A middle school teacher has been detained after four of her students were hospitalized with food poisoning because they consumed trash at her command, authorities in central China’s Henan province confirmed to domestic media Tuesday.

During a routine dorm check in September, the teacher, surnamed Jiang, told the four children to eat trash after they had failed to clean their room. Though Jiang left after making the comment, the obedient students started eating scraps of paper, plastic packaging, and fruit husks from the floor. Soon afterward, they had diarrhea and were admitted to a local hospital. Three have been discharged, while the fourth is seeking further treatment in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.

Police apprehended Jiang three days after the incident. The case has been handed over to local prosecutors, and two administrators at the school in Zhoukou have been dismissed, according to Lu Qinghe, director of the city’s education and sports bureau.

Dangerous and outlandish school punishments occasionally make headlines in China. In July, a teacher at a secondary school in the eastern Shandong province was blacklisted after punishing two tardy students by making them kneel on the floor and hitting them with a textbook. (Image: VCG)