NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION 03/2023
-
Professor Tzu-shu Lin, Soochow University, Taiwan
Taiwanese students' low interest in Korean history
Taiwanese are quite familiar with Korea. Samsung mobile phones, bulgogi, Korean fashion, and Korean TV shows are consumed in the everyday lives of people. However, if one asks how much they know about the history and culture of Korea, the answer is certain. Taiwanese textbooks have been covering only an insignificant amount of Korean history since long ago. They slightly mention the conquer of Goguryeo during the time of the Sui and Tang dynasties, when describing Chinese history. The Korean War takes up a larger proportion, relatively, but it still does not take up a page.
In 2019, the Taiwanese government published a new curriculum outline. The original outline had changes in describing Korean history. The intention was to include Korean history in the chapter on “China and East Asia” in high school history textbooks. This textbook revision was a big step forward, as high school students were now able to learn Korean history officially at school. The inclusion of Korean history in textbooks can lead to the understanding of Korean history.
However, several years after the revision of textbooks, the impact does not appear so pleasing. Teachers say that students learn only fragments of Korean history. Students memorize the content like robots just to pass exams, so they have little understanding of what they are learning. Some teachers even say that students are indifferent to Korean history and that they lack interest. What should be the reason? What could be the problem?
Simplified Korean history due to the division of chapters by topic
High school history textbooks are written by topic according to the guidelines of the Taiwanese government's curriculum outline. The chapter on “China and East Asia” comprises three topics: “Nation and Society,” “Human Movement and Exchange,” and “Modernization Process.” And Korean history is covered in three of these topics. The most common form of thematic education is the selection of a particular topic and exploration of long-term changes on the topic. This type of curriculum is called “history of development.” History education centered on the history of development is helpful for students to understand the long-term changes in particular topics. However, this type of learning entails several issues.
First, why were the topics selected? What are the criteria for selecting the topics? What relationships are there between topics? What connections do the topics of “Nation and Society,” “Human Movement and Exchange,” and “Modernization Process” have in understanding Korean history? Are the topics helpful for students in understanding Korean history? Unfortunately, the government did not answer these questions we asked through a formal letter.
Second, the history of development is still written in annals. Most of the time, there is not enough time to trace the long-term changes in a particular topic and explore them in depth. Hence, complicated contexts that make changes, especially extensive social changes and cultural tendencies, cannot be explained. This causes superficial narration of the thematic history of development, allowing students to learn a history of individual events. Simplifying history is not so different from distorting history.
The problem is, history class in high school takes up only 18 weeks per semester and two sessions of 100 minutes per week. Since their curriculum for “China and East Asia” covers the history of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and many other countries in this short period of time, it is inevitable to simplify the content. What impact would this have on students learning Korean history?
Currently, there are five kinds of history textbooks distributed in the Taiwanese market. Three of them were analyzed for this article. Textbook A was written by historians, especially high school teachers. The chapters of Textbook B are formed most similarly to the government’s curriculum outline. Textbook C relatively contains the most description of Korean history.
Fragmented and simplified Korean history
The essence of the chapter “China and East Asia” is “Chinese history.” Most textbooks include the history of Korea and other countries just for formality, so this section does not take up a significant portion. Textbook A covers the political development of Korea from 100 BC to the 19th century in just a page and a half. The short passage mentions the entire history of the periods of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Unified Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon dynasty, inevitably omitting detailed explanations of the historical context. Therefore, Korean history is seen as boring, trivial, dispersed, and fragmented.
Textbook B mentions the centralized system of governance during the Goryeo dynasty, gwageo examination, Confucian politics, yangban politics, and the introduction and dissemination of Buddhism in eight lines. Each of the events is critical and has complicated dynamics, but they are described in just a few words. The Joseon dynasty is composed of three sections: “the establishment of the Joseon dynasty by Yi Seong-gye and the development of Neo-Confucianism,” “class system,” and “creation of hangeul.” However, each section contains individual contents that are hard to connect with each other.
The only solution for this problem is to have a sense of balance and see and compare how each event is related to each other by looking at the big picture from an objective perspective. For instance, the “centralized system of governance” of the Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon dynasties can be compared from a diachronic perspective. Otherwise, like textbook C, the change and difference of the gwageo examination that was continued for two dynasties can be introduced to help the understanding of students and provide a big picture for arranging historical events. Unfortunately, most textbooks do not put much effort into doing so and lack related knowledge.
One high school teacher said, “Students believe that Korean history is trivial and there are not many memorable events. (…) Questions on Korean history rarely appear in exams, so students do not care much about it.” For a person interested in history education, this kind of behavior of students would not be pleasing.
Textbook publishers divided Korean history according to the new curriculum and arranged each portion in different chapters. For instance, Textbook B broke up the history of the Joseon dynasty into three different chapters, as shown in the table below:
The objective of history education is to have students understand the overall timeline of historical events and figure out the correlation between them from different approaches. However, the current system is retrogressive to this expectation, and the greater issue is that all textbooks are published in the same manner.
As mentioned above, events of a particular period are dispersed in different chapters, making students having no background knowledge difficult to understand. If learners do not have enough knowledge of the area, they will get the impression that the events are fragmented and that they add confusion. Therefore, current textbooks are not effective in having Taiwanese students get a meaningful impression of Korean history.
Biased interpretation of history
Almost all textbooks published in Taiwan cover the conflict between the enlightenment party and the conservative party in the “process of modernization.” They simplify the history of mid-to-late 19th century to the conflict between the conservative party which supports the seclusion policy and the enlightenment party which supports reform. The textbooks also mention Heungseon Daewongun and Emperor Gojong as the heads of the two cliques. This kind of historical interpretation has some issues.
First, the attitude and reaction of the parties of the Joseon dynasty were introduced too briefly, in the face of Western powers' armed invasion and cultural infiltration and the interference in internal affairs by China and Japan. In fact, people of this time showed dynamic attitudes and made the best choice from their own perspectives in such crises. In the case of the enlightenment party, it was not a group where everyone shared the same viewpoint. Some pursued radical changes, while others inclined toward moderate and gradual tendencies.
Second, the different stances were simplified to “seclusion group” and “enlightenment group” from a standardized perspective. The former was so-called “conservative ideas” or “conservative forces.” The latter was depicted as “progressive” and “open.” The conflict between the two was all seen as the result of “political conflict and opposition.” The Joseon dynasty of the late 19th century faced drastic and unprecedented changes through the crisis in autonomy, tradition, and culture. Moreover, there were raised concerns and doubts about existing social problems that led to various opinions. Those who claimed the seclusion policy and others who supported openness both proposed their response measures. The Open Door Policy claimed by the enlightenment party was not a cure-all. Not only was this related to the political system, but a vast amount of financial funding was needed for reform. Reform added the burden of paying more tax to farmers which may cause social structure issues and class conflict. Therefore, textbooks must not describe Westernization as the absolute solution. They must not demonstrate dichotomy or simplify the ancestor's opinions based on the viewpoints of people of today and evaluate them as conservative or progressive. They must introduce dynamic situations in detail for students to understand the past and present of Korea.
Third, historical figures are depicted rigidly. In most cases, Heungseon Daewongun, Emperor Gojong, and Empress Myeongseong appear in the section of the late 19th century, the time of national unrest. For instance, Heungseon Daewongun was recognized as the leader of the conservative party that opposed the Open Door Policy, and as a historical figure who suppressed Catholicism and strengthened despotic monarchy. However, this overlooked the fact that historical evaluation cannot be absolute. In fact, Heungseon Daewongun promoted reforms by controlling the oppression of provincial Confucian scholars and seowons(private educational institutions at the time) in gwageo examinations, having the yangban pay taxes, restructuring the agricultural economy, and cultivating land for financial purposes.
The purpose of history education is to prevent students from looking at the world with a rigid mindset from a black-and-white perspective. The development of history education cannot be done overnight; instead, it requires constant efforts. History education in Taiwan necessitates more development and efforts in the establishment of a curriculum outline, publication of history textbooks, and the whole educational process.
The user can freely use the public work without fee, but it is not permitted to use for commercial purpose, or to change or modify the contents of public work.
- Northeast Asia History Network
- Northeast Asia History Library
- DOKDO Research Institute
- DOKDO Museum Seoul
- Education and Training
