ID :
25226
Sat, 10/18/2008 - 10:31
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/25226
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(EDITORIAL from the JoongAng Daily on Oct. 18)
History lessons
The National History Compilation Committee has devised guidelines to modify history textbooks.
The guidelines provided by the committee to the Ministry of Education, Science
and Technology are very useful for amending modern history textbooks for high
schools.
These school books have been criticized for containing leftist ideology.
The most impressive aspect of the new guidelines is the emphasis placed on
teaching "pride and devotion to our history."
This is exactly why history should be taught to students.
Many other countries teach their future citizens pride in and devotion to their
country so that their society can feel unified and strong.
In that sense, history textbooks need to be different from scholarly publications
written by historians in universities.
They should contain ideas that appeal to the national consensus and explore the
direction in which the country is heading, rather than look at arguments
presented by certain individual scholars or schools.
Pride and devotion to a country's history are based on the confidence people have
in the legitimacy of their country. In that respect, existing textbooks clearly
lean to the left.
However, current history textbooks do not go far enough in teaching students
about South Korea and its context.
In fact, to the contrary, there are negative views about South Korea's history in
these books, which detracts from the pride that the students should be taught.
There are parts about North Korea that are positively friendly and fail to point
out the problems with the communist dictatorship experience.
As a result, North Korea gets high marks for legitimacy.
The writers of the new textbooks must pay close attention to the proposals put
forward by the National History Compilation Committee.
There should be no chance that the authors will reject the guidelines.
In addition, the authors should include more positive views about our country's
history.
The ministry should explain carefully to the authors the purpose and the
background for the rewrites so that they can reflect the guidelines in the
textbooks.
At the same time, the ministry should start hurrying its efforts now to
completely reorganize the textbooks to be used beginning 2012.
(END)
The National History Compilation Committee has devised guidelines to modify history textbooks.
The guidelines provided by the committee to the Ministry of Education, Science
and Technology are very useful for amending modern history textbooks for high
schools.
These school books have been criticized for containing leftist ideology.
The most impressive aspect of the new guidelines is the emphasis placed on
teaching "pride and devotion to our history."
This is exactly why history should be taught to students.
Many other countries teach their future citizens pride in and devotion to their
country so that their society can feel unified and strong.
In that sense, history textbooks need to be different from scholarly publications
written by historians in universities.
They should contain ideas that appeal to the national consensus and explore the
direction in which the country is heading, rather than look at arguments
presented by certain individual scholars or schools.
Pride and devotion to a country's history are based on the confidence people have
in the legitimacy of their country. In that respect, existing textbooks clearly
lean to the left.
However, current history textbooks do not go far enough in teaching students
about South Korea and its context.
In fact, to the contrary, there are negative views about South Korea's history in
these books, which detracts from the pride that the students should be taught.
There are parts about North Korea that are positively friendly and fail to point
out the problems with the communist dictatorship experience.
As a result, North Korea gets high marks for legitimacy.
The writers of the new textbooks must pay close attention to the proposals put
forward by the National History Compilation Committee.
There should be no chance that the authors will reject the guidelines.
In addition, the authors should include more positive views about our country's
history.
The ministry should explain carefully to the authors the purpose and the
background for the rewrites so that they can reflect the guidelines in the
textbooks.
At the same time, the ministry should start hurrying its efforts now to
completely reorganize the textbooks to be used beginning 2012.
(END)
