If You Don't Like It

[FatAndFaithless]

We discussed this when it was in the news here a coupla months ago. I think the situation was handled poorly. They should have used an alternate ritual (I came up with a short mutual bow after thinking about it for 30 seconds) and everyone would have been happy. Voilà, a workaround display of mutual respect between student and teacher.

I agree that a short bow would probably be more acceptable to the students than a handshake. However (and forgive me if you discussed this earlier), any sort of forced ritual intended to engender 'respect' for your teacher kind of defeats its own purpose if it's forced, in my opinion.  Forcing a kid to bow or give a handshake doesn't necessarily encourage them to have more respect for their teacher (or elder/parent/country/etc), and it can certainly cause the opposite if there is force behind it.