There was almost no research on the educational dimension that Kim Kyo-shin valued as much as his main occupation, but research began to be conducted little by little starting in the 1970s by Kim Jeong-hwan (then a professor in the Department of Education at Korea University's College of Education).
Thus, the articles on Kim Kyo-shin's education published by Kim Jeong-hwan were inserted into 『Kim Kyo-shin』 (Korea Theological Institute, 1980) and its revised edition 『Kim Kyo-shin: His Life, Faith and Hope』 (Korea Theological Institute, 1994), and were widely introduced.
In particular, while working at Korea University, Kim Jeong-hwan gave passionate and moving lectures on Kim Kyo-shin as a teacher in the Introduction to Education and Teacher Theory classes.
Therefore, all students who took Kim Jeong-hwan's education lectures at Korea University know Kim Kyo-shin as a great teacher.
The anecdote below is related to this and is therefore introduced.


This book is of great significance as it is the first educational publication related to Kim Kyo-shin.
It is true that research on Kim Kyo-shin as an educator has been lacking rather than on Kim Kyo-shin as a religious figure.
I hope that this book will serve as a guide to reveal the full picture of Kim Kyo-shin, who was both a religious figure and an educator, without being biased to one side, and that it will further serve as a prelude to Kim Kyo-shin's full-fledged educational works.

Who is Kim Kyo-shin?

Kim Jeong-hwan (former professor emeritus of Korea University, passed away in 2019), who discovered and studied him in our modern history, evaluated Kim Kyo-shin as “a teacher of outstanding ability and thought who considered religion as the foundation of education, sought national Christianity, and, with that understanding, consistently served as a regular teacher of national history throughout his life until his death four months before the liberation of the country,” adding the following.


…When we talk about Kim Kyo-shin, we cannot think of him without religion, and we cannot think of him without education.
In his life, religion and education became one.
He also said, “Religion is my main occupation, and education is my side occupation.”
But I was more passionate about this side job.
And he passed away while working at this side job.
Because I realized that I couldn't achieve my main job without a side job...

As you know, Kim Kyo-shin is a non-church person.
As Kim Jeong-hwan's interpretation and evaluation show, he was a religious person and an educator, but he valued the educational mission as much as the religious mission, because he believed that the fruits of education were as great as the fruits of religion.
Kim Kyo-shin's dedication to education, along with his religious commitment, and the results he achieved were truly unusual and surprising.
Nevertheless, educational research has not delved into any more depth than a dissertation.
It remains regrettable that Kim Kyo-shin's religious life and theology, despite the many twists and turns surrounding non-churchism, have been studied in depth and received a corresponding historical evaluation.

There was almost no research on the educational dimension that Kim Kyo-shin valued as much as his main occupation, but research began to be conducted little by little starting in the 1970s by Kim Jeong-hwan (then a professor in the Department of Education at Korea University's College of Education).
Thus, the articles on Kim Kyo-shin's education published by Kim Jeong-hwan were inserted into 『Kim Kyo-shin』 (Korea Theological Institute, 1980) and its revised edition 『Kim Kyo-shin: His Life, Faith and Hope』 (Korea Theological Institute, 1994), and were widely introduced.
In particular, while working at Korea University, Kim Jeong-hwan gave passionate and moving lectures on Kim Kyo-shin as a teacher in the Introduction to Education and Teacher Theory classes.
Therefore, all students who took Kim Jeong-hwan's education lectures at Korea University know Kim Kyo-shin as a great teacher.
The anecdote below is related to this and is therefore introduced.

In 2015, the “2015 Yangjeong Teacher” Kim Kyo-shin (1901-1945) 70th Anniversary Commemorative Forum” was held at Yangjeong Middle and High School, and Professor Yang Hyeon-hye of Ewha Womans University and Professor Kang Seon-bo of Korea University attended as presenters and commentators.
At the end of the forum, during a question and answer session with the Yangjeong faculty and alumni present at the time, Professor Kang Seon-bo asked, “Is there anyone here who attended a lecture on Kim Kyo-shin during their school days?” and one teacher raised his hand.
So when Professor Kang Seon-bo asked, “Did you graduate from Korea University’s College of Education?” he answered yes.
I attended Professor Kim Jeong-hwan's lecture!

The reason Kim Jeong-hwan's story is somewhat long is because he made pioneering contributions to teaching, researching, and evaluating Kim Kyo-shin from an educational perspective.
As he passionately lectured and presented his research on Kim Kyo-shin at university lecture halls, papers on Kim Kyo-shin's education began to appear in graduate schools of education, general graduate schools, and theological schools across the country starting in the 1970s.

Despite the growing educational interest in Kim Kyo-shin, the authors' shared regret that there is still not a single educational book on Kim Kyo-shin has been published, which led to the creation of this book.
That is, in 2016, Professor Park Eui-soo of Kangnam University and Professor Kang Seon-bo of Korea University presented at the Kim Kyo-shin Memorial Academic Conference (theme: Kim Kyo-shin, Asking the Path of Korean Education) held at Ewha Womans University by the ‘Kim Kyo-shin Memorial Society’, and afterward, while exchanging opinions with Professor Yang Hyeon-hye, they agreed to compile Kim Kyo-shin’s education-related papers and publish an educational book.
Following this, we decided to publish Kim Kyo-shin's educational book in collaboration with Professor Song Soon-jae of Gamsin University and Professor Lim Hee-sook of Hanshin University, who published Kim Kyo-shin's educational thesis.
Of course, the precious manuscript of the late Professor Kim Jeong-hwan was published here with the consent of his bereaved family and the publisher of the Korea Theological Institute, which made it shine even brighter.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to the bereaved family and the Korean Theological Institute.

Against this backdrop, I would like to highlight some of the implications of this book.
First of all, as mentioned above, this book is of great significance as it is the first educational book related to Kim Kyo-shin.
It is true that research on Kim Kyo-shin as an educator has been lacking rather than on Kim Kyo-shin as a religious figure.
I hope that this book will serve as a guide to reveal the full picture of Kim Kyo-shin, who was both a religious figure and an educator, without being biased to one side, and that it will further serve as a prelude to Kim Kyo-shin's full-fledged educational works.
Second, it is true that when graduate students or scholars wanted to conduct educational research on Kim Kyo-shin, there was a difficulty in having to write papers based solely on Kim Kyo-shin's original text, as there was not much prior research by scholars.
Accordingly, many researchers have been thinking that it would be good to have a monograph that would serve as a kind of basic data collection for Kim Kyo-shin's educational research, collecting scholars' educational research on Kim Kyo-shin. This book is expected to meet this need and be of great help to early-stage researchers.
Third, the researchers of this book are theologians and educators.
Although they did not conduct joint research on the same topic, they analyzed the educational aspects of Kim Kyo-shin from different perspectives, so in a broad sense, it can be said to be a research collaboration between a theologian and an educationist.
I hope that this will serve as a foundation for theologians and educators to collaborate and explore the full scope of Kim Kyo-shin's work more deeply and broadly.
Korean education today is still in a state of crisis.
Where should we look for a solution? We want to find that ray of hope in Kim Kyo-shin.
If we analyze the etymology of education, we can see that its core is ‘example’ and ‘love.’
Pestalozzi, the saint of education, said, “The best content and method of education is nothing more or less than love.”
Kim Kyo-shin, who lived an exemplary life and had such a deep love for his disciples, was 'the best educational content and method in and of itself'.
If we truly want our education to be a beacon of light for society, teachers like Kim Kyo-shin must emerge from the grassroots in schools.
We all need to identify, nurture, and protect prospective teachers with such qualities.
We saw that possibility in Teacher Kim Kyo-shin, and we hope that this book will contribute even a little to the realization of that possibility.
Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to CEO Noh Hyun of Park Young Story, who readily agreed to the publication of this book and supported its publication, and to the editorial staff who edited it beautifully.

April 20, 2021
By commission of the authors
Written by Kang Seon-bo

---From the "Preface"