Teacher chose wrong way to stop phone use

A TEACHER in a middle school in Deyang, in southwestern China's Sichuan province, told a student to smash his smartphone after discovering the student playing with the phone in class. Beijing News commented on Thursday:

Although the teacher was rightly urging the student to focus on the class, the teacher should have done so in a legal way. The smartphone is the student's personal belonging and therefore, according to the Property Law the teacher had no right to demand the destruction of the student's phone.

In fact, students are usually in a disadvantaged position in relation to their teachers and schools. Given their unequal status and power, without the consent of the students and parents and the authorization of the school, the teacher's act is too extreme.