Education and textbooks of the national history cannot be unrelated to the political authority and ideology of the time. According to the change of curriculum, Korean history textbooks sometimes showed a description that could not get free from the co...
Education and textbooks of the national history cannot be unrelated to the political authority and ideology of the time. According to the change of curriculum, Korean history textbooks sometimes showed a description that could not get free from the colonial view of history
over the Imjin War, the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592, and sometimes showed a description that tried to justify loyalty and obedience to the state by empathizing history that overcame national crises.
Under the critical mind that high school Korean history textbooks’ descriptions have changed according to the change of the political
situation, this study tried to analyze characteristics and problems seeing the Imjin War each period and based on this tried to find direction of description of the Imjin War in Korean history textbooks. Particularly, this study reviewed descriptions of the ImJin
War in the textbooks between the first curriculum and 2007 revised curriculum
The Imjin War was the battle waged for 7 years since Japanese army invaded Busanpo Harbor, Korea, in 1592. At that time, political situations at home and abroad complexly worked, and as a result, the war had a great influence not only on Joseon but also on Japan
and Ming. In the periods of the 1st and 2nd curricula, descriptions of this Imjin War did not get free from the colonial view of history;
particularly, in the 3rd curriculum period, education of ‘the
heteronomous patriotism’ under the pretext of ‘people’ was forced,
and the education of ‘nationalistic patriotism’ that forces loyalty to the system in the name of nation was carried forward. Alongside
this, descriptions trying to justify loyalty and obedience to the state by empathizing history that overcame national crises were shown sometimes. This view of history was connected intactly to the following curricula and was moderated in the 7th curriculum.
However, as the importance of the history that overcame national crises gradually decreased and the importance of war history was reduced, the proportion of description of the Imjin War also hit almost 0%.
The purpose of teaching war history in the past historical education
was to enhance national pride and promote patriotism by empathizing history of overcoming national crises. However, whether only empathizing history like that is desirable or not is doubtable today.
The aim of learning history may be to know our urgent problems, to predict how the future world will be developed, and to more
rationally and positively cope with it, through history, record of the past life. In addition, by paying attention to the people who have
been neglected by a huge discourse of war, we should know the biggest victims of war are human beings ourselves, regardless of the aggressor or damaged nation. Therefore, it is the time that the curriculum has to reflect the importance of peace rather than history
of overcoming national crises in textbooks.
Textbooks have dealt with less the importance of the Imjin War as they have been closer to the 2007 revised curriculum. It goes
without saying that quality of textbook description is more important, although quantity is also important. It is expected to be more
developmental description, if description of simple list is resolutely removed, and if contents of help to arouse the intellectual curiosity
of students and to promote the research function, such as causes of wars including foreign relations and driving force that could changethe unfavorable war situation, and cold-heartedness of war and
preciousness of peace are included.