December 3, 2025
SEOUL – Han Yu-ra, a 32-year-old history teacher in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, vividly remembers the night when then-President Yoon Suk Yeol abruptly declared martial law.
“As a history teacher, I was taken aback and angry, and thought I must talk about this in class the next day,” said Han, who teaches eighth and ninth graders at Chunghyeon Middle School. She frantically opened her laptop, typing, researching and creating a PowerPoint titled “2024 12.3 Crisis: The Story of Last Night.”
She posted her materials at 4 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024, to an online community for history teachers, where it garnered 20,000 views in just the first two hours.
“Many students wanted to learn about the martial law crisis. Even students who were usually disinterested in history were asking if we would be talking about it in class,” she recalled. “They were more focused than usual when I taught them about martial law.”
For most teenagers, the political turmoil was their first real encounter with a national constitutional crisis. As teachers scrambled to present reliable information, students came to class with curiosity — and sometimes strong opinions.
Another middle school teacher, 46-year-old Kim Soo-hyun, said the reactions were unlike anything she had seen.
“Attitudes of students who consumed the political event as a meme coexisted with those who tried to analyze it. Some students brought posts from online communities to explain the crisis, while others tried explaining the law’s structure to their peers — confusion, curiosity and caricature existed simultaneously.”
The dilemma: To teach or stay neutral?
The urge to rush to explain political chaos to young minds quickly collided with one of the most sensitive questions in Korean education: political neutrality.
“I thought it was okay to teach in schools, but some people showed concerns that we were not staying politically neutral,” Han said.
Han received threatening messages online from people who claimed her lessons “damaged political neutrality,” criticizing her for using the term “insurrection” to describe Yoon’s declaration.
Han believes the complaints stem from a misconception.
“Because of so much backlash, some teachers self-censor what they would otherwise be able to say in class. It’s a pity.”
South Korea’s Framework Act on Education requires teachers to remain politically neutral to prevent classrooms from becoming arenas for partisan influence. But educators say the rule has been interpreted so strictly that it curbs their own political rights — including joining or donating to political parties.
Han argues that teaching about martial law and the constitutional values associated with the crisis is essential to democratic values.
Kim agrees. “Neutrality is not silence,” she said.
“Students don’t become instigated because teachers instigate. Rather, political tendencies are created at home and strengthened in (online) communities,” Kim added.
With misinformation spreading online in the year since the crisis, Kim said students increasingly repeat false claims in class.
“It is a crucial role of the teacher to immediately flag and correct wrong concepts.”
Parents divided
At home, the same debate continues.
“Of course explaining the Constitution and the democratic process is needed,” said a 50-year-old surnamed Kim, who is a parent to a high school senior. “But, focusing classes on specific events and political leaders has more bad effects than good, considering the current levels of political conflict in society.”
Kim argued that the 2024 martial law crisis is an incomplete chapter in Korean history — legally and politically — and therefore too contentious for classrooms.
“It is wrong that a school, which should focus on the student’s learning, becomes a forum for political controversy,” the parent said.
Kim also feared that teachers could shape students’ political identities, distract them from studies and even spark conflicts among classmates. For parents like Kim, democracy education belongs primarily at home.
Others feel the opposite.
Jang, mother to a fourth grader, said classroom activities helped calm her daughter after the crisis. “They saw a news report related to martial law in class. It felt like a process to calm down students after the traumatic crisis.”
“Even us parents did not receive education about politics,” she said. “That is why the only place students can learn about democracy is public education.”
To Jang, introducing democracy and coexistence should start early — even in kindergarten.
“Talking about politics is becoming taboo in the classrooms because schools must be politically neutral,” she said. “However, they must teach politics in order for students to truly understand political neutrality.”
Why we must teach
Teachers say politics is already in the classroom — not through educators, but through memes and far-right forums.
Kim said students have asked her to explain political buzzwords from extremist communities and demanded her opinion on claims like “South Korea is becoming a communist country.”
Han has also seen an increase in hateful jokes and mocking language targeting certain politicians.
She noted that former President Roh Moo-hyun, who died in 2009, has become a frequent target among students — echoing online radicalization patterns.
Seong Gi-seon, a professor in the Catholic University of Korea’s Department of Teaching Profession, agreed that there was a trend, especially evident among male students, toward far-right radicalization.
“The cause (of radicalization) is not within the school education, but outside the campus,” Seong said. “Some places, like online gaming communities, have intentionally promoted hatred towards the government, the ruling party and the ruling elite.”
“There need to be educational programs and social policies to combat this radicalization,” Seong added.
How it should be taught
Kim expects the martial law crisis to eventually appear in Korean history, social studies and ethics textbooks. But she insists the focus must be institutional — not personal.
Lessons, she said, should emphasize institutional failures and citizen responses to democratic threats.
Kim believes it could also spark deeper ethical reflection: “the true meaning of patriotism” and “obedience to one’s superiors.” She has considered pairing the topic with Hannah Arendt’s work on the trial of Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann to provoke philosophical discussion.
She believes the methods could range from assigning reading material and leading discussions to performing imaginative tasks. Whatever the teaching model looks like, Kim hopes the students learn responsibility, how to identify power abuse and the fact that institution alone cannot protect democracy.
Clear communication with parents is key, she added.
“The principal should officially inform parents of the purpose and method of teaching democratic citizenship to decrease misunderstandings. That way, teachers would be able to discuss more topics with students in a more unconstrained atmosphere.”
Professor Seong said the martial law crisis of 2024 was a great opportunity to once again teach constitutional values — emphasizing to the students that the values themselves, and the threats against them, were real.
“There was a time when the school textbooks treated the Constitution as something that may appear on an exam,” Seong said. “But last year, in the face of the national crisis, we saw how the democratic principles of checks and balances worked in real-life to stabilize the country.”
“That is why classrooms should explain these real examples to teach the Constitution.”
Seong also pointed out that the rampant spread of disinformation caused confusion in the year following the martial law crisis. The professor noted that it was a prime opportunity to teach media literacy and critical thinking.
Ultimately, Seong stressed the need for a legal framework that allows teachers to feel more comfortable teaching ongoing political events.
“Teachers will be able to safely teach (such events) only when their right to teach political events are laid out by law.”