Ms. Kim announced the enactment of “Teacher Kim’s Decree,” a set of authoritarian rules designed to simulate an oppressive regime. (Image courtesy of Ms. Kim)
CHUNCHEON, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – In a small elementary school in Gangwon Province, a second-grade classroom became the unlikely setting for a lesson in justice, inspired by South Korea’s recent political turmoil.
On December 4, as the nation began to recover from a martial law crisis that had gripped its parliament and public, a teacher, known only as Ms. Kim, found a creative way to translate the weighty concept of justice into a meaningful experience for her young students.
The lesson began with a seemingly ordinary classroom conflict: a child reported that one student had hit another. Seizing the moment, Ms. Kim announced the enactment of “Teacher Kim’s Decree,” a set of authoritarian rules designed to simulate an oppressive regime.
Among the new laws, students who hit others would face escalating punishments, including enforced silence, delayed lunches, and exclusion from student council meetings.
The rules quickly transformed the typically cheerful classroom into a tense environment. Students, unsure of how to respond, fell into awkward silence, mirroring the societal fear and compliance often seen under oppressive systems.
But Ms. Kim had a broader lesson in mind. When the sixth-grade students, following a pre-arranged plan, protested against the exclusion of their younger peers from council meetings, the second-graders began to find their voices. Led by their older counterparts, they chanted, “Kim out!” and marched to reclaim their rights.
This act of collective resistance inspired the younger students to draft their own “Our Class Decree,” a humorous yet powerful rebuttal to Ms. Kim’s laws. Written in crooked handwriting, their rules declared that the teacher could not make laws and included playful jabs such as, “The teacher is a fool.”
Reflecting on the exercise days later, Ms. Kim explained the deeper intention behind her actions. “Children, despite their age, react to unjust oppression just like adults do,” she said. “Some might think, ‘What could children possibly understand?’ but this experience showed me that children are also small citizens in their own right.”
The mock dictatorship, though brief, left a lasting impression on the students and their teacher. The exercise not only fostered critical thinking and collaboration but also restored a newfound appreciation for fairness and the simplicity of daily life.
“After the laws disappeared,” Ms. Kim concluded, “we all came to value the preciousness of our ordinary interactions. This experience taught us that justice is something everyone, even children, can understand and fight for.”
The classroom experiment, born from a moment of national introspection, serves as a poignant reminder that the principles of justice, fairness, and civic engagement can resonate across all ages.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
