From screen to school: Will 'Teach You a Lesson' become reality?

The eye-for-an-eye school-bully eradication drama by Netflix, "Teach You a Lesson," is changing the education sector in real life for the sake of teachers' rights.

As the Netflix drama “Teach You a Lesson,” which centers on school violence and teachers' rights, continues to gain popularity, education offices in Daejeon and South Chungcheong are moving to establish dedicated bodies to bring the fictional Educational Rights Protection Bureau featured in the series into reality.

South Chungcheong’s education superintendent-elect Lee Byoung-do announced Thursday that he will launch a protection office for teacher rights when he takes office on Wednesday. The office resembles the fictional Educational Rights Protection Bureau featured in the series.

South Chungcheong brings fiction closer to reality

Reporting directly to the superintendent, the new office will be staffed by experts in law, mediation and counseling and will provide one-stop support ranging from preventing infringements on teachers' rights to responding to cases and helping teachers recover afterward.

To date, teacher rights protection has been handled by just one of the South Chungcheong Office of Education's 65 teams. The creation of the new office is expected to elevate the status and authority of those responsibilities.

Unlike the fictional bureau in the drama, which directly intervenes in schools and leads investigations and disciplinary actions, the province's office for protecting teachers' rights will focus on administrative support aimed at reducing the burden on teachers and schools while institutionalizing the education office's responsibility for protecting teachers.

"When teacher rights violations occur now, cases go through multiple stages, making the process lengthy and placing a heavy burden on affected teachers," Lee said. "Going forward, the superintendent will personally oversee every case and actively ensure that teachers do not suffer psychological or physical harm."

Lee recognized that the popularity of the Netflix series reflects growing public recognition of problems in the education system and a broader social consensus that violations of teachers' rights and school violence require more active responses.

The South Chungcheong branch of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) welcomed the establishment of the new office but stressed that it should serve as a catalyst for protecting educational activities through institutional safeguards rather than force.

“Three years have passed since the Seoi Elementary School incident in 2023, but schools continue to suffer from malicious complaints unrelated to educational activities, as well as legal and institutional shortcomings that fail to protect teachers," the union said.

"Legal disputes have become commonplace, and distrust of teachers' educational activities has reached the point where teachers can no longer teach according to their professional judgment."

The union also called on the new office to protect teachers' educational activities, respond actively to malicious complaints and mandatory reporting requirements stemming from false child abuse allegations.

"The office should review protections for educational activities at all schools across South Chungcheong and introduce practical measures to support teachers' recovery and address cases in which students or parents fail to comply with corrective actions," the union said.

Daejeon chiming in

Daejeon education superintendent-elect Oh Sok-jin also plans to establish an office to promote teachers’ rights — another organization that will report directly to the superintendent.

The Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education plans to revise related ordinances to secure the new office's authority, with operations expected to begin as early as September.

The office will initially include teams dedicated to handling public complaints, reducing teachers' administrative workloads, providing legal assistance and offering legal, psychological and administrative counseling.

If a teacher experiences a serious violation of educational activities, becomes the target of malicious complaints or faces unfounded child abuse reports, the office's dedicated team will prioritize protecting the teacher and the school while providing support from the moment the case arises.

"It is time for the education office to become the strongest support system for teachers whose only wish is to educate children well," Oh said. "By establishing the new office, we will build a comprehensive safety net to protect teachers' rights and create an educational environment where everyone can feel secure."

Fiction stays fiction?

Other regions are also mulling measures, but on a more cautious note.

Gyeonggi education superintendent-elect An Min-suk held a forum at the National Assembly on Thursday to discuss why and how Gyeonggi should establish a bureau to protect educational activities.

The forum examined whether a real-world counterpart to the fictional Educational Rights Protection Bureau featured in “Teach You a Lesson” could be created.

Participants include teachers, representatives from the Gyeonggi branches of the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and the KTU, an official from the Gyeonggi Office of Education, parents and high school students.

An, however, previously mentioned on a recent radio program, that an organization portrayed in “Teach You a Lesson” would be difficult to establish in reality.

"We are preparing to create a bureau for protecting educational activities with the goal of safeguarding both teachers' rights and students' right to learn," he said.

BY SHIN JIN-HO, CHOI MO-RAN [[email protected]]