목요일 밤. 나의 유일한 학생이 스승의 은혜를 불러주었다. 그 동안, 그다지 많은 아이들을 가르치지도 않았고, 물론 스승의 날이라고 해서 특별하게 보낸 적도 전혀없다. 이 녀석이 나한테 와서 노래를 불러 준다고 했을 때, 무슨 또 엉뚱한 소리를 하는가보다 했는데… “스승의 은혜는 하늘 같아서~” 하면서 노래를 시작하는데, 일생일대(?)의 이 순간을 말로 형언할 수 있을까? 노래가 끝나고, 나도 모르게 그 녀석에게 “고맙다”라고 했다. 정말 고맙다. 눈물나게… 그래서 더욱 미안하다.

단지, 경제적인 이유로, 학교에 남기를 바라는 동료들의 권고를 뿌리치고, 또 다른 직장에 발을 들여 놓은지 두달하고 반이 지났다. 다들 모여서 수업얘기를 하고, 아이들 이야기를 할때마다, 내가 지금 무엇을 하고 있는지에 대한 회의감에 사로잡혀 있던 적이 한두번이 아니다. (물론 현재하고 있는 일에 대한 회의감이야 근무를 시작하고 며칠이 안되서 들기 시작했지만…) 그러나 때때로 지독하게 이 일을 하고 싶다는 생각이 든다. 물론 내가 지금 하지 못해서 더욱 그렇지만. that is why i really appreciate the greatest opportunity to teach this kid.

3월 한달 수업을 하고, 여러가지 이유로 그보다 더 많은 양을 쉬고 있다. 그러면 안된다는 걸 누구보다 잘 알면서 - 나이를 먹어가면, 어쩔수가 없는 걸까 - 놀지말고 공부하라고 갖은 잔소리를 해댄다. 그러나 어리석게도 나는 그동안 모든 탓을 공부를 하지 않고 있는 그 녀석에게 그 원인을 전이시키고 있었다는 생각이 문득 든다. 수업을 다시 시작할때까지, 아무것도 하지 않은 채 그저 함께 놀고만 있으면 된다고 생각을 하고 있던 나는 도대체 무엇이란 말인가? 놀고 있는 학생을 비난하면서, 나태한 교사에게 아무런 질책을 하지 않는 태도들은 얼마나 이기적인가?

수업을 끝내고 나서 제일 먼저 드는 생각이, 누구나 그렇겠지만, “좀 더 잘할 수 있었는데…” 이다. 수업의 방법이나 내용은 차후의 문제이다. 그보다 선행되어야 할 것은 교사의 마음가짐이고 태도이다. 교사 자신이 많은 이론과 박식한 지식을 갖고 있다거나, 혹은 똑똑한 제자를 가르치고 있다는 것에 대한 자부심보다는 그렇지 못하고 소외된 학생들을 이끌수 있는 교사의 능력이 더욱 가치있는 것이다. 어차피 똑똑하거나, 아니면 특히 요즘같이 경제적으로 형편이 좋은 아이들은 교사의 지적수준 혹은 교사의 지적능력과는 아무런 연관이 없는 듯하다. 교실밖에서 그런 아이들한테 얼마나 많은 기회가 주어지는가? 교사가 그런 아이들한테 할 수 있는 일이 과연 무엇일까? 오히려 외부로 밀려난 아이들에게 관심을 갖고 그 아이들과 함께 노력할 수 있는 것이 진정한 교육자이고, student-centered education이 아닐까 생각해 본다.

- early in the morning of teacher’s day.

나에게 잘해주는 교사를 존경하는 것은 매우 당연하다. 그러나 나보다 힘든 사람에게 더 많은 수고를 아끼지 않는 교사가 존경받을 만하지 않을까.

My colleague and I were agitated over methodology of a new professor several weeks before the end of spring semester in 2003. Some of them were so enraged to have an argument with him. (How dare!) Anyway all students, maybe 15 or 16, did not understand his way of teaching. Even though a few said that it might result from cultural differences, most of them, including me, criticized him for neglect of duty, teaching. One of a graduate even asked the sole American in the classroom if it is the way how they are taught in America. If so, did we accept his attitude and methodology as advanced ideas or democratized ideas? Probably we might do on the premise that a lot of Korean still believe the American Dream. However what can be expected from the United States who indoctrinates American ideology? A country who forces students, even foreign students, to recite “The Pledge of Allegiance” and “My country, ‘Tis of Thee.” Or what can be expected from the United States who is governed by American corporations? A country who permits to sell Big Mac at public schools.

Anyway his instruction was excessively student-centered, to the extent that he did not have to be in the classroom. Students had a discussion and talked about their own experiences. But he often assumed the attitude of an idle onlooker. He had never even tried to give any feedbacks to students’ papers. The boundary between teacher and students did not exist in his classroom in a sense that any students could become a teacher. However unfortunately not vice versa. What he overlooked was the dialogue (which is mentioned by Freire) between teacher and student, I think. It might cause the oppressed, students, to fail to be liberated. Nevertheless, my colleagues as well as I could not avoid criticism. We were too naive to discard the banking concept of education. We, as receptacles, were ready to be filled by teachers all the time. We might not unconsciously allow a teacher to become a student, complaining that he did not provide summaries for us.

When I just started TESOL program. I wondered whether I could learn from the instruction based on the seminar. But at the end of the first semester, I was surprised at recognizing that it really worked very well. It means that problem-posing concept of education is feasible. In the traditional education, teachers and students need only a bunch of resources to store up their knowledge. Hence the rote memory makes it possible to recite “The Pledge of Allegiance.” Exaggeratingly speaking, students can be imbued with chauvinism through meaningless memorization, not knowing that it is just ideal. However unfortunately it also makes them to be restricted in the invisible system. As Freire contended, what the skill they need is to decode the meaning of “The Pledge of Allegiance” in the society, not to memorize it. That is what teachers must do for a change.

On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which oppressive society as a whole:
(a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
(b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
(c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
(d) the teacher talks and the students listen - meekly;
(e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
(f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
(g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;
(h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;
(i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
(j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

Excerpted from “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” written by Paulo Freire

Dr. Steinberg and Dr. Kincheloe visited in Korea last Saturday. They will stay here for 4 weeks, giving 12 lectures (each three and half hours) on “Media Literacy.” Their lectures? Hmmm… The first day of her lecture. It was great except for the man’s lies that he used to tell all the time. (He really really really likes to say that “… STRONGLY RECOMMENDED …” He even strongly recommended a professor, who said to students “Fuck You.”) For whom does he do that? Definetely not for students but for himself. Last summer he almost threatened me to take the summer course, telling that it’s going to be required next year and strongly recommended. But “The Quantitative Research” was the terrible course and it caused me to miss much more important course, The Qualitative Research. The instructor, his friend, took money from me without teaching enough both in quality and in quantity. The man doesn’t deserve to teach “CRITICAL PEDAGOGY.” Damn it! He is the man who knows all about the rules of game, business, such as how to sell, whom to sell, and what to sell. O.K. I’ll stop condemning the man any more.

The Second day of her lecture. It went downhill. I spent all the time at the shopping mall with my classmates. I don’t think it was good enough because we could do it after class or on weekends to save her time and our precious time. Students already paid a lot of money for Mr. and Mrs. Kincheloe. They didn’t pay their dollars, which they painfully earned from capitalitic labor, for the Kincheloe’s trip to Disneyland in Tokyo. They must take only two and half hours’ worth of paycheck and the rest of them must be given back to students. It is unfair to have all of them without working full-time. They must not take a trip to Japan for their wedding anniversary (and their research which was their excuse), without teaching for three days. They can go there after finishing lectures in Korea. Why now in the middle of the course? I am also pretty sure that they will not make up for missing lectures. They just reminds me of imperialistically privileged upper middle class white people, whom finally succeeded to ascend from hillbilly and whom Korean must be servile to. Whatever and however they make an argument on races, classes, ideoogy or whatever, it just sounds bullshit. Dr. Kincheloe is just a normal southerner who drinks Coke, while attacking McDonald’s.

However I really respect their theories on hegemony and Bricolage, multilogicality. I am really impressed by their assertions about the America’s Imperialism which Koreans including me easily don’t realize. I certainly believe that they will provide and encourage me with the critical consciousness in their upcoming lectures. But I want to say to two doctors, “Please please please please please, just act on what you say, even though there are many bootlickers, especially including the man and some of his dumber groupies, around you in here Korea.”