Get Schooled / True Education — Chapter 33¶
Complete detailed sequential transcription¶
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Opening — Min Ji-woong demands release¶
Min Ji-woong shouts inside the juvenile facility:
“LET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE!”
He claims that he has already done enough and threatens to report the adults for placing a juvenile offender in prison.
Another inmate tells him to be quiet because everyone else is sleeping.
The narration explains the normal institutional response to a nighttime disturbance: guards identify the person responsible, attach a disciplinary marker, and send the offender to a punishment room.
The story then moves into Ma Kyeom’s past.
Ma Kyeom’s childhood crime¶
Ma remembers an ugly cat whose constant meowing irritated him.
The sound continued until late afternoon and became unbearable.
He says he wanted to kill the cat.
Instead:
“I KILLED A PERSON.”
The panels avoid making the act visually sensational. The focus is Ma’s emotional response afterward.
He believed he would receive the death penalty.
He asked his mother:
“CAN I REALLY GO HOME?”
“I KILLED SOMEONE.”
“WOULDN’T I GET THE DEATH PENALTY?”
He was told that children within the relevant age bracket could not be criminally punished in the ordinary adult system.
The chapter also discusses children under ten and the absence of a direct criminal mechanism for reprimanding them.
Ma says that even in third grade he perfectly understood what the adults meant.
“THE ADULTS WHO MADE THIS MUST’VE THOUGHT THAT KIDS WERE STUPID.”
From that moment forward, he exploited the law without hesitation.
“THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS GETTING LEGALLY PUNISHED.”
The backstory explains how legal protection became the foundation of a predatory identity.
Solitary confinement¶
Min Ji-woong is moved into a narrow disciplinary cell.
At first he is relieved to be away from the older inmates.
Then time becomes impossible to measure.
He counts meals and cannot tell whether he has been confined for hours or days.
“HOW MANY DAYS HAVE I BEEN IN HERE?”
“WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?”
He begins shouting that he is losing his mind.
He begs to return to an ordinary cell.
Na’s question¶
Na speaks to him from outside.
He tells Min to think carefully about why he was placed there.
“IF YOU GET IT RIGHT, I’LL SEND YOU HOME IMMEDIATELY.”
Min becomes hopeful.
Na says the answer will be checked once a day. Every wrong answer adds more time.
Min assumes the task is simple.
He decides to write a dramatic apology full of regret and pitiful language.
“DEEP REGRETS AND PRETENDING TO BE PITIFUL!”
“I’LL WRITE WHAT YOU WANT.”
He spends more than eight hours creating what he believes is a perfect apology letter.
Na rejects it.
“ONE MORE DAY ADDED TO YOUR PRISON TIME.”
Min cannot understand how the answer could be wrong.
Repeated false apologies¶
Min abandons pride and tries again.
He becomes more servile, more theatrical, and more desperate.
Every version is rejected.
When he screams and creates another disturbance, he is restrained.
An inmate tells him that he cannot make a fuss while locked up.
The regime is presented as a prison rule, not an emotional argument he can win.
Eight days¶
By the eighth day of solitary confinement, Min is physically and psychologically depleted.
He says he cannot breathe and that he is going to lose his mind.
Outside society thinks of him as young, but inside:
“THERE’S NO MERCY HERE AT ALL.”
He concludes:
“PRISON IS NOT A PLACE THAT PEOPLE SHOULD LIVE IN!”
The sentence is an important development, but it still describes only his suffering.
Na reviews the drafts¶
Na finally opens the door enough to review Min’s accumulated writings.
He calls the first document Min’s “first draft of agony.”
Then he laughs.
“YOU REALLY ARE STUPID…”
“WHY DID YOU WRITE DOWN ALL THE WRONG ANSWERS LIKE THIS?”
“THIS IS THE REASON WHY YOU’RE STILL IN HERE!”
Min has written about fear, regret, punishment, and wanting release.
He has not yet identified the victims, the pain he caused, or the belief that allowed him to treat other people as disposable.
The chapter ends before the correct answer is spoken.
Chapter-level observations¶
1. Ma Kyeom understood the law as a child¶
The story rejects the assumption that age automatically prevented awareness. Ma explicitly says he understood and chose exploitation.
2. Solitary confinement removes the audience¶
Min’s earlier identity depended on friends, jokes, threats, and visible bravado. Alone, none of those performances work.
3. Apology remains self-centered¶
Every draft asks the authority to recognize how pitiful Min has become. None begins with the person he robbed, injured, or attempted to kill.
4. Recognizing that prison is cruel is not yet remorse¶
Min has learned why confinement is terrible for him. Na is waiting for him to understand why his own violence was terrible for someone else.