[Lim Woong] Teaching is more than discipline and control

Korea Herald

6 days ago

'Gyogwon' has become a fiercely contested idea in Korea. In English, this term is often glossed away simply as 'teacher authority,' yet such shorthand conceals a dense conceptual history. Since the 1970s, the term has oscillated between three poles: an expectation of quasi-Confucian reverence, a claim to classroom command and control and alternately an autonomous exercise of professional rights.
Today's debate is dominated by the second pole — headlines filled with images of unruly students, outraged parents and beleaguered teachers, creating the impression that the nation's classrooms are war zones and that salvation lies in restoring the teacher's power to punish and control.
This narrative, however, is both historically myopic and professionally corrosive. If teacher authority is to be rebuilt on firmer ground, it must be reclaimed as the collective autonomy of a profession, not the coercive power of an individual adult.
Ken Badley, an education professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, reminds us that many people invoke the word authority without distinguishing its competing senses. Classroom authority, he argues, is not the power to compel obedience, but the credibility granted by students who consent to a teacher's intellectual and moral leadership. Put differently, genuine authority is relational and bestowed, not seized.
Badley's claim resonates with my own classroom experience: When students recognize a teacher as competent, trustworthy and caring, they engage willingly; when they sense fakery, pretense and bullying, they resist or withdraw — whatever sanctions are available.
The Korean story complicates this ideal.
During the rapid industrialization of the 1970s and '80s, the archetype of the tireless, charismatic teacher emerged as a cultural hero and part of the nation's broader nationalist myth. Under this model, teachers' primary function was to deliver knowledge and motivate students to endure long hours of rote learning. In this context, corporal punishment was widely tolerated as proof of pedagogical zeal. Some conservative pundits romanticize that period, suggesting that undisciplined classrooms are a precursor to national collapse or educational failure.
In the same vein, right-leaning tabloid-style newspapers recycle a predictable narrative formula.
First, they showcase graphic footage or anecdotes of students attacking teachers. Second, they erase the broader context and the hidden buildup of tensions — students' mental health histories, family strife — to spotlight the teacher's wounded dignity. Third, they cast parents as 'education consumers' who go out of their way to shield their children, subtly implying that teachers are powerless and incompetent.
Such framing commits a category error, equating authority with power rather than with professional standing. Bruce Maxwell, an education professor at the University of Montreal, argues that real authority in education lies in the profession's collective right to set standards, shape curricula, govern licensure and discipline its own bad actors.
External forces — from high-stakes test rankings to political meddling in teacher education — strip teachers of that authority, reducing them to operatives of those in power.
In Korea, such intrusions abound: Partisan ministries mandate curricular changes without teacher input, schools are publicly ranked by standardized scores and government elites with no classroom experience control teacher licensing and administrative procedures. Each intervention chips away at teachers' capacity to act as reflective professionals.
More recently, child abuse allegations against elementary school teachers have surged, propelled by a legal framework that channels such cases directly to law enforcement. Teachers often find themselves isolated as investigations proceed, while school-based mediation lies dormant. This illustrates Korea's broader litigious turn: disputes once resolved within the school community are now outsourced to courts and expensive legal machinery.
Yet public trust in the judiciary is brittle, eroded by corruption scandals and ideological rifts — brought into sharper focus by the downfall of President Yoon Suk Yeol and his associates. The lack of diversity among judges is alarming — almost every time I read about a judge whose actions or comments raise eyebrows, they turn out to be a graduate of Seoul National University. It's a painful reminder that the country's intellectual landscape remains narrow and insular, confined within a self-reinforcing coterie.
Teachers thus confront a paradox: They are exhorted to rely on legal institutions that are untrustworthy and detached from the daily challenges of teaching — while their own professional judgment is sidelined.
If gyogwon is to regain its legitimacy, the conversation must return to fundamentals. Teacher authority should be grounded in the profession's collective autonomy to define and sustain high standards of practice. Restoring that autonomy requires self-governing bodies capable of setting standards, enforcing ethical codes and regulating licensure.
It also requires negotiated working conditions — manageable class sizes, competitive pay, uninterrupted time for planning, counseling and rest, as well as mental health and legal support — that allow teachers to feel safe from slander, blackmail and litigation threats, and to focus on teaching rather than survival.
A society that demands intellectual rigor and integrity from its educators must reciprocate with dignity, resources and trust in their professional judgment. Anything less reduces gyogwon to a hollow slogan, and classrooms to battlegrounds where no one truly learns.