Teach You a Lesson Episode 5 Recap

A teacher at the end of her strength

At Hyeonjung Elementary School, first-grade homeroom teacher Choi Ji-seon apologizes to her mother in a letter. She says she wants to live but no longer can, and asks her mother never to forgive the person who drove her to it. Inspector Im Han-rim of the Educational Rights Protection Bureau (ERPB) takes her to a mental health assessment that elementary teachers nationwide are sitting that day. The result, backed by a bureau order, puts Ji-seon on leave. She objects that the test was supposed to carry no consequences and is told that leaving the classroom is better than dying. Her mother had brought her diary to the bureau, with pages such as "Will it end if I die?", and begged for help.

Sent to a doctor, Ji-seon begs the bureau not to give her class a new teacher who will end up like her. The substitute who walks into Class 1-3 is Inspector Na Hwa-jin. The first-graders ignore his calls for quiet, ask whether he could beat their taekwondo master and stampede to the bathroom. When a child named Yeon-seo cries for an origami frog, he gives in and folds one. Alone afterward, he asks his late fiancée, Choi Ga-yun, whether teaching was always this hard.

U-jin's mother wears Ji-seon down

A flashback returns to Ji-seon's first day, when a shy boy, Kim U-jin, cannot bring himself to introduce himself. At pickup, his mother, whom the school addresses as Mrs. Lee, asks to stay in touch. Ji-seon points her to the Talk Mate app during working hours, and Mrs. Lee asks whether Ji-seon lives in the Stern Apartments. Later she complains that Ji-seon spoke too harshly to U-jin. After he cries at the chalkboard, the rules multiply. Ji-seon may not give him problems in front of the class, put slashes on his wrong answers, tell him to stop or make him bow, and she must take his side in every fight. She writes each rule down.

At a reunion with friends, Mrs. Lee texts Ji-seon about what underwear to wear around the boys. Then she finds Ji-seon's Instagram, scolds her for a party photo and reminds her that her taxes pay Ji-seon's salary. Someone advises Ji-seon to quit social media. That person once fought parents, even pressing charges, only to face a petition that left the whole school suffering. Ji-seon deletes the app and tells herself she can return to it after she retires.

In class, Ji-seon builds a play corner called the Home of the Heart and invites U-jin to follow his feelings. During a ball game he is knocked down, then lashes out at a classmate, Seo-jun, who cries that his eye hurts. As Ji-seon steps in, Mrs. Lee's rules echo in her head.

At the meeting that follows, Mrs. Lee insists Seo-jun pushed first, and the two mothers dare each other to go to the school violence committee. When Ji-seon warns that a hearing would not favor U-jin, Mrs. Lee claims Ji-seon promised to take his side in every fight. Ji-seon denies it and says she will tell the committee what she saw. She refuses to give out her personal number, and Mrs. Lee warns that her husband is very angry.

A complaint, a forum post and a diary

The next morning, Mrs. Lee calls Ji-seon's private number anyway. Calls and messages pile up until Mrs. Lee's voice loops in Ji-seon's head and Ji-seon screams. Then Mrs. Lee rings at her door.

The committee rules against U-jin and asks only for a written apology, but Mrs. Lee accuses Ji-seon of taking sides out of spite and tells her to quit. Then U-jin's father, Mr. Kim, storms into the classroom mid-lesson, pushes past Ji-seon and drags his son out while the other children cry. A notice from the Teachers' Rights Protection Committee follows, naming Ji-seon as the victimized teacher.

Mrs. Lee answers with a child abuse complaint. She accuses Ji-seon of humiliating U-jin, encouraging another child to shun him and emotionally abusing him in the Home of the Heart. Ji-seon has seen a lawyer and knows a revised law spares her an immediate suspension. Mrs. Lee replies that Ji-seon can teach by day and help the police by night, possibly for more than a year. If Ji-seon is cleared, Mrs. Lee will simply apologize, as the law allows.

A colleague then shows Ji-seon a post on a parents' forum that brands her a child abuser and lists her phone number. The principal admits that parents are threatening to pull their children out. Reading her diary later, Hwa-jin pictures her as a woman alone in a dense forest, watched from every side.

At the bureau, the team explains to Han-rim that a report alone triggers a police investigation. More than 11,000 teachers have been reported for child abuse in recent years, and only 1.6 percent were prosecuted. A parent whose report proves false faces no penalty. Minister of Education Choi Gang-seok slams the table and says that if teachers have no protection, "we must be their shields." He tells Hwa-jin to deal with parents who misuse the law. At the hospital, Ji-seon goes in for counseling while Han-rim waits with Deputy Director Bong Geun-dae, who lectures her on reptilian aliens.

Hwa-jin gives Mrs. Lee a taste of her own methods

Hwa-jin sends U-jin up to the board. The next morning he finds Mrs. Lee lurking behind the classroom door and smothers her in praise, calling U-jin naturally gifted and guessing he takes after her. She asks him to stop sending U-jin to the board and confides that the previous teacher was strange.

Then the calls start. Hwa-jin asks how to wake U-jin when he dozes off and rules out every answer. A shake could count as abuse, saying his name loudly could startle him, and leaving him asleep would be neglect. He asks what mark to use instead of a slash, rejecting stars and triangles, until she tells him to use a slash.

At the ministry, Gang-seok presses officials on parents who call teachers' personal phones. When they propose a complaints department in every school, he objects that its staff would become punching bags. He insists the system change before the next teacher dies. When Mrs. Lee calls, Hwa-jin asks which hand the children should wave with. She tells him to stop calling and warns again that her husband is angry.

Hwa-jin goes straight to the bank where Mr. Kim works and calls for U-jin's father across the floor. In front of staff and customers, he begs forgiveness at full volume and lists every offense from the slash marks onward. He recalls that Mr. Kim nearly hit the last teacher and pleads not to be beaten. By the end of the scuffle, Hwa-jin is urging him to pull his trousers back up as onlookers laugh. When Mr. Kim threatens him, Hwa-jin tells him to control his temper and warns that he never wants to hear about an angry husband again.

Mrs. Lee meets the inspector

At home, Mr. Kim rages that his manager saw everything just before his promotion and orders his wife to get the teacher fired. When Mrs. Lee storms into the principal's office, Principal Kim sends her to the app, the official channels or the ERPB. He adds that teachers are someone's beloved children too, and Mrs. Lee vows they will all pay. Earlier, Hwa-jin told the principal that the bureau would take responsibility and that teachers need a mentor more than a bureau. The principal now agrees that it is time to act like a teacher again.

Mrs. Lee pulls U-jin away and calls the parent council together. Hwa-jin arrives with a document: he has filed a child abuse report against her. He says he saw her yank U-jin out of his seat and noticed bruises during gym, and he cites the rule that teachers must report suspected abuse. If she is cleared, he says, he will apologize, because that is the law too. The other mothers whisper that she harassed Ji-seon until the teacher developed facial tics and landed in the hospital. Mrs. Lee curses Ji-seon, and the parents leave.

Later, Mrs. Lee confronts Hwa-jin and blames him and Ji-seon for her son being treated as an outcast. She threatens to report them to the ERPB, where she knows someone. Hwa-jin introduces himself as an inspector of the bureau and tells her its investigation found her false complaints to be defamation. She insists she did what any parent would and says a teacher with no children cannot understand. When Hwa-jin asks her to imagine how Ji-seon's mother feels, she answers that she cares only about U-jin.

Inside the school, U-jin has called Ji-seon and is drawing with her. He says he followed his feelings, as she taught him, because he had a hard day and wanted to see her. Crying, he says he feels sorry that his mother hurt her, and that his mother hates him and never smiles at him anymore. Ji-seon hugs him. Watching with Mrs. Lee, Hwa-jin asks whether she wants U-jin to grow into an adult who never apologizes and ends up alone. Her son likes his teacher, he tells her: "Trust U-jin. Trust his teacher too." Ji-seon laughs when U-jin draws her as a rabbit, and she makes him the bear.

Gang-seok apologizes to teachers

A legal summary then lays out a case brought by a teacher, B, against a parent, A. Pressuring B beyond her duties is coercion, the messages and the visit to her home are stalking, and sending a husband to fake an assault is intimidation. Because B suffered a breakdown and considered ending her life, the conduct also counts as assault. B is Ji-seon. The summary asks why acts that are crimes anywhere else are tolerated between parents and teachers.

Gang-seok announces that the bureau will send an investigator immediately whenever a teacher is accused, and will fight for those found not guilty. He promises every teacher an annual checkup and psychological evaluation. On behalf of the Ministry of Education, he apologizes to the teachers who took their own lives and promises the rest that they will no longer fight alone. In the final minutes, Ga-yun's planner turns from a wedding-day note to entries about a student, Cho Gyu-cheol. She writes that he has no dreams, asks herself what to do about him, and wonders whether she will ever forgive him.

Up next: Teach You a Lesson Episode 6 Recap. See every episode in the Teach You a Lesson episode guide.