TEACHING RESPECT

‘Twas some years ago when I was a Flexi-Adjunct Teacher in a school in the west of Singapore. I was walking past the parade square where a Physical Education lesson was going on. 

A student greeted me. There and then, the teacher (PE HOD) made the student do pushups. This was presumably because the student did not pay 100% attention during the PE lesson.

The next day at the pantry, I was reading the newspaper when the HOD came up to me and mentioned the incident. He said: “The student must be taught respect.”

If the principal had walked past and the student had greeted the P, would that PE HOD still have made the student do pushups?