Overview
What is freedom? How important is freedom to you? People use the word freedom differently, but when we look at North Korea, there is little disagreement that the citizens are not free. This segment looks at one person’s escape from North Korea.

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Grade level and subjects
• Recommended for grades 6-12
• Subjects: Government
• Works in Classroom, Hybrid, and Homeschool settings

What students will learn
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
• discuss basic social, economic, and political conditions in North Korea;
• compare and contrast life in a totalitarian regime with life in a freer, more democratic country; and
• evaluate the results of a government that has unlimited power.

Key concepts and terms covered
North Korea was dark and Http.

Sample discussion questions
• What surprised you the most about this video?
• What type of government does North Korea have?
• If the people in North Korea are truly victims, why don’t they rise up and overthrow their rulers?
• Yeonmi Park wrote that citizens of North Korea have no access to the internet. But aren’t there a lot of bad or inappropriate websites on the internet? In a way, isn’t the government protecting its people?
• The North Korea that Yeonmi Park describes is a country in which most people are completely equal. Is anything wrong with that? Isn’t the goal of government to make people equal?

What’s in the free teacher’s guide
This printable 10-page Teacher's Guide includes a lesson description, learning objectives, key vocabulary, a fill-in viewing guide with answer key, discussion and analysis questions, and classroom activities.

Standards alignment
Aligned to state standards — use the SITC Standards Tool to match this video to the standards in your state.