[Letters]Teachers manipulating students

Recently, the Korean government revived the national education assessment test. The test is taken nationally, at the same time, on the same day. However, the process of introducing the test has not gone smoothly. Some teachers and parents, as well as students, are not satisfied with the government’s measurement system ranking students from top to the bottom.

Of course, it is true to some extent that the government’s idea is outdated.

The Korean way of education - making students memorize what the government thinks is needed to develop the “right” democratic citizens - needs changing. Moreover, the question over what the difference is between hagwon (private institutes) and regular schools remains. Schools should teach more than just the knowledge needed to get into college, including morality, dignity, manners, creativity, and much more. In this respect, the government should reconsider the measure of ranking students according to their achievement in knowledge acquisition.

But much worse than ranking students is making them blindly attack something. There’s a big difference between criticizing and attacking. To criticize, one needs logic, reasoning, and most of all, one’s heart to judge what is wrong. To attack, you need not find a compromise but believe “I’m right and you’re wrong.” It’s a pity that some teachers who think they are the keepers of “true” educational values made students refuse the national test.

This is just wrong.

Regardless of whether the test was right or wrong, it was a national test conducted by the government. Teachers do not have the right to pull students out of classrooms. Of course they claim, “We never forced them, the students also agreed.” Of course they did. What teenager would take a test that they could skip altogether?

Left-leaning teachers ignored the opinion of students who wanted to take the test. A true teacher would have first had students take the test, and then explained to them about the fallacy about the test.

Let students make up their own opinion. These teachers are creating an environment where only the teachers’ opinion is right.

So I’m begging those teachers who force students to oppose the test, to please not make our students parrot your leftist ideas.

If you are a true educator, do not use your students; please educate them. It’s a paradox that the people refusing the test say it ignores diversity, yet at the same time are attacking anything that is not on the left.

Kang Yoon-seung, student, Hankuk University

of Foreign Studies.