Oh yeah. Hair seems to be a big deal for teachers. I asked them why in a workshop once and they gave me no answer other than that it's the rule. (subsequently I've been teaching the phrase "rules are rule" and the basic opposite "rules are meant to be broken" and how they reflect our opposite cultures.) Thankfully I know the word for "Dictator" in Korean. They didn't seem to follow my logic.
Teachers actually visually inspect all students as they come to school each day, judging when certain kids should get a cut. There is a rotation of 3 different teachers standing at the front gates every day at 7:30am for this very reason. (Many kids chose to walk the long way around and come in through the back...) And getting a haircut is as legitimate an excuse for missing school (provided the teacher just told you to) as going to the hospital.
In class, some of the more strict teachers actually take a ruler to kids' heads. If a kid in the hall has just WAY too long of hair in that teacher's opinion, they will take a pair of scissors and cut a big chunk out, just like on that website. I haven't seen any shaving though. I'm pretty sure the scissors are a surprise attack - as my kids are severely overprotective of their hair, and would certainly much rather protect their hair and get a beating if they could get away with it.
One teacher (the one who commented on the step-father touching his daughter) has a terrible "귀두" hair cut. Meaning the kids think his hair style looks like the head of a penis. It does. Anyway, he told students in his class that if they cut their hair the same as him, he would give them perfect participation marks. The smartest boy actually DID. I felt bad for him. He looked aweful. But the point was that I found it an interesting tactic of using marks and also wording it POSITIVELY rather than negatively (which is a HUGE stride in the right direction as far as I'm concerned).
The website above mentioned how hitting (the last video of the mundane swats on the feet) was a way to waste time (It SO is. If they spent as much time hitting as they did teaching, the kids would be as smart as they were expected to be) and also a way to humiliate and shame. I think the haircuts are also a means to humiliate and shame (not just the punishments of surprise clippings, but the imposition of the random rule and retention of permission for a child's desires).
The way I see it...because of confuscian B.S., every child and teenager grows up with a serious inferiority complex and feelings of repression. Then, suddenly they find themselves older and being GIVEN the bows, and the sudden burst of freedom and respect and POWER goes way to their heads. So now they're in power and well, like the old college initiation rite goes "we had to go through it, so so you do too". I find it sad that most Koreans don't seem to remember how they felt at that age.
But, like I said before... even from one day to the next, kids will HATE the beatings varying all the way to laughing at the beaten kid, merely depending on who it is. So now that I've ranted for a good page on the problems with the teachers rules, maybe I should digress and completely change my arguement to the problem being the lack of teaching EMPATHY. Which may solve more problems (however slower) more thoroughly, including the fighting in schools on the rise (noted in the above link).
