Kim Man-gon's Education Column What Books Should We Have Students Read?

It is now a story of the past. An education minister who once said he learned more from books he read on his own than from school suggested that we select good books from the market as recommended reading lists by educational level. He also introduced the education system of a country that has such a list in place.

Then someone pointed out that famous books often have dozens of translations each, and that the sheer volume of such famous books across various fields was unfathomable. The task of determining who would read these many books, by when, where, and by what standards, then analyze and select them, and what form the list should take became a daunting endeavor.

The ministry side argued that this would be entirely feasible if schools simply expanded their existing work of compiling required and recommended reading lists. Publishers' representatives and elder writers who were invited to relevant meetings showed positive responses in unison, hoping it would be realized. Some publishing companies even showed goodwill by offering to send books selected for the list to rural schools free of charge.

Subsequently, when an official recommended by the minister proposed a practical suggestion that one doesn't need to read every book individually—that one can make reasonable judgments by looking at the author, translator, and publisher—the work began with cooperation from nearby libraries.

However, after intensive work over several days, selected books were already piling up like mountains. In reality, the work was still in its initial stages, and as the project seemed to sink deeper into a maze of questions about whether it was even feasible, the enterprise suddenly came to a halt, whether fortunately or unfortunately. The Ministry of Education staff members working on it let out sighs of relief (?) due to the difficulties of the task, but it would have been regrettable for teachers and students nationwide who didn't even know such an attempt had been made.

How precious books are! The generation that entered elementary school and studied before the 1950s must have felt this acutely. Most households didn't have a single book at all. If they did, it was usually Chinese classics like the Thousand Character Classic or the Mingxin Baojian, or old novels like "The Tale of Chunhyang" or "The Story of the Turtle and the Rabbit."

Thus, the textbook was truly unique and precious, so much so that thick paper covers were wrapped around them and they were treated like treasures. If one was careless with them, receiving stern reprimands from parents or teachers was not considered harsh at all. The interesting fairy tales this generation remembers were invariably those that appeared in textbooks, such as "The Rabbit and the Tortoise" and "The Good Brothers," and the Ministry of Education that produced these textbooks was inevitably an object of admiration.

How eagerly everyone wanted to read, and how they awaited new textbooks each semester! When children heard their parents' stories of how they had already read through two or three textbooks on the way home on the day they received them, they must have wondered if such times had ever really existed.

As the world changed, that education minister's ambitious attempt to create a list of good books for elementary, middle, and high school students across the nation ultimately failed to materialize. Given that countless books already exist and continue to be published in ever-increasing numbers, it seems they concluded that creating a list that would account for such rapid change was virtually impossible. In other words, they must have come to realize the transformed reality in which it has become difficult to evaluate and control the countless books in the world by a single universal and objective standard.

Nowadays, reading materials are not limited to books. There is no need to even use a PC; one can find virtually any knowledge with a smartphone search anytime, anywhere, making it almost meaningless to teach or inform someone about anything. Rather than receiving respect, those who try to teach others often provoke annoyance. Even elementary school students now upload their individually or collectively compiled knowledge on the internet, so adults who pretend to know may become objects of ridicule.

Then, what books should we have these students read? Having someone decide that for them seems to have become unreasonable after all. The idea that there are books everyone must read is no different. Families naturally strive to accommodate their children's individuality and needs, while in schools, through the process of learning activities conducted according to established guidelines, students themselves seek out the books and information they need. I would say that the "guideline" here is none other than the national curriculum set by the state.