More on the history in quotation marks front.

From The Hankyoreh:

In a presentation entitled “What is unification to us?” delivered at Sungduk Girls’ Commercial High School in Gangdong-gu yesterday, Lee Dong-bok, the head of the North Korea Democratization Forum, made a series of statements defending the dictatorship and promoting an anti-North Korean ideology. Lee said, “The Republic of Korea was able to realize this much economic growth in a short period of time because it had the capabilities of a leader like former President Park Chung-hee within a stark reality of national security.” Lee also said, “While it is true that there was suppression of democratization forces, it is inefficient to insist on democratization excessively.” He added, “If the 38th parallel had not been drawn, you might have become just like our fellow Koreans languishing in North Korea.”

History textbooks are a contentious issue, and no doubt they have their flaws. But whatever those flaws may be, what in the blue hell are schools doing bringing a presentation like that in? The KTEWU's take on it is here, in Korean, but you've got to remember that a group like that has no business calling anyone else out for being biased. If you look around their website all you'll see are pictures of teachers protesting something or other, and coming out against everything the Lee Myung-bak administration does. Don't they ever have to go to school?

More from the Joongang Ilbo:

The lectures were designed by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to teach “healthy values and a correct sense of history and country,” in response to a government survey conducted this year that half of middle and high school students do not know the date and cause of the Korean War (1950-1953). All high schools must hold two lectures between November and February.

The teachers’ union criticized the talks, saying, “Lecturers include those who led the creation of an ‘alternative textbook’ that stated Japan’s colonization led to Korea’s modernization, including Lee Dong-bok and Seoul National University Professor Park Hyo-chong.”