The number of North Korean defectors who
have settled in the South now exceeds 28,000, and children make up a large
proportion of this group. Accordingly, education for these children is becoming
an important topic. Unification Media Group and Daily NK met with Lee Heung
Hoon, the principal of Yeomyung School, to learn more about the obstacles these
defector children face and the educational philosophy of the school.
“I would like the students to grow up to
help achieve reunification and become people who can contribute to North Korean
society once that happens,” Lee said, explaining that the school’s objectives were to groom talented individuals for unification, develop a school system that can
be implemented in a reunified North Korea, and create a greater consensus for
reunification among the public.
The school places great
importance on instilling self-confidence in its students, who even
have a daily mantra they say together: “I am in charge of my own life,
and I set my own goals for my life.” He explained that the goal of this
exercise is to ensure students have their own goals in life and work to live
with greater responsibility.
[Daily NK] 1. Yeomyung School is an alternative school
for defector teenagers and the children of defectors. Can you introduce the
school to us in greater detail?
[Lee Heung Hoon] Our school opened in September 2004. 2002
marked the year when the annual number of defectors arriving in the South
reached over 1,000. At the time, Korean churches came together to discuss what
role they could play, and one answer was to train and educate young defectors
so that they could work towards reunification. That’s how the school came
about. When it first opened there were eight teachers and 23 students. Then we moved to Namsan, Seoul in 2008. A couple of years down the line, in March 2010, we received official
accreditation from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, thereby becoming
the first alternative school to become accredited.
2. How many teachers are there now, and how
many students enter the school and graduate each year?
There are 14 teachers on our staff right
now and one of them is from the North. 172 students have so far graduated from
our school. 77 of them are currently university students, 57 are working, and
the rest are either looking for jobs or are homemakers. Currently, there are
115 students at our school.
3. You must be very familiar with defector
children due to your long experience in educating them. Since the children
arrive in the South at such a sensitive age, what is their biggest difficulty
as they begin living in the South?
Their biggest difficulty is living in
unstable families. When you say family, it typically means parents and
siblings, but not many defector families have both parents and siblings, and 20
percent of our students live in single parent homes. Plus, even the parents themselves
have difficulty adjusting to life in the South.
On top of that, parents and
children often don’t have very good relationships either because they have been
separated for a long time, or the parents abandoned their children in the
North. The result is that the students are deprived of the love and support
they need from their families.
Also, in the North there are not many
opportunities for education because of economic struggles, so there’s a lot of
disparity in their academic performance. With the South and North being such
different societies, it is also difficult for them to overcome feelings of
disparity, cultural differences, and differences in lifestyles. The students
especially have a difficult time getting adjusted to the difference in language.
4. Does Yeomyung School have its own
special education method? What do you center your education on?
Our school has a culture unlike any other
school. First, this is a school overflowing with love. We always emphasize to
the teachers that they should love their students, and vice versa. Love is the
foundation for everything we do at the school. The dormitory superintendents
also strive to love and embrace the students as if they were their own
children.
Second, we teach basic societal skills to
help them adapt to life in South Korean society. They include basic life skills,
access to services offered by the government and other institutions (such as
banks), law, economics, comparative history, etc. This curriculum is designed
to compensate for the huge difference in modern and contemporary history taught
by the North and South.
Third, we aim to run the school as a
student-centered one. Because the students come to the school with varying
levels of education, classes are organized by ability. We supplement their
education by arranging extra classes and personal tutoring during lunchtime and
in the afternoon. We also frequently send them to the hospital for checkups.
Most of the students are in poor health and suffer from a lot of different illnesses of varying severity. So we
offer a comprehensive education by looking not only at their educational needs,
but their emotional and physical needs as well.
5. It seems that the teachers as well as
you perform multiple roles at the school.
The teachers have to play multiple roles
to care for the students who come from different backgrounds and are in
different circumstances. They have to be teachers but act as parents and
guardians as well. Our teachers have gone to police stations, courts, they’ve
made home visits, and more.
In addition, since this is a private school, we
have to be financially self-sufficient. This means that teachers must wear two hats: educator and fundraiser. They are highly versatile, always rising to the challenge of performing a multitude of tasks and demands outside of their original expertise.
6. Yeomyung School celebrated its 10th
anniversary last year, and some 150 students have graduated over that period of
time. What is your vision for their role in society?
Despite the hardships they’ve faced in
life, the students have a kind and innocent side to them. They are aware that
they are the recipients of sponsorship and the service of many, and, in turn,
the students want to serve others in the future. We have many students who want
to work as nurses or in social welfare where they can do precisely that. I want
them to grow up as contributors to society.
In particular, the students have a
fondness for their hometowns. A lot of them say they would like to return to
where they grew up once the country is unified. I would like them to become
people that can contribute to unification and also help North Korea once the
country becomes one again.
7. What can students from the North
specifically do in the unified Korea that we’ll see in the future?
If reunified, the country will most likely
revolve around South Korea, meaning it will be a society based on democracy and
a free market economy, which are systems that North Koreans are unfamiliar
with. I want the students to strengthen their abilities so that they can be the
forerunners in implementing the free market system, provide education on civil society, or lead the way as teachers and create a shared understanding on what
a liberal democracy is.
8. What is the goal for Yeomyung School,
considering that it will only become even more important as an alternative
school for defector children?
Last year we celebrated ‘Yeomyung Day’ for the 11th foundation anniversary to mark the beginning of the
second decade of the school’s existence, as well as to set out the school’s
vision: to groom students so they can grow
up to contribute to unification.
Second, because the education systems of North
and South Korea are different, we want to think about developing a model school
to be set up in the North after reunification and figure out what kind
of curriculum and educational method we want to use for North Korean students,
as well as examine how to train teachers for the model school and reeducate
teachers.
Third, it seems that although people hope for reunification, they
have a lot of different thoughts on it. We would like to work to create a
broader consensus for people’s drive toward unification and be at the center of
it.
9. You said you held a special event entitled ‘11th Yeomyung Day.’ This is an annual event,
but what exactly does it entail?
Many people come each year and no doubt
leave inspired. Last year’s theme was ‘miracle.’ As I said before, the fact that
defector children are studying in the South is itself a miracle. Also, at
Yeomyung, the students live the miracle of having not only their lives, but
also their worldview, life goals, and values change. We share these miracles
with the visitors as well as the miracles that we anticipate will soon take
place. Because everyone who comes to our school and shows us interest helps
create these miracles, we would love to communicate with them.
10. What were your initial thoughts about
the school when you were first appointed, and have they changed since actually
managing the school?
When I first came, the school had a warm
atmosphere, but I felt that the teachers were not able to focus on teaching
because they had to perform many other roles. So I thought it would be
necessary to separate the administrative function they were playing and have
them spend more time preparing for lessons and give guidance to the students. I
also thought it was necessary to set out specific goals and play the role of
making progress in relation to those goals.
11. How do you help children who have gone
through difficult times better adjust?
That’s an important question. Everyone has
a history, and for some people, it becomes a burden, while others use it as a
springboard. The students all have a history of having risked their lives to
get out of the country. We want them to reflect on their experiences in a
positive way.
We place a great emphasis on taking
initiative–you are the driver of your life and you alone. There’s no need to blame others
or give excuses. What’s important is that the student act as the center of his
or her own life by taking responsibility for his or her actions. We teach that
the past provides valuable experiences. As mentioned before, we have students say out loud every day : ‘I have a goal for my life, and I am the one living it.’ In other words,
we want them to establish their own aims in life and take responsibility for the kind of life they lead to achieve them.
12. I’m sure that watching the students
grow up, graduate, and go on to lead their own lives is very rewarding. Do you
have any special stories that you can share?
Many graduates go to university. One
student’s initial life goal was to become rich and lead a comfortable life, but
by the time of his graduation, he wanted to contribute to reunification
and world peace. The student is now at a top tier university and excelling academically.
On Mondays, we give lectures usually on
moral and ethical issues often coupled with discussions on mindfulness. One day, I was talking to a student on our
way to camp was very surprised to discover that she remembered all
the lectures and thought about them often. This student now wants to become a
nurse and help people in distress. Despite the student’s difficulties at home,
the student is currently in nursing school, and is also a scholarship
recipient.
Another student is currently living in Australia,
and we stay in touch through social media. She found life difficult
initially, but remembered the word ‘miracle’ as well as our daily principles of
life that we used to say out loud and found them to be of great comfort and motivation.
13. I know that sponsors play a critical
role in the functioning of the school. Can you tell us about any special
sponsors?
We have a sponsor who works in the
livestock industry. This donor provides tours to students with an interest in animal husbandry and helps them enter the field by funding relevant scholarships. This generous supporter does so with the hopes that the student recipients will in turn apply their expertise to improve food security in North Korea when reunification
comes.
There are a host of other examples. Hana Financial Group holds a birthday
celebration for us once a month. An executive at Samsung sends us cakes. Other
sponsors sometimes buy us lunches. Groups from churches and other charities
often bring us food. So a sponsorship doesn’t solely consist of money
donations. The Jang Mi Ran Foundation once rented the Jangchung Gymnasium for
an entire day for the use of the teachers and students.
