The wind and the sun is one of the best-known fables of Aesop.
They quarrel over who is stronger and decide to settle the argument by making a traveler remove his cloak. The wind blows with all its might. But the harder it blows, the tighter the traveler clutches his coat. The sun simply shines a little warmer, and before long the traveler removes it himself.
Gentleness can be more powerful than force.
Perhaps a true adult is one who possesses not the power to overpower another, but the warmth and understanding to open another person's heart.
That lesson was quietly demonstrated on Monday by Lee Kyu-yeon, principal of Gwangju Jeil High School.
A week after students of Seoul-based Paichai High School mocked the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement with chants of "Let's go to Starbucks" and "Tank Day" during a baseball tournament, all 36 players, accompanied by parents, teachers and school officials, traveled to Gwangju to apologize in person.
The atmosphere was heavy. Many of the teenagers kept their heads down. Some cried. Parents cried with them.
Lee could have humiliated them further. Instead, he lifted them.
"Raise your heads. Straighten your shoulders," he told the students. "Your future is not over."
He reminded them that sincere apology begins in the heart but is ultimately proven through how one lives afterward.
The greatest act of asking forgiveness, he said, would be to meet again on the baseball field and play a fair, honorable game.
He also refused to let the children shoulder the burden alone.
"It was adults who led the children in the wrong direction," he said. "That responsibility belongs to us."
Those few words may have done more to teach accountability than any punishment ever could.
Remarkably, Lee also reached back into history not to deepen division but to build a bridge. He reminded both schools that their proud traditions were intertwined: that students of Paichai had joined the 1929 student independence movement alongside students of Gwangju Jeil, and that the inscription on Gwangju Jeil's student independence memorial was written by President Syngman Rhee himself.
History, in his telling, became not another weapon but common ground.
On the very same day, however, another adult paid a different price.
Lee Byung-tae, vice chairman of the presidential committee on regulatory rationalization resigned after mounting pressure over remarks criticizing what he described as the "sacralization" of the May 18 movement. He argued that the punishment imposed on the students had become excessive and warned against turning youthful misconduct into ideological warfare.
His comparison with Kim Il-sung and North Korea drew fierce condemnation, prompting the presidential office to recommend his resignation.
One can disagree with his analogy. Many reasonably will.
But his departure also illustrates another uncomfortable reality: in today's South Korea, the boundary between defending historical memory and narrowing the space for public debate has become increasingly difficult to navigate.
The two developments offer a revealing contrast.
One adult exercised authority by extending grace. Another lost his position after questioning the limits of public orthodoxy.
Both episodes were responses to the same incident.
The students themselves accepted responsibility without excuse. They traveled hundreds of kilometers, apologized face to face, and left with tears in their eyes. Whether six months of suspension was proportionate will remain open to debate.
What is beyond dispute is that they confronted the consequences of their actions.
Democracies require accountability. They also require room for forgiveness.
Without accountability, history is forgotten. Without forgiveness, history becomes a prison.
Leadership is measured not only by how firmly it condemns wrongdoing, but also by whether it leaves open a path for people—especially young people—to become better than their worst mistake.
As author Simon Sinek once observed, "Accountability is hard. Blame is easy."
On Monday in Gwangju, one principal showed the difference.
The author is the managing editor of AJP.
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