Silent Students

Kang Hyun-hee, Lee Ji-seonl½ÂÀÎ2015.04.06l¼öÁ¤2015.04.06 13:59l0È£ 0¸é

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“Youth is wasted on the young.” This is one of Bernard Shaw s most famous sayings. It means the younger generation, that is to say university students, have too passive an attitude and lack courage. In the 1990’s campuses were battle
grounds for demonstrating students being controlled by riot police armed with tear gas. Today, this kind of activity is rare. What about other countries? What are students doing about social issue?

¡ã She does not tell what she was thinking.

In France, students from universities and high schools both attended a demonstration aimed at opposing a pension reform bill. They participated
in the demonstration because if the bill passed it would impact youth unemployment. Second, in China, a group of Taiwanese students opposed to
the Agreement on Trade on Services with China occupied parliament. There were also street protects in front of the Presidential Office Building. It was the focus of the public attention in Taiwan and internationally. The Agreement on Trade and Services was not related to tuition or student welfare, nevertheless, many Taiwanese students spoke openly about their opposition to the bill. How about Koreans? In spite of the Sewol ferry disaster, university students that raised their voices on the matter was extremely rare.

This situation is no exception in school. We used to experience discomfort or dissatisfaction with the school system. When we met with friends, we used to talk about these problems at school and complain frequently. However, the facilities and institutions of universities were not improved. The Dankook Herald (DKH) interviewed the president of student welfare. He said, “The Council has received the ideas from presidents of each university, but there are not many. I want students to actively express what they need but they do not.” It seems that students have a passive attitude about improving school facilities. They don’t want to interrupt their comfortable school life. This attitude permeates not only in dealing with school facilities, but also with the school festival that they enjoy. Nobody complained when the festival was changed to a non-drinking event.
Although many students were unhappy about this, they did not take any action to change it.

DKH conducted a survey of 100 university students, and 73% of them were opposed to the ‘dry’ festival. We asked some students directly about their opinions and they agreed that it was wrong, but there still remains no official suggestion to our school to review the policy. This indicates a weak and passive attitude permeating amongst our student body today, as opposed to the old school students, who managed their schools themselves. March 1, 1919 patriot Yu Gwansun called for the independent status of students. In June 1987, during
a student democracy movement protest, Lee Hanyeol was killed by tear gas. November 2, 1990, 500 Yonsei students had a ceremony to mark ‘Student
day’ in Democracy Square and decided to embark on a plan to overthrow the Roh Tae-woo government.

This is real data of the commitments made by our ancestors, to deal with pressing social issues of their times. At that time, they were younger than us
or the same age. They were the center of society and could make their voices heard. What are we doing now? How did we get this way?

DKH requested an interview with Counselor Han Jin Ah, working in our university counseling center. DKH asked for her advice on the causes and solutions for this situation.

First, with regards to the passive attitude students she said, “We fought for an ideology in the 80s and people called for personal freedoms in the 90s. Many people are interested in the lives of individuals and the stability of interpersonal relationships in the 2000s. However today, most people have been expressing their ideas through social media.”

Ms. Han also mentioned the changes in social factors. “Images of changing institutional problems have decreased with the stabilization of society and with the removal of oppressive systems. Also, parents were the students at that time and they don’t want to alter the culture they fought for.” She also pointed out ways for university students to change their passive attitude. She said that students need to search their own worth and have self-confidence. She added that if they have difficulty doing that, they should find their identity through the counseling
center or take a personality test. These suggestions would be a great help to improving the passive attitude of our students today.

We need to think about our passive attitude. Our ideal aim is not simply a noisy demonstration. These days, some universities are trying to change the atmosphere of demonstrations. For example, Seoul National University students took part in a
demonstration by staging a performance called ‘Bonbustak’. It proceeded in an atmosphere of freedom. This proved that the atmosphere of demonstrations has changed from a solemn one to one of unity where students band together with
many people. With this in mind, what do you think? Are we simply lacking self-confidence as university students?


Kang Hyun-hee, Lee Ji-seon  dkherald@hotmail.com
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