Teachers publish Korean history textbooks in U.S.

Teachers of Korean schools in California have published a textbook on Korean history and culture for second and third generation Korean American and local U.S. students.

The Korean Schools Association of Northern California said on its website on Saturday that it published a textbook titled “Find Korea!” for Korean schools wanting to expand their curriculum from the Korean language to Korean history and culture.

Officials of the association told Yonhap News that it took a group of its teachers a year and a half to publish the textbook since they began to research its themes. The teachers are educating mostly second and third generation Korean American students in Silicon Valley, California.

They previously received media attention for dropping “So Far from the Bamboo Grove,” a controversial textbook adopted by several U.S. public schools, from several schools' curricula.

“So Far from the Bamboo Grove” is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer. Critics said that the book makes no mention of Japanese war crimes, including forced labor and forced prostitution, and portrays Koreans as the antagonists.

Textbooks on Korean history and culture, published by the Korean Schools Association of Northern California KSANC/Yonhap News

Korean American teachers had the book taken off the list of U.S. textbooks after making a successful case against it at a California state hearing in late 2008.

“After ‘So Far from the Bamboo Grove’ was expelled from the California reading list, we set out to develop our own textbook on Korean history and culture that Korean and U.S. schools may adopt,” Choi Mi-young, president of the association, told the news agency on Saturday.

“Find Korea!” deals with the geological location of Korea, including the Dokdo islets and the East Sea, the national flag and the national anthem, Korean traditional holidays and foods.

The association will present the textbook to teachers of Korean schools on July 23. VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea), the National Institute for International Education, the Overseas Koreans Foundation and U.S.-based Korean American groups strongly supported the textbook publication. VANK is a Seoul-based private organization of volunteers who provide correct information about Korea to international textbook publishers.

At present, about 8,500 teachers teach the Korean language to about 59,000 students in 1,017 Korean schools across the U.S.

The Korean language was included in the U.S. SAT II in November, 1997. Since then, interest in Korean and necessity for education in Korean history have mounted, an official of the association said.

source:Korea herald