Page 15 - 2018 송도타임즈(통권 10호)

SONGDO HIGH SCHOOL · INTERVIEW

The Goddess of Literature

By Ha Jae-woo, Jeong Jae-yeong, Park Seung-jong

You can meet a pretty and youthful teacher working in front of The difficulty normally does not come from the students but
her desk when you open the door of second-grade teacher’s of- my lack of skills. When dealing with some hyperactive stu-
fice, on the third floor of Songdo High School. Literary teacher, dents, I ask myself how I need to deal with them. Sometimes I
Eun Jae Park, is in charge of literature for the second grade, have to express my anger, which I try to avoid as far as possi-
and she must be one of the most enviable things of sociology ble as I know this is not optimal way of being a teacher. They
students. But only one thing that would make the students de- don’t really bother though.
pressed would be the fact that this first semester will be her Actually the hardest thing at Songdo High School is the steep
last semester in Songdo High School. At the beginning of June, hill :)
before the final test in the first semester, we conducted an in-
terview with teacher Park at the Faculty of Study Support Centre
with nine carefully selected important questions. Q. You are also known as the Goddess of Literature by all grades.
Do you like this nickname? Is there another nickname you want
to be called?
Q. What made you become a Korean teacher?
A. To be honest, I have never heard of that nickname. The inter-
A. I didn’t really want to be a Korean teacher, but I liked my viewer may have been rushing in. :) According to my memo-
teacher back in the days when I was a student, because ever ry, I rarely hear any pretty words. It feels quite strange and I
since I was a kid I felt like I am an actual teacher. In fact, I got crack a smile every time I hear that kindly expressions. And I
a perfect score in my ethics course just because I really liked always show off my nickname to my friends.
ethics teacher, also I got decent grades in maths also because The nickname I want to be called is teacher who teaches
I liked my maths teacher. well. I want to see a comment that calling me a teacher giv-
A teacher may not be able to give positive changes to all of ing more interesting lecture than any other people. That’s all
his or her students, but I thought it would be worthwhile even I want.
if one student could lead himself in the right direction. In
fact, I am no good at maths or English, but I think I became
a Korean teacher because I always have books on literature. Q. I have heard you are going to other place after the first semester.
Could you tell us a bit about where you are going to be at?

Q. What is the most difficult part of teaching Korean? A. I always say I don’t know about these questions, but I haven’t
really decided yet. You can also visit around Dongchun-dong
A. I think it’s a discrepancy between the terminology with which and meet me in a comfortable attire.
I studied and the ones that general students can understand.
The words that I used to study and familiar with are often
difficult for high school students. Also literature have many Q. What, do you think, is the biggest difference between your days
differences in interpretation and I have heavily thought about at school and students’ these days?
where I should be working as a teacher.
A. First of all, I was surprised how different the atmosphere at
school was. In my days, I went to the movies or studied my-
Q. What was the best and the hardest part of teaching students at self during club time, but those students worked very hard on
Songdo High School? classes and performance evaluations. And I was amazed that
there are so many enthusiastic clubs like the mock U.N. and
A. The best part was students were really, really kind, and you Paroo. Also they read a lot of study books. So many things
guys have no idea how nice thing it is. I have a lot of acquaint- had changed.
ances in tutoring around me, but I have not seen students as
mild as this school. Of course there are some slightly kinky
students sleeping and being distractive in the class, which is Q. There are so many students exhausted by diagnostic tests and
expected at all, but most of my students do concentrate on academic works these days. Which literature works would you
my lecture and like me a lot, so I like them too. recommend that can comfort students?

November 2018 No.10 13