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Education

When Online Teachers See Child Abuse (edsurge.com) 56

Rick Zeman (Slashdot reader #15,628) shares "a thought-provoking article on when online English teachers see child abuse at the other end of their cameras."

Of the 24 online teachers interviewed, about two thirds told "harrowing" stories, EdSurge reports, and within the teachers' Facebook groups new reports "surface nearly every week." The teachers post in these private Facebook groups because they aren't sure how to process, much less report, what they saw. They ask one another the same few questions in many different ways: Has this ever happened to you? Is what I'm feeling normal? How should I respond? Will the company do something about it?
One company employs 70,000 online teachers who reach more than 600,000 children in China -- yet one of its teachers complains that the company offered her no guidance for these situations.

After saying they "take these matters very seriously" (with a procedure in place for these "very rare" instances), that company declined repeated requests for further interviews "and would not elaborate on its procedure for referring reports of abuse to local agencies." (Even though in China, as in the U.S., the described behavior is illegal.) One China-born anthropologist says that many parents may not even be aware of a 2015 law which banned domestic abuse against children.

Last month another company advised its teachers that those who do report incidents will not receive any follow-up from the company, for reasons of "student confidentiality" -- though "We assure you that our teams will address any concerns in a prudent manner."
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When Online Teachers See Child Abuse

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    I spent some time in China. This is their cultural dirty laundry so to speak. You are an outsider. Just because the west is cucked beyond belief does not mean everyone else is. That said, I can also see how, without and leading advocate, the cases can get lost in bureaucratic laziness. Of course, you donâ(TM)t want the advocate to have too much power or you get ridiculous shit like what power tripping CPS agents can do. I donâ(TM)t think this is malicious or negligent, and I donâ(TM)t think w

    • Just email a copy of the abuse video to the Chinese embassy and your own embassy. Witnessing abuse has a negative effect on the viewer, and the teachers have a right to not be subjected to this, same as the children have the right not to be abused. You might lose your job, but you will know you tried to do something, and there's enough demand for ESL teachers that it should not be a problem.
  • Before teaching them... easy peasy lol
  • In California (and likely other U.S. states), school teachers are "mandatory reporters". That is, a teacher who fails to report suspected child abuse to law enforcement authorities is subject to criminal prosecution. It is NOT sufficient for a teacher to report abuse to his or her employer.

    Yes, child welfare authorities in some jurisdictions are either too aggressive or not aggressive enough. Neither situation excuses a failure to report abuse.

    • Absolutely not. Child "protection" services have may too much power in western countries. It's to the point that some little shits will outright threaten to go to child services and say they're being abused if they get any kind of punishment, whether it sitting in a corner for 10 minutes or even just shouting.

      There's a good reason kids in Asian countries are better behaved, it's because they don't have the state preventing them from enforcing any kind of discipline.
    • And which authorities would that be in China?
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        China is a founding member of Interpol. It should be possible to report the crime locally in the US and have the details sent over to China.

      • And which authorities would that be in China?

        Just tell China that the parent was speaking negatively of their regime. That'll get their attention!

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      China has similar laws for compulsory reporting by teachers.
      But the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. [wikipedia.org]

      The local PSB would be the place to report, but they may not act.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      If you read the article, you would see these are Not performing as school teachers; some but not all of these instructors are also school teachers.

      These are native English speakers in countries such as the US doing contract work for companies such as VIPKid to deliver online tutoring to children in China using one-on-one video conferencing.

      Because of this.. California law enforcement cannot do squat about the child abuse -- they're not going to have anything to do with any attempted
      report about an

    • Who's law enforcement is the point. Hey California, I'm here in Australia and I think someone got abused on the other end of this video chat!

      Yep that's bound to become priority number 1.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      In California (and likely other U.S. states), school teachers are "mandatory reporters".

      Unfortunately these mandated reporters feed into Child Protective Services, which is a poster child for how bad authority without checks and balances can be. The most telling line from the article below is:

      "The number of children separated from their parents at the border since April is almost equal to the number taken by CPS every three days."

      Citation: https://reason.com/2018/06/21/... [reason.com]

  • We have top men working on it right now. [youtube.com]
  • by reporter ( 666905 ) on Monday July 22, 2019 @01:27AM (#58963670) Homepage

    A report [apa.org] by the American Psychological Association states, "Chinese families showed lower rates of minor violence and higher rates of severe violence toward children than US families."

    Many Chinese parents consider beating a child (until he bleeds) to be a normal method of disciplining a child.

    The high academic performance exhibited by many Chinese children has a high cost, which they pay for the remainder of their lives.

  • My daughter called the cops on her mom because her mom threw her on the floor and put in knee in the middle of my daughter's back. Her mom explained to the cops that she was just disciplining her daughter, and the cops told my daughter that she should listen to her mother or they would come and arrest her, not her mother! So the question remains: where is the line between disciplining your child and abusing your child?

It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Descartes

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