-old female teacher.

The teacher is known to be a daughter of the school principal. She began to work full-time this year, after teaching part-time for a few years previously at the same institution.

The school, just like many other Korean high schools, requires students to study in school until 10 p.m. on weekdays.

After the punishment, the deceased told some of his classmates that he would kill himself "in a joking manner," the police said. After returning home that night, the student chatted with his friends online and watched television, before he went outside.

Students in the school told the investigators that the degree of punishment the student received actually "wasn't too harsh" compared to the "usually very harsh punishment." The police are further investigating the case, focusing on how much influence the punishment had on the student's decision to kill himself.