Teacher contributed to bullying by mocking student at east Japan junior high: report
OKEGAWA, Saitama -- A teacher making fun of a student with stutter was part of the reason why classmates started bulling the student, a recently disclosed report on a serious bullying case at a junior high school here pointed out.
The report, released by the Okegawa Municipal Board of Education in Saitama Prefecture, was compiled by a third-party investigative panel on bullying targeting a student at a municipal junior high school. It said the former student was subjected to at least five incidents of bullying by multiple classmates while he was enrolled there from the 2019 to 2021 school years. Specific acts included making fun of how his shouts sounded during physical education class, harassing him over how he sang "wrong" during singing practice, and stabbing him in the leg with mechanical pencils multiple times. The student ultimately stopped going to school due to the bullying.
The report singled out the teacher who taught Japanese to the former student when he was in his first and second years, recognizing that the teacher "mocked and laughed (at him)." It specifically mentioned the teacher's actions of "mimicking the former student's stutter and associated behaviors, persistently picking him in class and touching his body in front of classmates," as contributing to the bullying.
The report also pointed to a lack of coordination within the city education board. The former student's mother consulted the board's school affairs division in November 2020 regarding the bullying and the teacher's inappropriate behavior. However, this information was not sufficiently shared, and as a result "the recognition of the bullying was delayed (across the education board)."
The lack of cooperation was attributed to a vertical division of responsibilities -- the school affairs division handles personnel and staff guidance, while the school support division is responsible for student guidance and bullying issues -- contributing to a "lack of a shared perspective of working together to solve the problem." The school support division did not start investigating the bullying before the spring of 2021, and it was not until August 2023 that the education board officially recognized the case as a "serious incident" under the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying. The report concluded, "From the outset of learning of the bullying case, the education board should have responded while going beyond the boundaries of the divisions."
In response to an inquiry from the Mainichi Shimbun, the education board said it takes "the report's stance (that the teacher's actions contributed to the bullying) very seriously" and has instructed principals at municipal elementary and junior high schools to thoroughly share information about the case and take measures to prevent recurrences. Reflecting on the failure caused by the divided organizational structure, the board established a new position, "school education supervisor," starting in the 2024 academic year to strengthen cooperation between the two divisions.
The former student and his family have filed a lawsuit against the city of Okegawa and the teacher with the Saitama District Court, seeking approximately 44 million yen (around $307,700) in damages for emotional distress caused by the teacher's inappropriate conduct.
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