뉴스레터

Emerging past history issue in the period of cold Korea-Japan relations

Lately, relations between Korea and Japan have been considerably chilled. As the Japanese government took measures to regulate exports of semiconductor-related materials, Koreans have launched a massive movement to boycott Japanese products, and the Korean government abolished the Korea-Japan General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).

There is a clear consensus that this series of events erupted on the back of the Korean Supreme Court’s compensation ruling on compulsory mobilization during Japan’s colonial period. The Korea-Japan relationship went sour rapidly as Japan took issue with the Korean Supreme Court’s compensation ruling, sanctioning Korea in retaliation.

As the historical issue during Japan’s colonial period drew the spotlight amid frozen Korea-Japan relations, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae who concurrently serves as deputy prime minister for social affairs announced a policy to activate education related to this during a meeting of social affairs ministers on August 9. Hence, the Foundation began to develop learning materials related to compulsory mobilization that can be utilized in school.

Production of learning materials on the themed of compulsory mobilization

The developed learning materials, divided into three kinds for elementary, middle and high schools in consideration of levels, consist of four types of learning guidance plans, workbooks, PowerPoint for educational use, and class reference data for use by teachers.

The materials can be used freely after download from the Foundation’s website. Park Jung Hyeon, a teacher at Yeongdeungpo Girls’ High School who oversaw the development of the materials, said, “Elementary school history teachers Lee Nan-yeong and Seok Byeong-bae, middle school history teachers Lee Gyeong-hun and Lee Jun-ha, and high school history teachers Park Beom-hee and Kwon Oh-cheong actively participated in production to raise on-site utilization,” adding that “we endeavored to enhance the completeness of the materials.” Six rounds of intensive discussions were thus conducted in the presence of all of the developers to enhance completeness by checking each other’s ways of thinking and to enhance the structure of the materials as a whole. For example, workbooks of elementary schools could be used in the first round of classes at middle schools, and workbooks of middle schools could be used in the second round of classes. Middle schools with higher academic standards could use workbooks of high schools in the third round of classes. The greatest characteristic of these materials is that they were formed to achieve various types of thematic learning related to compulsory mobilization in consideration of students’ capabilities. Dividing materials according to classes may be merely a classification.

Compulsory mobilization revisited through types and examples

The materials for elementary schools focus on studying historical figures to help elementary school students understand easily. They contain stories of the victims of compulsory mobilization, called “Yong-ja”, “Sun-rye”, “Dae-hyeon”, and “Chun-sik”, which are real cases studied by Mr. Jeong Hye-gyeong. Yong-ja worked as an employed comfort woman at a textile factory in Japan; Sun-rye wondered whether her father, who had been forcedly taken to Sakhalin, was still alive; Dae-hyeon was taken to a cement factory in Pyeongannam-do Province while on his way to join the independence movement after avoiding the draft as a student solider; and Chun-sik was forcedly taken to a steel mill in Japan. Chun-sik, mentioned last, is the actual story of Lee Chun-sik, who appeared in the press frequently with his final victory in a lawsuit in the Korean Supreme Court. Biographies of the four victims were produced and included as an animated video. Through these biographies we can view the various types of compulsory mobilization and the diverse regions where compulsory mobilization took place.

Materials for middle schools are intended to help identify the problems associated with forced mobilization during Japan’s colonial period and dealt with by the people striving to resolve such problems. Programs are adjusted to help students understand the status of compulsory mobilization and the damages through specific examples of victims and to sympathize with their lives. Academic standards of middle school courses were upgraded to help students approach the matter of compulsory mobilization conceptually and understand it. To prevent classes from being gripped by extreme anti-Japan sentiments and to look for solutions, there are programs introducing the content of forced mobilization monuments built by the Japanese and for exchanging projects between young people in Korea and Japan.

Materials for high schools are intended to help students learn compulsory mobilization cases involving draft, conscription, employed comfort women, and Japanese military comfort women and to analyze the ruling of the Korean Supreme Court of October 30, 2018. Programs were adjusted to enable students to understand the 1965 Korea-Japan Treaty comprehensively through the sentencing. This requires background knowledge, so necessary data have been added to the 90-page reference materials for teachers. It is also possible to arrange the various materials in argumentative form. Meanwhile, students can think about the meaning of Korea-Japan solidarity for the resolution of problems through materials concerning the Japanese who tried to investigate the matter of compulsory mobilization, like Hayashi Eidaina and Fukudome Noriaki.