Essay #2 rewrite

Seoyoung Lee

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (04)

20 November 2015

Objection to New History Textbooks

South Korea’s government has recently declared that all middle and high school students must learn history from the textbooks issued by the national government. These new textbooks will be written by a government-appointed panel of history teachers and academics, removing the currently used textbooks that are published by eight different companies, which schools have been free to choose among. Despite the protests by opposition parties, it has been decided to use government-issued history textbooks from 2017. Even though South Korea’s government has already made a decision to make new text books, they should not be used to teach students because they will keep students from understanding the history from various angles, there is a possibility of history distortion and the textbooks will be poorly written since they have to be made in a short period of time.

To begin with, government-issued history textbooks should not be used because they will allow students to have only one perspective in understanding the history. History can differ from how it is interpreted and history education should present multiple interpretations of the past, but the government’s history textbook will block this. It will keep students from judging historical events critically and from various perspectives. For example, Yun bong-gil is described as Yun bong-gil the martyr in Korean history for throwing a bomb to protest Japanese imperialism. In China, they describe Yun bong-gil as just a young man from Joseon and Japanese consider him as a terrorist. As it is shown in the example, there can be variety of ways to judge the history by individual perspectives and ideas. It is not right to unify the various interprets to only one angle.    

Another problem in using new history textbooks is that there is a possibility of history distortion, which is changing the history in the form that current government wants. Some might say that the textbooks are not even written yet. However, according to the 2015 Curriculum Revision, they already have reduced the contents for the independence movement against the Japanese occupation of Korea. This shows the possibilities in distorting the history. For example, in the textbook, it should be written as ‘rice exploitation’ because Japanese have plundered large amount of rice from Korea during the period of Japanese Colonial Rule. However, in new textbooks, it will be written as ‘rice export’ which completely changes and distorts the meaning. Also, if we start distorting history, we will not be able to impose sanctions to Japan and China for distorting their history such as Japan’s repeated claims of ownership of the Dokdo Island and China’s claims on Goguryeo and Balhae, saying that it is part of their history. It is not only a severe problem for textbooks in Korea, but also for history textbooks that are written in other countries that have history distortions because we will not be able to criticize them. 

Textbooks need a certain amount of time to be written and analyzed. However, these new textbooks have only one year for production since it has been decided to be published and used from the year 2017. The currently used elementary government-designated textbooks and middle school’s authorized textbooks were written in two years and the new history textbooks will also need at least two years for production. These rapidly made textbooks will go below the standard and will be poorly written containing insufficient contents, confusing the historic education field. Furthermore, most of the history professors in Korean universities are refusing to write these new textbooks. Even with the professors, it will take more time to write the proper history textbooks for students.

Although it has been concluded to use government-issued textbooks, we should disagree with the new textbooks for various reasons, like eliminating various perspectives in understanding history, possibilities of history distortion, and short time for writing a new textbook. Using new textbooks will allow the government to interfere with the interpretation and teaching of history, making students learn history in the perspective that the government chose. This will cause distortions and keep students from learning the right objective point of history. Therefore, the Government-issued textbooks should not be the one to teach students right and proper history.