Why Teach You a Lesson has become a global hit

Within a week of its release, Netflix’s Korean drama Teach You a Lesson reached the top of the platform’s global non-English rankings for the week of June 1-7. Directed by Hong Jong-chan and adapted from the 2020 webtoon Get Schooled, the 10-episode series turns a troubled-school setting into a vehicle for action and social criticism. At its center is the Educational Rights Protection Bureau, a government-backed unit created after South Korea’s education minister, Choi Gang-seok, loses his daughter, a teacher, to a student’s violence. The bureau is given extraordinary legal powers, and it is led by Na Hwa-jin, a former Special Forces captain turned inspector who works with Im Han-rim and Bong Geun-dae. Each episode presents a new case involving bullying, corruption, academic misconduct, juvenile crime, gambling, drug trafficking, exploitation, exam fraud, overbearing parents, or competition. Some storylines echo real incidents, including a 2023 case in Seoul in which a young teacher died by suicide after parental harassment. The drama has been popular across Asia and beyond, and it also went viral in China during gaokao season, when the country’s university entrance exam dominates public attention. Yet it has also faced criticism from Korean educators, who say it glorifies violence and corporal punishment. Beneath the fast-paced confrontations, the show keeps returning to one question: what is education for, when schools, families, and institutions fail the people they are meant to serve?