student and teacher

June’s words are 학생, or “student” and 선생님, or “teacher.”

Anyone who works as a teacher can tell you this: You learn just as much from your students as they learn from you, if not more. This is something that I’ve found to be true on multiple levels in Korea. I’ve taught kids aged three up to 16 each of my four years here, and they’ve all taught me lessons. Some were expected (I’ve learned quite a bit of patience after so many kindergarten classes) and some were surprising, but all were valuable.

I’ve chosen these two words this month because of one class in particular. The class is a discussion and writing class that uses articles from a Korean-produced, English-language newspaper tailored to teenagers. The students are four girls ages 13 to 16 who have good enough ranges of vocabulary and grammatical skills that I can speak with them as I would native English speakers. They also have the ability to, often simultaneously, both drive me nuts and open my eyes to what makes Korea the way it is. The best example I can give of this happened a few weeks ago--we were in the middle of a discussion about North Korea’s most recent rocket launch, and the 14-year-old pulled double eyelid tape out of her bag. Google it if you’ve never heard of it, and you’ll understand why that was the end of talk about Kim Jong-un and his late father. We spent the rest of that class period as well as the next two talking about what Korean society deems beautiful--the pervasiveness and societal acceptance of plastic surgery, K-pop stars as role models, the value placed on material things--and how to get away from that mentality. I had them each think about the positive aspects of themselves and of the other girls and then share their thoughts so that we could talk about what makes a person who they are, inside and out. I hope that it had a positive effect on them, but regardless, it made me a lot more aware of how influenced kids are here by society and the media. I knew it was a lot, but the intensity of their reactions to it was disturbing. I came away from that situation understanding a lot better why the level of superficiality in this country isn’t going to drop any time soon.

There is one student in particular in that class with whom I’ve had especially good discussions. Her English name is Melody and she’s only 13, but she seems much older. Melody has been a student at the academy where I work, Kids Club, for nine years. She’s had a ton of different foreign and Korean teachers over that time, but none of that inconsistency has impeded her progress. Occasionally the other three will all be out for tests (they are in middle school but she’s still in elementary), and it will be just Melody and I. I don’t dread that one-on-one like I would with some other students, because she is extremely intelligent and has opinions that she discusses openly. From her I have learned about the education system here, Korean history as it relates to the countries around it, and what this society holds as valuable. Through conversations about articles on ties to Japan, North Korea’s crazy dictators, or the Chinese claiming “Arirang” (a Korean folksong), I’ve come to better understand how an intense nationalism has spread through this relatively young country.

History is written by whoever has the pen and is depicted by whoever has the brush. Usually it’s whoever has won the battles or the wars; that’s true everywhere. In Korea, however, the facts in the history books are accompanied by an oral history. Some tell events of the past with open contempt for those who have dominated the people here. It’s understandable that older Korean men and women who experienced the occupation by the Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule) and the Korean War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War) have some terrible memories of those times. The stories they tell to their children and grandchildren are, naturally, going to reflect those memories. But often it’s not the stories that get passed along; only their emotion is passed on, and they don’t stop to think about the consequences of that anger being accepted without question. Many of my students have told me that they hate Japan, but can only tell me that it’s because their grandmother said she did, or because their father said they should. Melody, in all her intelligence and desire to learn, is one of those students.

There has been a positive outcome of those sentiments, however, at least for me as a teacher here. It’s led to conversations about different perspectives, the ability of people to change, and why it’s necessary to question the reason behind things. This is a society that functions on the premise of doing what one is “supposed to do,” of having the right look, the right grades, the right status...if I can get a few students to open their minds to other ways of thinking, then I have done my job as a teacher. That class of four girls has been a place for that discourse, and the learning on the parts of the students and myself has been a really cool experience.

I hope that you all are doing well and enjoying summer! I can’t believe that tomorrow is already the beginning of July. My parents are coming for a visit in just over three weeks, and I am extremely excited to see them and to show them my life here. I’ll have lots of pictures to post after they leave :)

Love,
Heather