Aspects of Donghak and Childhood Education

The purpose of this study is to find out what Donghak's ideas about children are which played a big role in looking into the ideas of respecting children in the history of Korean education. Donghak is a representative idea that made a mark in Korean modern education in the late Joseon Dynasty and has a great meaning in the educational thought of Donghak related to children. The thought of human respect of Sicheonju, Yangcheonju, and Innaecheon of Donghak became the foundation of our nation's distinctive idea of respect for children. As a practitioner of the children's movement, Bang Jung-hwan conducted education not by establishing a formal and institutional school but by providing non-formal social education activities through publication, art, and boy group activities. Bang Jung-hwan's idea that it should be helped to form children's personalities properly and their human rights should be respected was embodied through the practice of the educational idea of respecting children today. Of course, it was through human subjectivization, humanization of education, and human knowledge of educational content which contained in today's humanism. This became a great revolution in terms of Eastern customs. Today, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the significance of educational ideas through the children's movement of Bang Jung-hwan should be inherited and developed.