South Korean City Adopts “Great Books” Model as AI Spreads in Schools
Chuncheon, a South Korean city about 50 miles east of Seoul, has partnered with St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., to bring its Great Books teaching model to local schools. Officials and educators say students need to think independently as AI chatbots spread in classrooms.
Chuncheon, a city in South Korea about 50 miles east of Seoul, has adopted the "Great Books" teaching model used by St. John's College to help students think for themselves as artificial intelligence spreads through classrooms. The city government established an academic partnership with the college last year to promote the approach. The college's main campus is in Annapolis, Md.
At the Toegye public elementary school in Chuncheon, a teacher asked students whether the monster in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is human. Student Ma Yeonwoo said, "I think we can call it a human being with no soul."
The discussion then moved to whether artificial intelligence is human. Ma said no, because humans created AI, and although it is intelligent, it "has no creativity."
How the model works
In the Great Books model, teachers do not lecture. They only guide discussion. There are no majors or elective courses.
Students do not look for answers from outside sources such as the internet. They rely on their readings, their own reasoning and class discussion with peers.
Ma said he enjoys the debate. "If only the teacher talks we can have one idea, but if we all debate together, like, we can get many ideas together," he said.
Why families look for alternatives
The movement is still young and responds to several worries. International tests such as PISA have shown a post-COVID drop in South Korean reading skills. That follows decades in which South Korean and other East Asian students outperformed their American counterparts.
Another concern is how fast AI has entered education. According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) figures, 51% of South Korean students say they use AI chatbots to study at least once a week.
Students also face intense competition to pass college entrance exams. That pressure reaches down to the pre-K level. Many families send children to cram schools to gain an edge, or to foreign schools to escape the system.
Lee Yonghwa, a professor of English language and literature at Incheon National University, co-founded South Korea's first Great Books program there in 2019. He is a St. John's College graduate.
"We all feel that this system leaves students with no time to read and think," Lee said, because they are too busy memorizing facts to pass tests. Now, he said, "Korean students are even losing their old capacity to memorize facts because they collect facts and ideas mainly from A.I."
Lee added that students who cannot reason independently cannot judge the quality of what AI generates for them.
A mayor's push
Chuncheon Mayor Yook Dong-han said in an interview at city hall that he felt the system's limits himself. "As someone who went through this system, I felt those limitations keenly," he said.
"When I became mayor, I wanted to introduce a different kind of education and a distinct educational philosophy to the city of Chuncheon," Yook said.
Chuncheon is better known as a destination for visitors from Seoul. They come for its mountains, lakes and rivers, and for dakgalbi, a local dish of grilled or stir-fried marinated chicken.
