Problems of Teacher Ideology in Colonial Korea

By examining the problems of teacher ideology in Colonial Korea, this article reconsiders the positioning of elementary school teachers who have previously been explained as \u22bearers\u22 of the colonial education endeavor. I certainly cannot deny that teachers practiced colonial education, and that as a group they helped with the establishment of colonial education, but one aim of this article is to challenge the claims which position teachers one-sidedly in this manner. First I focus attention on problems of children involving ideological issues and the ideological offenses of teachers. Problems of children involving ideological issues in elementary schools emerged amidst the flow of large anti-Japanese movements such as the \u22Koshu Student Case\u22. The teachers\u27 roles were to conduct \u22proper guidance\u22 of the thought of the children, yet some Korean teachers, rather, did the opposite by raising the ethnic consciousness of Korean children. One characteristic of this ideological activity was \u22the use\u22 of the teacher\u27s position, for example, to transmit ethnic consciousness to Korean children in classrooms and in the teacher\u27s homes. This represents one actual situation in which thought and consciousness to resist colonial rule were promoted in elementary schools which were to have promoted \u22Naisen ittai\u22\u27 (\u22harmony of Mainland and Korea\u22) and \u22assimilation\u22, and it reveals a seam in the colonial education in Korea. Furthermore, I clarified that a portion of teachers arrested for ideological offenses cultivated ethnic consciousness and independent thought during the stages when they were being trained to become teachers