공부의 신

This week I watched the first two episodes of the God of Study (공부의 신) on KBS America. While I may sympathize with students who have to endure the school system in E. Asia, especially secondary school, I have to say that the solution offered to them, to use the system in order to overthrow it, repels me. The alumnus who has become a lawyer tells the students that if they want to change the system and get rid of society's preferential treatment for those who go to the "right" schools and the power these fortunate few exercise over everyone else, they must first succeed academically and gain positions of influence and power. This may appeal to high school students who are currently suffering, but do the drama or the original manga look critically at the education system itself? Is this the sort of education that East Asians need, if industrialization is not the future? And what of a more liberal education?

John Gatto writes:

[I]ndustrial and institutional interest had seeded Russia, China, Japan, and the Pacific Islands with the doctrine of psychological schooling long ago, nearly at the beginning of the century, and in Japan’s case even before that.

We should probably add Korea to that list.

Because of the real crises that afflict education both here and in East Asia, I can't really enjoy the show, even if it tries to be inspiring. Would popular outrage in South Korea be sufficient for the education system to be reformed? What would it take to dethrone the education experts there? And would the corporations, forces of industrialization, and sadly, adherents to traditional Korean culture be fighting to preserve the status quo?

(How many Catholic secondary schools are there in South Korea? Do the successors of the Confucian scholars reject the current education system?)

Links for 공부의 신:
Han Cinema
D-addicts
Crunchy Roll

I am enjoying Slave Hunters though. (Also on KBS.)