Author: Daniel Fawcett

Final Thoughts on DESK19

July 30, 2019 / Daniel Fawcett / 0 Comments

In many ways, DukeEngage Korea was what I had expected, but my expectations were very high. Before leaving, I had anticipated Seoul to be a bustling city filled with culture and excitement. I expected a challenge teaching students but also thought it would be fun and fulfilling. I was also confident that this DukeEngage group, working as team, could be very successful teaching and getting the students excited about learning English. Looking back, I feel that those expectations were either met or exceeded.

Seoul was as cool of a city that I’ve ever been to! There was so much to see and do, the culture was rich, and the food was delicious. I had so much fun getting to practice the Korean I had learned in a classroom at Duke and each new Korean phrase I learned in Seoul felt like a new accomplishment. Since my Korean is at an elementary level, I was very fortunate to be able to spent a lot of time speaking with elementary age students. Learning about another country’s customs was very eye opening because it made me think about what it means to be an American in a global environment. Additionally, observing Korean culture gave me a new perspective on my own culture.

Teaching the elementary school students at Jiguchon was at many times exhausting. It took a lot of energy to try to maintain the attention of students that are so easily distracted and sometimes seemed determined to not learn. The difficulty of that challenge might have been underestimated but I knew teaching students at the elementary age wouldn’t be easy. Moreover, the time and effort it takes to develop a lesson plan and implement it successfully makes the feeling of seeing a student who has mastered a vocabulary word or grammatical structure that much more gratifying. Moving on to the Wooriduel School, relative to Jiguchon, teaching at Wooriduel was a breeze. The students I taught there were much older (17-25) and were eager to learn. Of course they weren’t as vivacious as the Jiguchon students, but the Wooriduel students asked good questions and paid close attention to my lessons. As I explained in my last post, I felt very fulfilled teaching the two students assigned to me for English class because they had an important college admissions exam coming up where English would be tested.

Before traveling across the world, I imagined a wonderful experience in Korea. Now that I’m back in the US, I can safely say that my time in Korea went beyond my imagination. I feel so lucky to have been chosen to be part of this DukeEngage team. Together we spoke 4 languages and I felt that we all offered something different that made us effective. Since we all got along well, I believe we were able to cooperate as a group that was greater than the sum of its parts. I thank DukeEngage, my site coordinator, and my director for giving me a chance to have my most gratifying and exciting Duke experience yet.

First Week at Woorideul

July 7, 2019 / Daniel Fawcett / 0 Comments

After saying goodbye to the elementary students at Jiguchon last week, we said hello to our new students at Woorideul.  Woorideul is a school for students of North Korean background.  That is, they are either refugees from North Korea or are a child of a North Korean parent.  The latter was the case for most of the students I interacted with.   They were children of one North Korean and one Chinese parent.  For most, Chinese was their primary language and they had spent several years living in usually North East China.  Woorideul aims to help its students adjust to South Korean life and ultimately send them to college or help them find a decent job.  The students at Woorideul vary in age from late teens to early thirties.  Most of the Duke Engagers were accustomed to referring to our Jiguchon students as kids but now many of us had students in the class that were older than us!  Furthermore, some of the student were parents themselves!  The parents were hoping to get a better education and then a good job so they could take care of their children who were often times still in China.
When I got a sense of the purpose of the school and the students who attended I was initially apprehensive of teaching English there.  Sure getting to know people who actually escaped North Korea and maybe even helping them sounds great.  However, what good would teaching them English do?  Some of the students are not even too familiar with Korean yet so of course they should learn Korean first.  As for the others, when would they ever use English in their daily lives and how does learning English help assimilate to South Korea?  While I’m sure my fellow Duke Engagers and I have all reached our own conclusions to these questions, I feel very fortunate to have found the teaching I’ve done this first week to be meaningful.
All the Duke Engagers were assigned individually to different classes.  I was assigned the most advanced class which consisted of only two students.  These students were advanced enough that they had the large goal of attending a Korean University.  If they able to gain admittance, there are many opportunities for valuable scholarships for students of their background.  The admission exam tests science, Korean history and writing, mathematics, sociology, and English.  My two students had already finished their preparation for most subjects but weren’t yet ready for the English portion.  They planned on taking the test in November.  Therefore, if I were able to increase their English level at all in the two weeks that I spend with them I’d be making a difference!  Furthermore, my students were eager to learn and willing to put effort in.  The combination of great students and then finding out that the information I was teaching them valuable made my experience feel very fulfilling.  Thus I really enjoyed me first week at Woorideul and I feel very grateful to spend even a very limited amount of time there.

Week 1: Thoughts from the Unification Education Institute

June 2, 2019 / Daniel Fawcett / 0 Comments

On Tuesday we arrived at the Unification Education Institute, and were ready to stay for three days to learn about South-North Korean relations. At the Unification Education Institute, we received several lectures on the state of the Korean peninsula and various pathways to peaceful unification. Our first lecture was delivered by Jeong Eun Chan. Professor Jeong was born and educated in the North Korea and even received her master’s degree at a North Korean university before defecting to the south. In her description of North Korean society, we found most interesting the marketization of the North Korean economy. In the past, all jobs were assigned by the government and most people lived off of their standard government. While everyone there still has government assignment jobs, most people engage in other economic activities at illegal markets to supplement their government wage which is less per month than the price of a 5kg bag of rice. Kim Jong Un, the autocratic ruler of the DPRK, has allowed these markets to exist and even grow. This seemed like a huge deal to us because it represents North Korea breaking out of its communist shell that had held so firm for over half a century! While this change has increased the public’s favoritism towards Kim Jung Un, many of us wondered if this could be the beginning of the collapse of regime as the citizens get a taste of economic freedom.

The subsequent lectures we heard at the Unification Education institute focused on the prospect of unification and the various ways in which it might occur. Due to the absence of polling or really any data on the public opinion of citizens of the DPRK, there was little discussion on what the feeling is in the north when it comes to rejoining with the south. However, it is undeniable that reunification would bring massive benefits to the 25 million people in the north outside of Kim’s inner circle. For one, if we assume that reunification means the entire peninsula falling under the republican government already established in the south, reunification would bring a plethora of new political freedoms to current citizens of the DPRK. They would finally be spared the human rights violations that are as bad or worse than anywhere else in the world. They would have a vote and a say in how their government operates. But perhaps even more important than the political freedoms would be the economic growth. This is because a stable source of food is the most basic need for a society. Throughout its history, millions of people have perished in the DPRK from starvation and malnutrition related illnesses during famines and crop shortages. The geography of the DPRK is largely mountainous and lacking land suitable for farming while South Korea, in addition to being a top ten economic power, consistently produces more rice than its population can eat. It is safe to say that after reunification, no one should ever starve in the Korean peninsula again. Thus, regardless of what public opinion of the north may be, unification is objectively a beneficial scenario for the people living in the DPRK.

On the other hand, there is plenty of polling data for South Korean views on unification. Surprisingly (to us at least), favorability towards unification largely correlates with age. The older generation, who remember the days of a single Korea and perhaps family remembers who were separated by the war, see reunification as a necessity. In contrast, the younger generation worries about the economic toll of developing the north would have on the south. Although it has been conjectured that reunification would bring long-term economic benefits to the entire peninsula, many young Korean professionals in the south worry about their already high taxes getting higher to foot the bill for building new infrastructure in the dilapidated north. These young Koreans don’t remember life before the war but instead remember a DPRK regime that constantly threatens and provokes the south. Noting the generational gap, our educational coordinator, Lee Seong Won told us that if reunification does not occur in the next 30 years, it is unlikely to happen at all.

Although we all had a great time at the education institute, we left with a dim picture of reunification. Thirty years seemed like a very tight window, and barring Kim Jung Un relinquishing his power willingly, reunification would almost certainly have to be precipitated by a collapse of the North Korean regime. How many people would Kim let starve or even kill before that could happen? It seems that the current administration in the South is doing their best to normalize relations with the north and maybe stronger ties between the two nations would lead towards progress to a single nation. In any case, there is a lot to learn from studying the political climate of the Korean peninsula and we were all grateful to be hosted at the institute and be taught by such wonderful professors.

-Daniel