A Mexican teacher has come under fire for making high-school students
wear cardboard boxes on their heads to block their peripheral vision
and prevent them from copying on an exam.
Luis Juárez Texis, the director of Campus 01 “El Sabinal” at the
College of Bachelors, in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, has been accused
of humiliating and breaking the basic human rights of his students,
after a photo of him overseeing an exam where the students wore
cardboard boxes on their heads went viral online. The students’ parents
shared the photo on social media and issued a public statement asking
educational authorities in Mexico to dismiss Texis.
“We denounce these acts of humiliation, physical, emotional and
psychological violence, to which the students of Campus 01 El Sabinal,
Tlaxcala, are subjected. This is how Luis Juárez Texis receives, treats
and humiliates students. As parents concerned about the academic
training of our children, we beg the federal and state educational
authorities and institutions that ensure the rights of young people to
act immediately with the dismissal of Luis Juárez Texis, director of
said campus. We hope that this type of violence against the Tlaxcalteca
youth is not overlooked, and that the federal and state authorities
dismiss this public official and that they cease this type of
humiliation in a space destined for learning…,” the outraged parents
wrote on Facebook.
The photo of the students wearing cardboard boxes with cut-out eye
holes that only allowed them to see in front without turning their heads
was shared thousands of times since last week and was eventually picked
up by mainstream media as well. However, instead of condemning the
teacher, most users congratulated him for finding an effective way to
prevent cheating.
“Excellent work, teacher, this does not harm them and in fact parents
should worry more about their children studying than about some boxes
that teach them a great lesson,” one person commented.
“Excellent technique, congratulations to the teacher,” someone else wrote.
Asked by local reporters to comment on the situation, Juárez Texis,
who appears in the photo behind the box-wearing students, said that he
only attended as an observer and that the students consented to the
anti-copying method.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of extreme
anti-cheating technique. Back in 2013, we covered a similarly
controversial story from Thailand, where students were forced to wear anti-cheating helmets made from sheets of paper.
