Students by the number: Old tradition dies hard in Korea’s classrooms

In the 1970s and '80s, when as many as 60 to 70 students were packed into a single classroom at school, students’ height served as a key barometer of order. At the start of each semester, students were given numbers for checking attendance based on their height and seated accordingly, from the front to the back of the classroom. Records from the Seoul Archives show that in some schools, seating arrangements were adjusted midsemester to reflect growth spurts. For teachers, it was more than a seat