Lucky


Heather Glick
ESL Teacher
Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District
EPIK Teacher 2004-2005
My family's last name means "luck." Our full name was shortened when my grandfather arrived at Ellis Island from Romania at the age of sixteen. My great-grandmother's maiden name means "teacher" in Yiddish. Who would ever have dreamed I would realize the true potential of my name in a country so far from my ancestry as the Republic of Korea?

Traveling and exploring different cultures and foods has been a part of my life ever since I can remember. By the time I arrived in Chuncheon, I had lived in three different countries and visited nearly twenty others on four continents, yet this was my first trip to Asia. A year earlier I had been working at Columbia University as the coordinator for study abroad programs. My boss also oversaw the Fulbright scholarship application process, and in dealing with the paperwork and advising students, I decided to apply for a teaching assistant position in the country that sounded the most far away and exotic - South Korea. At that time, I had virtually no knowledge of the peninsula other than that of the Korean War, and that was high school-level Social Studies knowledge at best. Even my friends of Korean ancestry kept their cultures so hidden that it took me till the age of twenty-eight to taste my first bibimbap - an odd thing for a girl who had lived most of her life forty minutes from New York City, diversity capital of the world. My application was accepted and I first came to Korea as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, and a year later, I was introduced to the English Program in Korea (EPIK), which is where my luck truly began.

At first, living in Korea posed numerous challenges for me. By the end of my first month in Korea, I was sure I never wanted to see another grain of rice again. I had never eaten so much rice in my life, and I was getting a crash-course in Korean cuisine from a university cafeteria. After the fourth week, I had a breakthrough. I'm not sure if it was the two hours of tae-kwon-do I was doing each day, or the Korean language lessons, or the general adjustment to the country, but in any case, rice was now becoming sweet and filling, even a sort of comfort food. Little did I realize at the time that this would be a metaphor for my two-and-a-half years in Korea that were yet to come.
Aside from what I was ingesting, there were a myriad of other mental and physical ordeals to overcome. I quickly learned that the only thing the English and Korean languages had in common was that the subject came first in the sentence. Everything else was a huge puzzle, right down to the telling of time. (It will always remain a mystery to me why Koreans use Korean-derived numbers to tell the hour on a clock but Sino-Korean numbers for the minutes.) In the Fulbright program, communicating and living with a Korean family was also largely challenging, yet greatly rewarding for obvious reasons. In the EPIK program, branching off and taking care of my own apartment also proved trying. The biggest challenge, however, was having to adjust to the school environment which is so different than that of the United States.

When I switched over to the EPIK program, I became the luckiest teacher in the world because I got to teach in Seongseo High School in Daegu for a second year. I loved that school in particular because I had persevered through a difficult adjustment period with the help mostly of the Korean English teachers there who had now become my friends. I was also particularly lucky because I was very close in age to many of the Korean English teachers with whom I worked. I learned quickly from them that Koreans ask personal questions, such as age, because they want to know how to speak to you - that there are actual grammatical forms to use with people younger versus older than oneself. This is something that does not exist in English, and something that is fascinating once you understand its background. Thus, I was lucky because I believe being of similar age made it psychologically easier for those teachers to consider me a potential "friend" rather than simply a coworker. Overall, moreso than the students I taught, it was the bonds I developed with these Korean teachers that made my stay in Korea so rewarding on a personal level.

Korean schools and American schools clearly have many differences. In 2004, the profile of Daegu was that its school days were longer than in some other parts of the country; seniors in high school went home at 11pm or midnight, juniors left at 9pm, and most other students either also stayed till 9pm or left at 6pm after "self-study." This kind of situation would never happen in the United States because while American teachers work very hard and work very long hours, they do not wish to be solely responsible for their students' discipline and work habits. Additionally, I believe American teachers would not be willing to sacrifice that kind of personal time to supervise students at night; family, freedom, and after-school athletics take precedence. In the United States, teachers expect parents to discipline their children, whereas in Korea, teachers are expected to discipline the students, or so I have been told. With regard to these differences, I would like to praise the Korean teachers, especially the "homeroom" teachers, for taking on the role of disciplinarian/guidance counselor. In American schools, we do not place so much responsibility in a single teacher in terms of the welfare of individual students, and the Korean teachers I witnessed were extremely professional and responsible in dealing with their students. I really cannot stress enough how fortunate and proud I felt to be a part of such a dedicated group of teachers and administrators who truly took me in as one of them.
It's the little things I remember about working at a high school in Korea that really stick with me, and I am often reminded of them at the school where I work. I have just completed my third year as a teacher of English as a Second Language for the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District at Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York. One of the most enjoyable times I spent was teaching the English teachers, whether during their free periods or after school in the EPIK teacher education program. I worked hard at it and enjoyed it so much that some of my "students" (including Earth Science, History, and English teachers) volunteered to tutor me in Korean during their free periods. It was a true exchange, not only of language, but of good will. Other fond memories are sometimes so small yet so meaningful, like arriving at my desk after class to a peeled hard-boiled egg sitting on a square of toilet paper with a miniature mound of salt next to it¡¦In an American school, you may be more likely to notice that your lunch has gone missing from the refrigerator than to receive an unconditional offering of a peeled egg, complete with salt and not even a note as to its benefactor. Each and every day, I was amazed at how Korean teachers would drop everything they were doing to help me or to help each other, caring more about the good of the group rather than the individual. I truly believe working and living in that type of environment has made me a nicer and more patient teacher and person. My tolerance level in general has increased by living in Korea and dealing with so many differences.
I'm ecstatic to report that during my stay in Korea, the good times were many and the hard times relatively few. Even difficult situations, such as walking down the street and facing small children pointing and saying, "miguk saram!" turned into positive ones. For example, I countered this attention by wearing, for Halloween, a black sweater saying "waeguk saram" in simple white lettering. Thus, I turned an uncomfortable experience into a fun one while celebrating by learning to stand out at the club where I was learning to dance salsa. I could not have asked for a more varied or meaningful experience in my life. I also could not have asked for a stronger support system than I found in EPIK teachers and staff.

Looking back, I recall the EPIK orientation as one of the most amusing and interesting times I have spent in Korea. I met some absolutely wonderful people, many of which I am still in touch with today. There were so many of us from all walks of life, all ages, all experiences, and all hailing from different countries where English is spoken as the native language. We enjoyed our time together so much so that we forged a web of support for ourselves which I depended on during my stay in Korea. I often turned to my EPIK friends as advice-givers, local travel buddies, or even mogyoktang partners. I consider myself a truly "lucky teacher" to have met these amazing people. I hope the EPIK program continues to grow and flourish, bringing joy and enrichment such as I had to all future participants.