1997-1998Christopher Myers Asch

Christopher Myers Asch

ETA :: 1997-1998

Daejeon Jungang Girls’ Middle School

It was my first field trip with my middle schoolers in Daejeon. The entire eighth grade – several hundred girls – was scheduled to hike a couple miles up to a Buddhist temple hidden in the mountains outside the city. I confess, I was a bit apprehensive. Before coming to Korea, I had taught elementary school in rural Mississippi, and I knew that field trips were hell on teachers – they involved hollering, chasing kids, and searching for children gone astray.

As we got off the buses, visions of chaos filled my head, particularly when I noticed that only about half a dozen teachers had come on the trip. The teachers congregated at the base of the mountain and began chitchatting idly as the students disappeared. The girls had organized themselves into their classes and were marching, two by two, up the mountain. Without any hesitation, the teachers eventually started ambling up as well. When we reached the top, I saw a dozen large circles of girls, all eating lunch and entertaining themselves with dancing and singing. The teachers and I sat together and enjoyed a leisurely meal as dozens of students plied us with their mom’s kimbap and other goodies. The rest of the day was equally stress-free – I did not holler at all (except for a hearty “yaaaa-ho!” at the top).

I often tell that story to my friends and colleagues in education to underscore the profound differences in educational culture between Korea and America. Though many American education reformers focus on the high scores Korean students achieve on international tests, my Fulbright experience gave me a

deeper insight into how culture and character shape Korean education. From the honorific title given to teachers to the unwavering support of parents and outsiders, I learned just how much teachers are valued in Korea. The structure of a teacher’s work schedule – which encouraged lesson planning and teacher collaboration – contrasted sharply with my experience in American schools, where harried teachers barely had time for a bathroom break. My Korean students were more deferential and well-behaved than my American kids, and they also were given more responsibility and freedom in many ways.

After Korea, I returned to Mississippi to launch a non-profit education program where I sought, to encourage American students to develop the positive habits that I saw in so many Korean students – diligence, discipline, dedication. In our program, we offered Saturday School, taekwondo training, and night-time study sessions to help get our low-income students on the college track. I now work in higher education and do much of the same thing.

So much was crammed into that one short year: – great food, long nights at the noraebang, the “IMF times” when the real value of our salaries dropped by 50% in a matter of weeks. But what endure fifteen years later are the stories – stories of my host family, stories of random acts of kindness from Korean strangers, and one particularly powerful story of middle school students marching up a mountain on their own.