3.1운동 사례를 통해 본 역사 교과서의 시각과 구성에서의 변화 가능성 모색

Abstract

This article proposes to try new compositions as well as alternative viewpoints in history education. Such proposition is based on the author’s own personal experiences in engaging not only historical studies but various educational activities. And in making this very point, the issue of how the March 1st Movement has been depicted and described in History textbooks seems to be particularly useful. The history of certain events have always been depicted in History textbooks through description of certain elements: background, how it unfolded, and what kind of influence or legacy it left. This is a chronological approach to the event in question, based on a perspective or framework considering causes and result to be very important. The March 1st Movement is a definitive example of such approach, and as it bear the honor of being a monumental cornerstone in the Korean people’s national efforts for liberation in the 20th century’s early half, the event itself was most of the time written with a Nationalistic tone. The Movement’s distinctive image and nature of the narrative in the textbooks’ description of the event has remained relatively the same since the government’s First Education plan. Unfortunately, due to repeated description of the March 1st Movement in this fashion, it is becoming increasingly difficult to break free from such mold, and as a result a rather fixed version of the Movement has been established, while recent academic accomplishments on the event have been constantly ignored. Moreover, certain factual errors concerning how the Movement actually unfolded remain virtually uncorrected, while an ever-growing Nationalist viewpoint emphasizing the Movement’s meaning in world history refuses to embrace new facts and interpretations produced by the community of historians. As a result, discrepancies between the image of the March 1st Movement in History textbooks, and details of the movement uncovered by historical researches, just continue to build. We should endeavor to escape such Nationalistic point of view, as well as the aforementioned ‘causal’ framework, and indulge ourselves in democratic viewpoints accompanied by thematic approaches, as such effort will lead us to analyze and interpret the March 1st Movement from fresh new angles. In that case, a number of new ways to teach this historical event to the students, based on new factual details and proper interpretations, will surface in the future.