Ancient Korea regarded children as more or less belonging to parents ― and the state. Filial piety and loyalty to monarchs were the two biggest virtues during Joseon Kingdom. The time-old tradition still persists in some ways, as seen by some overprotective and interfering parents.
Add to this the world-famous educational zeal here to develop the best weapon in changing, or maintaining, social classes, and we have the most overachieving but unhappiest teenagers on this planet. Unlike in the United States, the main educational problem here is not too little but too much study for kids during what should otherwise be the their most carefree years.
We believed changing such a hellish educational system was what Kwak No-hyun, the former superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, had in mind when he took office two years ago. He introduced an ordinance to respect students’ human rights, free school lunches and innovative, less competitive, schools.
It didn’t take long for Kwak, now in jail for election fraud, to emerge as the target of old-style educators and score obsessed parents for splitting the educational community along ideological lines while pulling down students’ academic performance. Conservative media outlets called for a discarding of Kwak’s educational goals and methods, because they, while going basically in the right direction, were ``politically motivated.”
It was sheer nonsense for any parents who don’t think their children need to undergo exam hell for nearly 20 years for the benefit of their lives later on.
To them, Moon Yong-lin, the newly-elected top educational official for the capital city’s 1.2 million students, gives both expectations and concerns. Moon, who started his campaigns with promises to largely inherit the policies of his liberal predecessor by focusing on ``happy education,” turned increasingly ideological himself toward the end of it, pledging to reverse almost all measures implemented by Kwak and the teachers’ union advocating true education.
Moon should stick to his earlier stance. The former education minister may be right to emphasize teachers’ rights to better the aberrations made by some students. But he first should ponder whether even excessive school violence has nothing to do with the unduly competitive atmosphere. He needs to tackle the root cause of the ailment instead of the ostensible symptoms.
Moon and other Korean parents should ask themselves whether they are not using their children as tools for realizing their unfulfilled dreams under the pretext of guaranteeing the latter’s future success. Even worse than that would be for grown-ups to turn schools into their political battlefield.
Unfortunately, this is what educational officials are up to right now.