The school administrators asked him, “If you keep teaching this class, can you guarantee you won’t be reported again?” He said, “I can’t guarantee that.
A few days after that conversation, Zou Hua stepped down from the podium. After teaching for more than a decade, he was sent to the logistics office at another campus to do odd jobs. He says his biggest goal now is to hang on until retirement.
It all started with something absurdly trivial. This March, at lunchtime, a student cut in line and was talking while standing among the others. Zou Hua told the child to step out of line and wait at the back while everyone else got their food first. The child had to wait an extra minute or two to eat. The parent went home and recorded a video making a real-name report, accusing him of corporal punishment and denying the child food.
He didn’t hit the child. Didn’t yell. Didn’t make them stand as punishment. He just moved the person who cut in line to the back. That was it.
And it wasn’t the first time. Two years ago, a shy boy was too afraid to raise his hand in class and wet himself. The parents didn’t say a word at the time. Two years later, when the new school year began, they went straight to the education bureau, claiming the teacher hadn’t paid enough attention to their child. There’s one detail in the middle that really matters: the parent had once tried to give him a gift as a thank-you, but he refused it. In the parent’s accounting, refusing the gift meant he was biased against their child. Then, when the class teacher wasn’t replaced this term, they dug up the old grievance.
A lot of people think the parents are just difficult. I think the problem is that the sieve is broken. Its holes are bigger than grains of sand.
A survey in a region of southwest China found that fewer than 5.5 percent of reports against teachers were ultimately substantiated. Guess how many that is? Just five out of every hundred. The other ninety-five are all investigated for nothing. But every one of those ninety-five teachers has to write explanations, answer questions, and prove they didn’t do something they never did. And proving you “didn’t do it” is inherently a hundred times more costly than making an accusation, because what you have to prove is the silence of the entire world. That’s how people get worn down and broken.
If you were standing at that podium, would you dare take this class?
There’s one thing the blockchain does especially well: it cuts out the whole “prove your innocence” step. Did a sum of money move or not? No need to ask anyone. Check the signature. Check the block height. Anyone can verify it. Whoever makes a claim has to produce something visible to back it up. In real life, it’s the other way around: whoever is accused has to prove they didn’t do it.
The problem is, making an accusation costs nothing. Create an anonymous account and say three sentences to a camera. Zero cost. On-chain, this is called griefing: a tactic where you impose a huge cost on someone else at little expense to yourself. Dust attacks, spam transactions clogging the network, mass reports getting products taken down—they’re all the same play. The answer has never been to argue about it. It’s to put the cost back on the person who starts it: make the person reporting put money on the table first. If the accusation is false and they lose, that money is forfeited. Next time they think about pressing send, their finger will hesitate.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that even a hundred operational guidelines for disciplinary measures in education won’t fix this. No matter how detailed the rules are, they can’t settle the account behind those five words: “I can’t guarantee that.” As if a few pages of policy could control this. The real lever is the burden of proof: whoever reports someone has to provide evidence first. Then those ninety-five cases would naturally disappear.
In September this year, the Ministry of Education said it would issue guidelines. Revisions to the Teachers Law have also been added to the legislative agenda, but no one knows exactly what the final text will say. Some teachers say that these days, before criticizing a student, they have to say a couple of nice things first. I believe it. Back when I was in school, teachers never did that. I never saw anyone praise a student before criticizing them.
Think back to when you were at school. If a teacher pulled you out of line and sent you to the back, would you tell your parents when you got home? Probably not. These days, kids do. Their parents have phones, cameras, and platforms where one post can be shared around by everyone.
Once the cost of managing people gets higher than the benefit of doing so, the only ones left at the podium will be those who choose not to manage them. That’s what happens.
$ETH $BTC $LINK
#教育惩戒 #教师举报 #链上信任 #BurdenOfProof
A few days after that conversation, Zou Hua stepped down from the podium. After teaching for more than a decade, he was sent to the logistics office at another campus to do odd jobs. He says his biggest goal now is to hang on until retirement.
It all started with something absurdly trivial. This March, at lunchtime, a student cut in line and was talking while standing among the others. Zou Hua told the child to step out of line and wait at the back while everyone else got their food first. The child had to wait an extra minute or two to eat. The parent went home and recorded a video making a real-name report, accusing him of corporal punishment and denying the child food.
He didn’t hit the child. Didn’t yell. Didn’t make them stand as punishment. He just moved the person who cut in line to the back. That was it.
And it wasn’t the first time. Two years ago, a shy boy was too afraid to raise his hand in class and wet himself. The parents didn’t say a word at the time. Two years later, when the new school year began, they went straight to the education bureau, claiming the teacher hadn’t paid enough attention to their child. There’s one detail in the middle that really matters: the parent had once tried to give him a gift as a thank-you, but he refused it. In the parent’s accounting, refusing the gift meant he was biased against their child. Then, when the class teacher wasn’t replaced this term, they dug up the old grievance.
A lot of people think the parents are just difficult. I think the problem is that the sieve is broken. Its holes are bigger than grains of sand.
A survey in a region of southwest China found that fewer than 5.5 percent of reports against teachers were ultimately substantiated. Guess how many that is? Just five out of every hundred. The other ninety-five are all investigated for nothing. But every one of those ninety-five teachers has to write explanations, answer questions, and prove they didn’t do something they never did. And proving you “didn’t do it” is inherently a hundred times more costly than making an accusation, because what you have to prove is the silence of the entire world. That’s how people get worn down and broken.
If you were standing at that podium, would you dare take this class?
There’s one thing the blockchain does especially well: it cuts out the whole “prove your innocence” step. Did a sum of money move or not? No need to ask anyone. Check the signature. Check the block height. Anyone can verify it. Whoever makes a claim has to produce something visible to back it up. In real life, it’s the other way around: whoever is accused has to prove they didn’t do it.
The problem is, making an accusation costs nothing. Create an anonymous account and say three sentences to a camera. Zero cost. On-chain, this is called griefing: a tactic where you impose a huge cost on someone else at little expense to yourself. Dust attacks, spam transactions clogging the network, mass reports getting products taken down—they’re all the same play. The answer has never been to argue about it. It’s to put the cost back on the person who starts it: make the person reporting put money on the table first. If the accusation is false and they lose, that money is forfeited. Next time they think about pressing send, their finger will hesitate.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that even a hundred operational guidelines for disciplinary measures in education won’t fix this. No matter how detailed the rules are, they can’t settle the account behind those five words: “I can’t guarantee that.” As if a few pages of policy could control this. The real lever is the burden of proof: whoever reports someone has to provide evidence first. Then those ninety-five cases would naturally disappear.
In September this year, the Ministry of Education said it would issue guidelines. Revisions to the Teachers Law have also been added to the legislative agenda, but no one knows exactly what the final text will say. Some teachers say that these days, before criticizing a student, they have to say a couple of nice things first. I believe it. Back when I was in school, teachers never did that. I never saw anyone praise a student before criticizing them.
Think back to when you were at school. If a teacher pulled you out of line and sent you to the back, would you tell your parents when you got home? Probably not. These days, kids do. Their parents have phones, cameras, and platforms where one post can be shared around by everyone.
Once the cost of managing people gets higher than the benefit of doing so, the only ones left at the podium will be those who choose not to manage them. That’s what happens.
$ETH $BTC $LINK
#教育惩戒 #教师举报 #链上信任 #BurdenOfProof