The Teacher Who Was Reported for Doing the Ordinary Part of His Job

When Zou Hua learned a complaint had been filed against him, he was preparing a lesson. The principal opened the door and called his name. Zou Hua put down his pen and followed him into the hall. The principal said nothing until they reached the office. Then he played a video. A parent held a phone toward the camera and said the teacher would not let her child eat. Zou Hua watched it twice. He recognized the parent of the student who had cut the lunch line. He stood for a moment and said, “I told him to step out of line and wait at the back so the other students could get their food first.” The principal did not reply.

The complaint came in March. Zou Hua was transferred away from the campus and stopped teaching. Before the transfer, a school leader asked him one question: “If you keep teaching this class, can you guarantee no one will complain about you again?” Zou Hua said, “I cannot guarantee that.” He did not look up. The school leader asked nothing more.

The complaint was not his first.

An earlier complaint had a longer history. A quiet boy in the class was afraid to raise his hand during class to ask for the bathroom. He wet his pants. Zou Hua had not noticed. Two years passed. After the new semester registration, the boy’s parent filed a complaint with the education department. The parent said Zou Hua had not paid enough attention to the child. Zou Hua remembered many conversations with this parent over those two years. The parent had never mentioned the incident. Once the parent tried to give him a gift to say thank you. Zou Hua refused it. At a meeting, when he heard the reason for the complaint, he connected the two events. The parent had read the refused gift as proof of prejudice against the child. The parent explained the delay this way: the child was due to move up a grade, and school custom called for a new homeroom teacher. The school was short-staffed, so the teacher stayed. When the parent saw that Zou Hua would keep the class, the parent worried the child would face more unequal treatment and filed the complaint.

Zou Hua had taught for more than ten years. The first complaint led to a written explanation and an investigation. The second came while he was teaching. The principal called him out of the room. Zou Hua saw the parent’s face in the video and knew what had happened. Less than six months separated the two complaints.

At lunch, Zou Hua had two choices. If he intervened, a parent might call it corporal punishment. If he ignored the line-cutter, a parent farther back might call it neglect. Zou Hua intervened. He told the student to step out and wait. The student ate one or two minutes later than usual. The parent posted a real-name complaint video on social media. After the transfer, a colleague did the math for him. Ignoring the line-cutter would also have carried a risk of complaint. Only the complainants would have changed.

Zou Hua now works in logistics on another campus. He does odd jobs. He says he no longer carries endless worries. He does the work in front of him. He jokes that his main goal is to make it to retirement. He said this while squaring a stack of printer paper and placing it in a cabinet.

Li Ke, a middle school teacher with more than ten years in the classroom, has watched discipline methods change. To avoid complaints, teachers do not raise their voices. They do not throw chalk. They do not touch students. Before criticizing a student, they find a roundabout compliment. In Li Ke’s summary, teachers cannot discipline with emotion. A sharp criticism can be judged excessive punishment. If a student breaks down, self-harms, or a home-school dispute starts, the teacher is first in line for blame. Even when the teacher did nothing wrong, the teacher is often asked to soothe the family and pay compensation. Online chats, roughhousing during breaks, and sudden psychological problems all land on the teacher.

The 2021 Rules on Educational Disciplinary Measures for Primary and Secondary Schools give teachers the right to name and criticize, to give after-class instruction, and to have a student stand for one class period. Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Guangxi, and other places have issued implementation rules. The written rules have grown more specific. In Zou Hua’s case, no clause told anyone whether sending a line-cutter to the back counted as corporal punishment. When a parent called two minutes of waiting “not letting the child eat” and posted a video, the teacher did not hold the first pen. The complainant defined the story first. The teacher had to prove himself after the story had already traveled.

Ban Yue Tan reported that from January to August 2024, a grassroots education bureau in southwest China received 128 complaints about teachers. After investigation, seven were basically true. The ratio matters. Filing a complaint no longer requires caution. It works as pressure. Zou Hua faced two complaints. The first grew from suspicion after a refused gift. The second turned ordinary order-keeping into abuse. Both started an investigation. Neither complainant paid a price. Zou Hua paid with his classroom.

In a survey by the magazine Educator, with more than 80,000 questionnaires, 60.21 percent of teachers said they dare not discipline students. A Chinese National Academy of Educational Sciences survey found that 60.4 percent of teachers named unclear responsibility boundaries as the main reason their burden was too heavy. Read the two numbers together. Teachers want to discipline. They cannot afford the risk. Every normal criticism can become a procedure that requires them to prove their innocence. Managing less becomes the rational move.

While Zou Hua sorted printer paper in logistics, the student who cut the line moved up a grade. In the first week of the new term, the new homeroom teacher announced the lunch-line rules. The wording was mild. The teacher asked students to remind each other. No one complained.

When the school leader asked Zou Hua whether he could guarantee no more complaints, the answer was already in the room. The school could not promise protection from malicious complaints. It could move the teacher. Moving the teacher ended the complaint. It did not answer it. Zou Hua gave the only answer he had. On the day he put down his pen and walked out with the principal, his lesson notebook still lay open on the desk. The page showed the key points for the next day’s text. Later the notebook went into a cardboard box with other odds and ends and into a cabinet in logistics.

He says he finishes work and goes home. He no longer thinks about how to ask questions in tomorrow’s class, how to criticize, or how to put a compliment in front of the criticism. The printer paper in the cabinet is stacked neatly. He jokes about making it to retirement. He laughs once, briefly.