{"id":86360,"date":"2025-08-21T14:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/86360\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T14:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:03:09","slug":"teacher-stares-down-bear-at-school-in-japan-saving-students-from-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/86360\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher stares down bear at school in Japan, saving students from harm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-710253\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Bear-sighting-Japan-school-junior-high-students-vice-principal-iwate-news-.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The glare of a vice-principal is enough to make a bear run away.<\/p>\n<p>On the morning of 18 August, students were arriving at Ipponki Junior High School in Takizawa City, Iwate Prefecture, when an unwelcome visitor was spotted on the grounds. The visitor wasn\u2019t a person, but a bear, who was seen wandering around the front door of the building just before 8:00 a.m.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u25bc Ipponki Junior High School<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Although the incident occurred during the school\u2019s summer vacation, a number of students were inside the building, or making their way towards it, to practice for an upcoming relay race.<\/p>\n<p>The bear wasn\u2019t a part of the practice drills, though, so as soon as one of the students laid eyes on the animal they immediately informed a teacher, and the school\u2019s vice-principal, Shin Ito, sprang into action, rushing to the front of the school.<\/p>\n<p>Vice-Principal Ito then found himself face-to-face with the bear in the hallway leading to the gymnasium, so he instructed nearby students to hide near the shoe lockers. The bear was around 50-60 centimetres (20-24 inches) in length and appeared to be a baby, which made Ito fear that the mother might be nearby.<\/p>\n<p>With no time to waste, Ito stood in front of the bear and stared it down for around three seconds. After a short standoff, the animal turned and ran off through an open emergency exit door in the hallway that led to the outside grounds.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody was harmed in the incident, and the bear was captured on security camera footage running away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u25bc This news report shows the bear on the school grounds and the vice-principal recalling his three-second stare-off with the bear.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>In speaking to the media after the incident, the vice-principal said, \u201cI had to ensure the safety of the students, so I gave them the instruction to \u2018hide.\u2019 Rather than worrying about my own safety, I was a little worried that the mother bear might be there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His quick-thinking actions and concern for students\u2019 safety will no doubt make him a hero in the local area, and people online were equally impressed, leaving comments like:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWow, he\u2019s so cool, I hope he gets promoted to principal next year.\u201d<br \/>\u201cHow reassuring to have such a diligent vice-principal.\u201d<br \/>\u201cThis would\u2019ve been frightening. If the mother bear had come running, it would\u2019ve been game over.\u201d<br \/>\u201cOnce you become a vice-principal, you have the power to defeat a bear.\u201d<br \/>\u201cEven bears run away from vice-principals!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Any student who\u2019s ever cowered in fear at the glare of a vice-principal will understand the power of the stare, which is enough to make a baby bear run away. It\u2019s fortunate that the incident didn\u2019t occur on a regular school day when more children would\u2019ve been arriving, though, as things could\u2019ve turned out very differently.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.menkoi-tv.co.jp\/news\/news.php?q=23711\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iwate Menkoi TV<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.esuteru.com\/archives\/10417953.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hachima Kikou<\/a><br \/>Featured image: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20190935245post-22506.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pakutaso<\/a><br \/>\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RocketNews24En\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RocketNews24En\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The glare of a vice-principal is enough to make a bear run away. On the morning of 18&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-86360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}