The Public role of school teachers in Korea: For its conceptual reconstruction through its historical tracing |
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| Authors: | Jina Bhang Duck-Joo Kwak |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Education, Seoul National University , Seoul, South Korea tjfrog@snu.ac.kr;3. Department of Education, Seoul National University , Seoul, South Korea |
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| Abstract: | AbstractThis paper makes a bold attempt to make sense of contemporary Koreans’ common expectation of the educational role of public school teachers by tracing its historical and cultural roots to the neo-Confucian humanistic tradition of the Joseon dynasty in Korea that lasted for about 500 years until Korea began to modernize in the late nineteenth century. In this attempt, the key concepts to be explored as equivalent to the Western idea of ‘liberal learning’ are the Confucian ethics of ‘learning for oneself’ and its relation to schooling and teaching. The discussion focuses on whether and how this ethics of learning can be recovered in such a way as to accommodate the postmodern condition of our society, as the educational legacy of the humanistic tradition of East Asia that can keep the public spirit alive in (post-) modern schooling. |
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| Keywords: | Public role of school teachers neo-Confucian educational tradition learning for oneself learning for others the idea of the public |
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