A recent report of a school in central China's Henan Province choosing a violent form of discipline for a student who broke a ban on cell phones during the exam period is yet another example of unnecessarily extreme measures in Chinese schools.

The students were forced to publically smash their own cell phones in the presence of school officials and parents. Despite the students having a signed contract with the school that informed them in advance of this consequence, the school still enforced an illegal act – destroying private property – in order to reprimand students about exam integrity and respect for the rules. This is a classic example of the famous saying: "two wrongs don't make a right."

Regardless of the method by which students disregard the rules and/or the sanctity of an exam room, this kind of violent act is inappropriate, to say the least. There are so many other options than the extreme path chosen by the Mianchi High School administrators. For instance, the school could have confiscated the phones for a set period of time and then returned these items to the parents of the students who were caught breaking the ban.

Despite the tragic event in early September in Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province in which a teacher was brutally murdered by a student after having confiscated this student's mobile phone, such a result is unlikely to recur. School officials must not be frightened into unnecessarily extreme responses such as this violent destruction of private property simply in response to the one anomalous event in Jiangxi. The Fuzhou teacher took appropriate action; his student engaged in criminal retribution. He will be punished by the court system.

Another option for the Henan school could have been a scholastic punishment that included not only confiscation of the device, but also a forced penalty on their exam results by a set percentage, thus demonstrating a system in which the punishment fits the crime. In this way, the punishment relates to the activity itself (the exam) rather than placing the focus on the offending item (the cell phone).