More history classes
Enhancing education is right; the question is how
A considerable number of high school students didn’t know when the Korean War broke out; some even said it was a conflict between Korea and Japan. Asked to name the island subject to the territorial dispute between Seoul and Tokyo, quite a few cited Mara-do and even Daema-do (Tsushima), instead of Dok-do. When shown the picture of Hirobumi Ito, the Japanese mastermind of Korea’s colonization, some replied it was King Kojong’s, the 26th monarch of the Joseon Kingdom and Ito’s biggest victim.
Unbelievable, grown-ups might think. But these reflect the levels of young students’ historical knowledge as testified by a group of teachers recently.
So the governing camp’s decision Thursday to sharply enhance history education at secondary schools is welcome, albeit belated. The government and ruling party are right to make it a compulsory subject instead of the currently optional one, and encourage major universities to reflect history scores on admission screening.
Yet we can’t help but put our heads to one side in doubt as to the apparent reason and direction concerning the strengthened history education. ``Considering that disputes on historical distortion are intensifying with neighboring countries … it is necessary to instill a sense of pride in our history in students,” an education ministry official said. ``We will also need to develop more ‘positive and future-oriented’ textbooks.”
True, Japan has been bent on justifying its imperialist misdeeds, and China is also busy expanding its historical territories to even include Korea’s ancient kingdoms by the so-called Northeast Project. The nation might well feel threatened by the resurgence of nationalism in neighboring giants.
It will be necessary to try to right wrongs, but an eye-for-an-eye tactic of hitting them back with the same nationalism makes little sense. And this is why we think history education here should at least be about East Asian history, not a narrowly-defined national history.
The education ministry’s policy on positive and future-oriented textbook also reminds one of the controversy a few years ago caused by rightist groups’ movements to rectify ``left-leaning” history books. Few can dispute that Korea should clearly establish its national identity as a free democracy. But it is necessary to show the younger generations both the bright and dark sides of the nation’s history as they are, including collaboration with colonialists, fratricidal war and military dictatorship.
Japanese ultra-rightists have attacked their conscientious citizens who tried to reflect on and apologize for the past, accusing them of having ``masochistic historical viewpoints.” By trying to stress only the proud side of the history, we are afraid their Korean counterparts are making the same mistakes.
What makes this particular area of education difficult is that history is not just a collection of what happened in the past. For it to become the mirror of the present and guide to the future, history needs a certain viewpoint of interpretation. Which is why purifying it from political, ideological and nationalistic biases and agenda seems next to impossible.