[HanCinema's Film Review] "The Disobeying Teachers"

In 2008 the Seoul Government passed a law mandating standardized testing for students graduating elementary or middle school as well as those entering high school. You read that correctly- "The Disobeying Teachers" is a 2015 documentary where most of the footage either comes from 2008 or 2009. The reason for this, on the most base level, is that "The Disobeying Teachers" is a time capsule. It's a reminder that South Korean attitudes toward education are not lockstep, and that the current system has been controversial for quite some time.

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On the more literal level "The Disobeying Teachers" is about, well, the teachers who disobeyed. Specifically, the law in question wasn't technically a mandate. Students had the option to take an alternative work-study instead, and many teachers encouraged the students as well as their families to take this option. For this reason, several teachers felt administrative reprisals. Evidently this was a concession of the law that no one was actually supposed to take.

There's not too much material in "The Disobeying Teachers" discussing these legal semantics. I suspect that director Seo Dong-il realized that the political questions involved in standardized testing have been discussed ad infinitum in the Korean press, to the point that one untold story ends up coming off as a lot more important. Who were these teachers really? Just political radicals ignoring the future of Korean education for their own selfish reasons?

Unsurprisingly the answer to that question is no. While somewhat manipulative in its overall construction "The Disobeying Teachers" is able to evade most of the more unfortunate implications simply by reminding us that these teachers were just people who stated their opinions, not expecting or wanting a big fight. This is in stark contrast to the administrators, who seem to be behaving for the benefit of a very different set of cameras.

As for the students, they appear to have a fairly high opinion of their disobedient teachers. Kids aren't necessarily an authority on education, of course. They just want to do something more fun that constant test-taking. Yet looking back it's hard to credibly argue the law has done much good, and even at the time the benefits were dubious. At one point a list of other countries with heavy mandatory test systems is brought up, and suffice to say, these aren't really countries well-known for having functional educational departments.

"The Disobeying Teachers" provides a useful sense of context to the modern rat race that is the Korean educational system. Sure, today it seems like the omnipresence of cram schools must be part of the Korean work ethic. But then how do we explain the existence of teachers who were willing to buck the trend? Or the ongoing national dialogue about the problems caused by such a heavy emphasis on testing?

"The Disobeying Teachers" never really answers those questions but then that's the point. This is a documentary about how there have always been other ways, until or unless someone decides that we shouldn't have choices. It's a reminder that contrary to what may be said in the present day, usually old legislation had its critics, and they were summarily tossed aside. The overall thrust is a pointed one, even if the subject matter is rather specific.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Disobeying Teachers" is directed by Seo Dong-il