Ashley Quarcoo ETA :: 2002 - 2003 Hanbada Middle School
L
ast month, I sat on a plane on my way to Seoul, dreaming of hodduck and yujacha. It was my first trip back to Korea since 2004, when I had returned after the conclusion of my Fulbright Award to attend the graduation of my 3rd grade students at Hanbada Middle School in Busan. I wanted to return to Korea to say farewell to the only class of students I had the privilege of teaching for an entire year, to reconnect with my favorite host teachers before they were transferred to new schools, and to visit my dear fellow ETA friend, who had remained in Korea to reconnect with her Korean birth family. That visit represented a hundred points of light of my ETA year in Korea. I recently re-read an essay I wrote in 2003 for the Korea Fulbright Review, reflecting on my year of teaching and learning as an ETA. At its core, the essay and the year that it chronicled was a reflection of a very personal journey – that of a young, African-American woman navigating the boundaries of her own identity in a culture that did not necessarily celebrate diversity. I will never know whether my lessons on Nina Simone or Martin Luther King cultivated a more nuanced understanding of American society among my students. What I do know much more clearly today is the impact that each of my interactions – with my students, my fellow teachers, and my fellow ETAs – had on my own sense of self and my ability to successfully navigate a new culture and an unfamiliar setting. I credit my ETA experience with shaping both personal interests and professional aspirations that remain with me today. Following my return to the United States, I became a Teach for America Corps Member in New
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| Fulbright ETA Program 20 years in Korea
