‘School 2013’…A heart-tugging exploration of the ordeals of school life.
Studying is also a skill, Jung In Jae (Jang Na Ra), the homeroom teacher of Class 2 of Seungri High School, discloses to Kang Se Chan (an excellent Daniel Choi), her fellow homeroom teacher. Some kids have the ability and focus to sit for hours on end to pore over their notes, while the rest are not interested, or simply clueless on where to begin (and remain committed) amidst the nexus of academies, school lessons, exams, college entrance exams, and co-curricular activities. A teacher’s duty, therefore, is to teach and encourage all her students, irrespective of where their interests lie or the grades they achieve. Unfortunately, the school, Se Chan (at least for most of the initial portions), the parents, and the society, don’t agree. Because grades do matter. They decide which university you will go to, which further decides your career path, and also the type of future life-partner you can come to have. In some cases, having good grades also equates to being a good person. All this perpetuates a ceaseless discussion on the difference between learning and studying, between holistic education and education for the sake of getting into university, and like its top ranking students, School 2013’s single-minded emphasis on academic school life fuels this narrative, without forgetting to be entertaining and emotionally stirring along the way.
I had been putting off watching School 2013 for the sole reason that every year it became an older drama to catch up on. But, having already watched School 2015 and School 2017, I was curious to see the version that re-popularized the series, (the very first series came out in 1999, and spin-offs continued up to 2002) and made actors like Lee Jong Suk, Kim Woo Bin, Shin Hye Sun, Lee Ji Hoon, Lee Yi Kyung, household names.
School 2013’s plot in comparison to its successors is fairly straightforward (which turns out to be its biggest strength) — Class 2 of Seungri High, ranks the lowest in a school that is already amongst the lowest in the city. Kang Se Chan, the famous Gangnam instructor is brought in to bring up the grades of the students of the class. He is paired with Jung In Jae, the current homeroom teacher, who is a bit idealistic, taking additional time, interest, and responsibility to solve all the students’ problems, academic or otherwise. She is a good mentor, who incorporates valuable life lessons with her regular classes, pushes her students to do their best, and even constantly introspects her own teaching methods to tailor them to a class of varied interests and grades. On the contrary, Se Chan who until now had been teaching in prep-schools, where all classes consist of eager and attentive students, doesn’t do much about the students who don’t show up or sleep off in his class.
Half of the drama’s charm lies in this duo’s many approaches towards teaching and other school-related issues. It is just wonderful to watch how their different personalities and tactics (she is more positive and comforting, he is frank and pragmatic) work differently on individual students. (In particular, Se Chan’s rapport with Heung Soo and Nam Soon, and In Jae’s budding relationship with Ji Hoon, Yi Kyung, and Jung Oh are both funny and heartwarming to watch). I especially liked that their efforts do make changes, albeit not grand ones in the scheme of things, but important for that particular student, like Nam Soon (Lee Jong Suk) and Ji Hoon (Lee Ji Hoon) at least start attending school and try not to sleep during class. Sometimes, these efforts may not always work, like with Kyung Min (Nam Kyung Min) and Eun Hye (Gil Eun Hye), who though are good students, continue to be apathetic to their fellow classmates' problems, even after being confronted about it.
To a certain extent, the drama functions similar to a bottle episode — but say, stretched to a bottle show — where this one class is used as a sample group to touch upon a broad range of issues. You have students from different economic backgrounds, some with overbearing mothers, while some with absentee, alcoholic fathers. It talks about bullying, not only between students but also between the tiger moms and the teachers, and the influence they wield over the school administration. It talks about the discrimination faced by students from low-ranking schools at special prep-schools. It talks about the effect of a parent’s negligence or over attentiveness on a child’s ambition, drive, and mental health. For someone like Min Ki, having a tiger mom is stressful, but for someone like Kyung Min who doesn’t have money to pay for cram schools, a tiger mom is exactly what she wishes for. On the other hand, Nam Soon and Jung Oh’s (Kwak Jung Wook) absentee fathers (and other family members) and their lack of concern for them, doesn’t give them any motive to study and work hard or to strive for something better, as they don’t see education as a means to change their lives.
The drama also acknowledges how hard the teachers work. They have to set exams with questions that have never been answered before. They do a multitude of paperwork. They have to teach, guide, encourage all their students at every turn of the way, all the while getting constant evaluations done by parents, students, and the school. It is a job that has no clock-out time or an end in sight, which we see in teachers like Jo Bong Soo (Yun Ju Sang) and Uhm Hyo Seop (Uhm Dae Woong) who are still mentoring their former students and fellow colleagues, and the numerous times Se Chan and In Jae are out of school to help their students.
Nine years on, two spin-offs later, and one currently in the making, these conflicts of School 2013’s still ring true. The drama never loses sight of what it wants to say, making it the best among the School series. It is entertaining without any high voltage drama. It is understated yet still interesting. I can see why the spin-offs chose to expand on this idea with the addition of parents, home life, sports, social media, hobbies, and romance but in comparison to School 2013’s unwavering commitment to school life, its students, and teachers, they still pale. Take the falling out of the two best friends scenario, which is present both here and in School 2017. Both involve a grave incident that creates a lasting dent in the boys’ friendship, but while School 2013 constantly brings up the incident, examining the cause and the emotions behind it, even making the teachers a part of the process of confrontation and healing, School 2017 barely touches upon this conflict, only revealing the nature of the incident later as suspense.
This isn’t to say that School 2013 is flawless. It does drag at times, and not all plot points are given a due conclusion. But these are dispensible when the whole is just so darn good.
