KOYANG, South Korea — Here's a pop quiz about the United States.
The question comes from course material distributed to many South Korean students, who were asked which of the following descriptions of America is incorrect:
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U.S. Gets a Bad Name in South Korean Schools
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Antiwar materials provided by union stir protest. Some teachers say political messages do not belong in class.
1) The world's leading arms-exporting country.
2) The world's most heavily nuclear-armed country.
3) The world's leader in chemical weapons research.
4) The world's most peace-loving country that never once was at war with other countries.
Even as the South Korean government tries to keep anti-American demonstrators off the streets, such sentiments are alive and well in many of the nation's public schools.
The above question was part of a supplemental teaching package on the war in Iraq that was distributed in March by the Korea Teachers and Educational Workers Union. Other questions in the quiz, which was given to about 400,000 students, suggested that the U.S. wants to destroy North Korea, along with Iran, Cuba, Syria and Libya. The package also included graphic photographs from the 1991 Persian Gulf War of Baghdad in flames and injured Iraqi children.
During a class on the U.S. military role in South Korea, one teacher in Koyang showed her seventh-graders a photograph from police archives of a Korean prostitute who had been murdered and sexually assaulted with an umbrella by an American soldier.
The unconventional teaching materials have sparked controversy in the schools -- so much so that one might say an ideological war is raging for the hearts and minds of South Korean youth.
In one corner is the union, which represents 94,000 of the country's 360,000 public school teachers and has a long history of political activism. Opposing it is a group of conservative educators, parents, principals and other teachers who are banding together to keep overtly political messages out of the curriculum.
The antiwar materials were withdrawn from the classrooms in May -- not because of complaints, but because major fighting in the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq had ended. The union's teachers, however, say they will not change their approach to education when the new school year starts in September.
"It is necessary to teach students about the consequences of war and why humankind should oppose any kind of war," said Park Seok Gyun, a high school teacher interviewed at a regional union office in Koyang. Park said he not only gave his students the quiz but also showed them television footage of antiwar activists who had gone to Baghdad as "human shields."
"I didn't consider this to be anti-American," he added. "It was teaching students the difference between right and wrong."
The backdrop of the dispute is a surge in anti-Americanism, with the younger generation in particular voicing complaints about issues ranging from the conduct of U.S. troops in South Korea to the Bush administration's tough stance toward North Korea and the war in Iraq.
U.S. officials in South Korea, which is nominally one of America's closest allies, say they are worried that the schools might be encouraging such thinking.
"We don't go around policing other countries' scholastic materials, but this does seem to show a distorted picture of America," said Ambassador Thomas Hubbard. "If that is what is being circulated in schools, I'm not surprised that many young Koreans voice unfavorable attitudes toward the United States."
South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has been awkwardly trying to steer a middle ground. Since taking office in February, he has called on anti-American activists to cool their street protests for fear that the demonstrations were harming the business environment in South Korea.
Faced with another potential embarrassment over the teaching materials, he concurred with the union's position that the quiz was not anti-American while warning that "antiwar education should be encouraged but only as long as it is not anti-American, in consideration of our diplomatic relations."
Under the South Korean education system, teachers or their unions have had the right since 2001 to bring supplemental teaching materials into the classroom. In theory, the course work should be approved by principals, but educators say that seldom happens.
The antiwar material went to only those students whose social studies teachers are union members, about 20% of the 12- to 15-year-olds in the system. Other quiz questions in the package focused on the hardships experienced by Iraqis after the 1991 war.
For example: Which of the following descriptions of Iraq after the Gulf War is incorrect?
1) Due to economic sanctions, infant mortality increased by 150%, and in some areas, 70% of newborns had leukemia.
2) The United States and Britain conducted a bombing campaign against Iraq for 11 years after the war, causing terror among the Iraqi people.
3) Cancer among Iraqi children increased by 700% because of depleted uranium left from the bombing.
4) The infant mortality rate of Iraqi children in 1999 was 300% higher than it was a decade earlier.
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