China Education Influencer Faces Backlash For Hitting Children, Smashing Toys

A popular Education influencer in China is being slammed on social media after she was seen physically punishing her students in several of her videos. Notably, Zhao Juying, 55, has emerged as a popular figure on Chinese social media by advocating harsh, old-school forms of discipline. She has about 300,000 followers on Douyin who watch videos of her visits to students around the country.

According to the South China Morning Post, Juying's profile says that she is a senior education expert with 33 years of experience in the field. She rose to fame after filming a show for Douyin, China's version of TikTok, wherein parents invited her into their homes to help them encourage their teenage children to study harder. The self-styled expert claimed that she is rapidly able to improve a child's academic performance during her home visits, and believes that education without punishment is incomplete. 

However, her aggressive and extreme approach to motivating students to study harder has now sparked a controversy. In a recent video, the teacher visited a junior middle school student surnamed Huang and instructed him to smash all his favourite toy cars and Gundam figurines with a hammer. 

She then slapped the boy on his palms and torso with a bamboo cane, while shouting, ''Will these toys help you improve your math or English grades? If you fail to get into high school, you won't even get a chance to sit the university entrance exams. No girls who have been to a good university will marry you?''

In another video, she criticised the child for being childish and tore up her comic books. 

More such videos cropped up, sparking intense backlash, with many condemning her educating style and expressing sympathy for the students featured in her videos.

One user wrote, ''This suffocating education style has long been outdated, and people like Zhao are not worthy of being teachers.''

Another commented, ''Using the pretext of home visits to perpetrate violence will only bring physical and psychological harm to students.''

A third stated, ''Love and gentleness are the best medicines for educating children.'' A fourth added, ''Suppressing children's interests isn't real education; it's an adult obsession with power and control.'

The Education Bureau of Gansu province has now begun investigating the authenticity of Juying's identity and qualifications.