Kim Man-gon's Education Forum Was the School Simply the Principal's Private Field?

This is an old story. A true story. Starting the next morning, all students were told to run hard around the athletic field track before every class each day and record the number of laps per person. The reasoning was that physical strength is national strength, and without good health, the spirit easily becomes complacent, and later one cannot study persistently either. I suspected that this respected principal had come up with a peculiar idea, but was told it was an order from above, and indeed neighboring schools were doing the same.

What do you think, principal? Isn't this a rather unsatisfactory directive? Students exhausted from sweating profusely in the morning cannot study properly. If there are educational administrators and principals who govern this way, aren't they obstructing education? Then if such administrators exist, what should be done?

What about this case? A principal divided land called a "practice field" by grade and had teachers "freely" grow their preferred crops. Freely! Teachers often find themselves in difficulty due to lack of time for curriculum research and lesson preparation. It is not the job of an administrator to interfere with these teachers right beside them. Did they regard their position—where they could arbitrarily exercise strange and peculiar acts that would look odd to others—as the realization of their ideals as educators?

I'll give a direct example. There was a school where traditional Korean music played throughout the campus every morning. That school's principal argued that just as good food comes from our land, it is necessary to find the native language of music through our music imbued with our sentiments, feelings, and sensibilities. Is this exemplary education?

Education Superintendent A praised it as a "premium school." We all shouted, "Let's all create premium schools!" Schools famous for music, schools producing national competition gold medalists, schools excelling at skiing, schools with skilled flute players, schools with choirs on broadcasts, schools specializing in taekwondo, schools where all students are Chinese character specialists, schools conducting such education... While administrators like to create strange terminology and coin names from foreign words, the term "premium" cannot be found in educational dictionaries.

Since no one dared openly oppose, the superintendent became enthusiastic and not only met with individual people but also called all school principals together for speeches, citing figure skating athletes and national soccer team players whom all Koreans know, as if the superintendent had taught them or they had received regular public education to grow that way. He argued for education in which one talented person supports tens of thousands of people. That argument sounded as though the remaining tens of thousands of people would end up idle and dependent.

There was someone who objected. When a physical education teacher at Elementary School B suggested to a child with talent in track and field that he become the school's representative to compete in a national tournament and make a name for himself, the child's mother came running and firmly declined.

Though it is generally true that celebrities show promise from childhood, she said she had not given her child diverse experiences yet to know in which areas he truly excels, and she did not want to burden him with such risk. She earnestly requested that "diverse" educational activities be developed for children whose names are not known, and the principal and several teachers at Elementary School B had no choice but to learn a lesson from that parent.

What would be good if a principal focused on one particular activity? It might feel good to see highly-positioned supervisors looking down from above. The region or several schools would look colorful and diverse like a mosaic, wouldn't they? "Look, we are realizing educational diversity so well!"

Do you agree? From above, it may appear diverse, but isn't it clear that a school immersed in only one thing is bound to be awkward for individual students? There are children who want to do a lot of physical education, but there are also children who want to do more art or language arts, children who want to read a lot of books, and children who want to focus on science more than other subjects. Traditional Korean music plays only briefly in the morning? Hasn't the state already determined which music must necessarily be taught? And what about the teacher who wants to try something else during that free time, or the child who wants to think deeply about something quietly because it is morning?