[Interview] Kim Sang-kwon, Centrist-Conservative Unified Candidate Who Declared Candidacy to Reclaim Gyeongnam Superintendent of Education, "Eight Years of Progressive Education in Gyeongnam Have Been a Failure"

Candidate Kim Sang-gwon for Superintendent of Education of Gyeongnam.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Se-ryeong] Ahead of the June superintendent election, the centrist and conservative candidates in Gyeongnam have already joined hands. They judged that the 2018 election, in which votes were split and the so-called progressive camp, the current Gyeongnam superintendent, took the lead, should serve as a "lesson learned."

Kim Sang-kwon, former Director of Education at the Gyeongnam Office of Education and the unified candidate from the centrist and conservative camp, has said that biased Gyeongnam education must be corrected.

"So-called progressive education has only taught freedom, equality, and rights as important values. We can no longer watch the collapse of teachers' authority, educators' sense of mission, and self-esteem."

On March 30, the day Kim Sang-kwon was confirmed as the unified candidate, he criticized the eight years of Gyeongnam education led by the current superintendent Park Jong-hoon as a complete failure. He meant that the educational goal was excessively focused only on enhancing the human rights of students, the recipients of education.

He also said, "The person who pledged not to run for a third term and announced it to prevent wavering in that commitment has now changed his mind and decided to run, breaking his promise to the residents." He warned, "Don't think about performing CPR just to keep 'iTalkTalk,' which is causing many problems on the ground due to an unstable system."

The iTalkTalk that Superintendent Park has been devoted to is a public education platform based on an internet browser.

Kim said, "Over the past eight years, progressive education has been wrapped in sweet and pleasant words like freedom, equality, and rights, but it has deprived children of opportunities to learn responsibility and duty."

He also pointed out that the evaluation system has collapsed, making it impossible to accurately assess academic ability, resulting in blind education. Even if one criticizes ranking children by grades, it is frightening not to know one's level of skill in an era of competition with talents from other countries.

"I believe that the happiness that comes from learning what you don't know is more important than being freed from competition and grade stress. I want children to feel the reward, joy, and sense of achievement as they run toward the next stage and learn one by one."

Having been involved in education for 37 years as a teacher and education administrator, his motto is "Let's focus only on the children" and "There should be no unfairness."

Kim also criticized the current Gyeongnam education scene for rampant nepotism based on academic and regional ties.

"The most suitable person should be placed to work, but hiring someone without experience and putting them in key positions unfairly disadvantages those who are truly capable and have worked hard for the job. Personnel decisions should be reasonable and acceptable to everyone."

He firmly stated that education should not be biased to the left or right and shook his head at the biased educational policies and classes of progressive education.

"Children should directly encounter knowledge and make judgments, but there is a strong tendency to teach selectively according to preferences. Especially in history education, only facts should be taught. It should be taught that President Park Chung-hee raised South Korea's economy and that many people suffered under his dictatorship," he said.

Kim Sang-kwon, who often keeps the Confucian scholar Nammyung Jo Sik's philosophy of Gyeong-ui (敬義) in mind, emphasized that schools are places where character and knowledge grow together.

"Gyeong (敬) is protecting oneself within the mind, and Ui (義) is protecting oneself outside the mind, so good education is about developing the ability to discern right from wrong by maintaining one's standards."

He was confident that character education based on Gyeong-ui would help children quickly regain their center even when shaken by adolescence, family issues, or relationships.

He said that teaching consideration, empathy, concession, respect, and putting oneself in others' shoes to enrich the mind's soil approaches the essence of education. Knowledge planted in fertile soil grows better, and as children assert their rights and freedoms, they can also bear responsibility.

He firmly opposed the repeatedly rejected Student Human Rights Ordinance and Autonomous Ordinance.

"There was a case where kindergarten sex education materials containing content promoting homosexuality were circulated. The Student Human Rights Ordinance, Autonomous Ordinance, and Anti-Discrimination Law include such content. They only emphasize rights and freedoms, but responsibility, duty, and mutual respect are missing. These laws destroy families and schools and ruin children's futures."

He claimed that the current superintendent, after the rejection of the Gyeongnam Student Human Rights Ordinance, is sending official documents to schools to induce changes in school rules. Since official documents bearing the superintendent's seal carry authority and can implicitly enforce compliance, he vowed to correct this first.

Regarding his feelings as the unified candidate from the centrist and conservative side, he dismissed it as simply moving to restore the biased Gyeongnam education to its original state.

"Political forces must never enter the education sector. The moment politics, whether conservative or progressive, interfere in children's learning spaces, education loses its unique purity. Children should not be moved according to political camps."

"From beginning to end, I focus only on the children. Although I am conservative because I think the so-called progressive education policy is wrong, to be clear, I am on the children's side."

Kim believes that education where students, parents, and teachers are all happy means valuing each other, not just raising one's own voice but listening to one another.

Taking responsibility for one's words and actions as much as for one's freedom and rights, with parents and teachers sharing that responsibility. Providing a learning environment where children grow up rightly and uprightly and acquire skills to compete with talents from any country is the educational direction he pursues.

"A single word from a teacher can change a child more than twelve times. I will create an educational environment where teachers and children can share their hearts. Our children will not only grow in intellect but also deepen their inner selves, and teachers will take pride in their path as educators. We will also establish a parent university to ease the burden of raising children for parents."

During the interview, Kim explained his educational philosophy as if it were a pledge booklet.

Kim Sang-kwon is from Jinju, Gyeongnam, graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees from Gyeongsang National University, and completed doctoral coursework at Dong-A University Graduate School.

He began his teaching career in March 1981 at Dosan Middle School and served as principal of Anui High School, director of the Gyeongnam Sports Council, director of Education at the Gyeongnam Office of Education, and director of the School Policy Bureau at the Gyeongnam Office of Education.

He asked rhetorically, "Isn't there no one but me, an expert in early childhood, elementary, and secondary education fields, who can rebuild the broken Gyeongnam education?"