Change in Outdoor Regulation

Change in Outdoor Regulation

             “Hey, are you going out this weekend?”

             “I’m thinking about it. Mom’s pushing me to come out…”

             Every week, on days near the weekends, we can hear this kind of conversation all over the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy. Just like it’s important to use the self-study period efficiently, it is very crucial to use weekends wisely in this school. Some students prefer to remain in school, but other many students tend to go back home during the weekends to refresh and reenergize. However, since KMLA is a dormitory school, students can’t leave the school during weekends without notifying the dormitory parents. KMLA is enforcing this notifying rule with an ‘outdoor regulation’, giving penalty points to anyone who left the school without permission.

             Until last year, it was quite easy to keep the outdoor regulation. Students just had to go in KMLA Online and check a box to inform that they’ll not be in school during the weekends. However, starting this year, the regulation changed. Now, the students have to notify their parents first and the parents have to inform the students’ advisors about not being at school on weekends. The change was made to prevent students from lying that they will be visiting home but going elsewhere with friends. Even though the change was made for good reasons, there are complaints here and there.

             Most complaints are about the robbing of freedom from the students. One student said “It’s not as troublesome as I thought it will be. Still, I feel bad about losing our freedom concerning outdoor regulation.” Also, there are complaints that outdoor regulation became more tiresome. This type of dissatisfaction is especially high from the students with the foreign advisor teachers. “It is difficult for our parents to contact our advisors since foreign advisors don’t understand Korean and our parents don’t speak English. Furthermore, there’s some pressure to be formal and polite to the teachers, which makes the procedure tiresome.” On the other hand, students who agree to the changes say differently. They say that it was students’ responsibility on the first hand to keep the promise with the school. Outdoor regulation is sort of a promise between students and school the he or she will go home or formal events with their parents knowing about it. Unfortunately, students broke that mutual promise by going somewhere else without their parents knowing. Students who approve say that it’s our fault to not manage our freedom. In addition, students who agree with the change say that the difficulties concerning foreign advisors can be overcome by simplifying the ‘advisor notifying’ process by using e-mails or text messages to convey the message.

             Is this change good? Or is it bad? We can’t be sure yet. Until now, not much trouble has occurred but it is clear that school has lost their trust on us and robbed us from our freedom. We will have to wait for a little longer and see how the events concerning new outdoor regulation come out. However, it is crystal clear that if we want to prevent any other ‘robbing of freedom’, we have to put our efforts for school to retain their trust on us.