Teacher’s verbal abuse, threats blamed for 15-year-old girl’s suicide

Verbal abuse and threats by a teacher have been blamed for the suicide last week of a 15-year-old junior high school girl in Takahagi, Ibaraki Prefecture.

The girl killed herself at her home on April 30.

On Monday, it was learned that the teacher in charge of the school’s table tennis club had been verbally abusive and even threatened “to kill” her, Fuji TV reported.

According to Takahagi City’s Board of Education, last September, the girl wrote in a school questionnaire that “school is fun but club activities are boring.”

In a note found at her home after her suicide, the girl wrote that she had become frustrated at being in the table tennis club because the male teacher threatened “to kill” or “punch” her and her teammates. In addition, she said that the man called the girls “idiots,” jabbed them on their shoulders, and threw their equipment on the floor.

The girl stopped attending club practice on March 15. Shortly after, the board of education received an anonymous complaint about the teacher. He admitted to the verbal abuse and acknowledged that he had been too tough on the girls with his coaching methods. The school admonished him and assigned another teacher to supervise his coaching methods.