Classroom craze over 'Teach You a Lesson' fuels calls to reform teacher rights, juvenile crime laws

Lawmakers have said the popularity of the Netflix drama series "Teach You a Lesson" reflects deep public distrust in the public education system and the judiciary. The forum also heard calls to record serious violations of teacher rights in student school records, to protect teachers from child abuse allegations when carrying out legitimate disciplinary guidance, and to lower the age threshold for juveniles under criminal age in response to increasingly violent youth crime.

Jeong Seong-guk, a People Power Party lawmaker on the National Assembly's education committee, said Monday he had hosted a forum at the National Assembly Members' Office Building titled "A Discussion on Improving Teacher Rights and the Juvenile Criminal Age Regime Prompted by the Drama 'Teach You a Lesson.'" The forum was organized ahead of the third anniversary of the death of a teacher at Seoichon Elementary School, which falls on Saturday, to discuss measures to protect teacher rights and reform the juvenile justice system.

Participants said that while the so-called "five teacher rights laws" were enacted following the Seoichon Elementary incident, teachers still feel inadequately protected in practice. They called for making it mandatory for education superintendents to file complaints over malicious or false reports of teacher rights violations, recording serious violations in student school records, and clarifying the standards for emotional abuse under the Child Welfare Act.

Kim Gyu-tae, a professor at Keimyung University, analyzed why teachers identify so strongly with "Teach You a Lesson." "It is not because of the powerful retribution carried out by the fictional Teacher Rights Protection Agency," he said. "It is because the drama realistically captures the anxiety of potentially being reported for child abuse even when giving legitimate disciplinary guidance, and the sense of isolation teachers feel amid malicious complaints."

Kim then said the show's resonance was "the result of distrust that the current national education and judicial system cannot fix our broken classrooms," and called for recording serious teacher rights violations in student school records, granting immunity from child abuse charges for legitimate disciplinary guidance, and establishing a system under which the state or education offices take responsibility for lawsuits arising from educational activities.

Participants also argued that the age of criminal responsibility should be reviewed given the rapid rise in crimes by juveniles under criminal age. Shin Hye-jin, a senior prosecutor at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, said crimes by juveniles aged 10 to 13 "are surging both in quantity and severity," adding that "a system is needed to make them aware of the weight of responsibility and the fact that serious crimes can be punished."

According to data presented at the forum, the number of juveniles under criminal age referred to the juvenile division rose about 2.5 times, from 8,615 in 2019 to 21,095 last year. Those referred for assault cases also increased over the same period, from 2,148 to 5,520. Referrals for rape and sexual assault cases climbed from 357 in 2019 to 883 in 2024.

Shin called for reviewing whether juveniles under criminal age who commit serious or repeat offenses — including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, drug dealing, kidnapping, arson and gang assault — should be brought into the criminal justice system.

Teachers handling school violence cases said schools are being transformed from educational institutions into case-processing agencies. Kim Haet-sal, a teacher at Jongdeok Elementary School in Gyeonggi Province, said teachers "are being forced into the roles of investigators, record-keepers, complaint handlers and emotional laborers instead of educators," and that schools "are becoming litigation outposts for brokers and legal representatives rather than spaces for educational recovery."

Kim proposed transferring the reporting, intake and investigation of school violence cases to specialized agencies outside schools — such as district education support offices or police — and consolidating the handling of parent complaints and legal responses under district education support offices.

Surveys of teachers also showed strong support for lowering the juvenile criminal age threshold and recording serious teacher rights violations in student school records. In a survey of 8,999 teachers conducted by the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations in May, 96.4 percent of respondents supported lowering the age threshold. Some 89.2 percent agreed that serious violations of teacher rights should be recorded in student school records.

In a separate survey of 9,200 teachers conducted by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union in April, more than 30 percent of respondents said they had experienced physical assault from a student. Some 80 percent said they had experienced verbal or physical threats.

However, parent groups and victim support organizations called for expanding state responsibility for the recovery of student victims alongside tougher penalties. Cho Jeong-sil, chair of the School Violence Victims' Families Council, said "punishment is necessary, but punishment alone does not bring about recovery for victims," and called for expanding residential and commuter-based recovery support centers for student victims and institutionalizing family counseling and healing programs.

Rep. Jeong said "the 'Teach You a Lesson' craze is, paradoxically, painful proof of the collapse of public education and our society," and pledged to pursue legislation "to restore crumbling teacher rights and protect students from increasingly violent juvenile crime."