South Korean educators visit

Coeur d’Alene resident Daniel Kim left North Korea as a child, fleeing to South Korea and attending school on the site of what’s now the Youncho Middle School on Geoje Island.

That was a few decades ago. Now, he’s looking to give back to the school he credits with helping him so much. Kim is helping spearhead an exchange program that will allow students to live and attend school in Coeur d’Alene to practice their English-speaking skills.

“That’s the key to world peace,” Kim said. “You have to understand languages.”

Kim and four South Korean school officials from Youncho and Gyeroyong Middle School toured Coeur d’Alene’s three middle schools Tuesday, previewing what the 15 or so students they will send here in January will experience.

The students who saw the men and learned that they may soon share a classroom with students from another continent were excited, even thrilled at the thought.

“It would be awesome,” Lakes eighth-grader Patrick Hanlon said, adding that his father knows Kim and might host one of the students in January.

Lakes, Canfield and Woodland middle schools are now in a formal “sister school” relationship with Youncho and Gyeryong middle schools. Approximately 15 exchange students will be the first at the middle school level in Coeur d’Alene in more than 20 years, said retired District Administrator Judy Drake, who helped Kim and former North Idaho College President Bob Bennett get the program started.

The principals of Gyeroyong and Youncho, as well as the president of Gyeroyong’s parent-teacher association and the director of Youncho’s scholarship fund, visited the schools Tuesday, beginning with the reading of the sister school proclamation aloud in Korean in the Lakes Middle School library.

“You understand what he said?” Kim asked the Lakes leadership class after the reading was complete.

“No,” the children said in unison.

“That’s why we need this program,” Kim said.

The students will live with Coeur d’Alene families and will attend class at the middle schools just like any other student for about a month. Kim hopes to extend that time in the future, possibly to as long as a year.

The students’ stay in Coeur d’Alene will be entirely funded by the South Korean schools. Kim hopes to find a local teacher to travel to Geoje Island and help the students who will be going to America with their English. Canfield Principal Jeff Bengtson said seventh-grade teacher Paula Conley, Idaho’s 2005 Teacher of the Year, has already volunteered.

With Kim as a translator, the men told District Superintendent Harry Amend that one of the biggest differences between American and South Korean schools is the relaxed atmosphere.

“You guys are much more liberal,” Kim said. “It doesn’t look like a school – it feels like kids are at home.”

The differences boil down to the differences in American and South Korean culture, Kim said. The influence of Confucius is still present in South Korean schools, Kim said. School is strict and formal.

“Teacher’s like king,” he said. “When I was in high school, if teacher said go die, we die.”

Things have relaxed a bit, Kim said, and he doubts students would commit suicide if directed by their teacher now, but the general concept of formality and total respect for elders is still present in Korean culture.

If South Korea were to relax its school policies and allow them to operate like American classrooms, the men fear students would no longer obey, Kim said.

Kim is hoping to expand the exchange program to give Coeur d’Alene middle school students a chance to learn Korean and study in South Korea.

“There is a whole world out there – not just the United States,” Kim said. “The U.S is too big. Kids can get lost here.”