Prologue

1st Period _ Lifelong Teacher / Lesson Objective: Finding Your Own Breath

Living as a teacher
School is a flower garden and a vegetable garden
Pieta, Pieta
I walk today too
The power that makes me who I am: "Live as I please."
The 'now' I miss
The last classroom lesson of my life
The sorrow of the survivors

2nd Period _ With a Kind Heart / Lesson Objective: Learning While Teaching

Children whose 'dream' is to find a dream
Between dropping out and transferring
What remains after enduring?
Time to let out my sorrow
This ring will protect you
Even if a marble falls on a rock
Why did the child ask me three times?
8 nights and 9 days of two-person triangle
The sorrow of the forgiven
One day, a letter arrived for me
I'm so glad you're my teacher

3rd Period _ One Step at a Time / Lesson Objective: To the Flowers That Will Brighten the World

classroom scene
Flowers blooming one after another
If you rest, you will recover
You have to sleep to dream
Jae-eun's courage
A Poem with a Story, 3 Minute Speech (1)
-A good place to cry, the bathroom
A Poem with a Story, 3-Minute Speech (2)
Apple blossoms bloom on apple trees.
The power of 'listening' to nurture me
For that love to be yours

4th Period _ The phrase 'Never give up' / Lesson objective: To persevere willingly

My favorite Jeolla-do word, 'podosi'
Things that make life bearable
I smell like you
To learn the good life, you must taste the good life.
If one root is alive
Even a 7th grader can pass the exam
Teachers are interfering with politics?

5th Period _ Between Teacher and Writer / Lesson Objective: Writing has the power to heal

If only my misfortune could become my 'wealth' (1)
If only my misfortune could become my 'wealth' (2)
If only my misfortune could become my 'wealth' (3)
Empathy is more important than talent
Reading: Strengthening Your Inner Muscles
Passion is talent
A collaboration between aspiring and unknown writers
Here and now, sprouting buds
Remain as a flower in my heart

6th Period _ The Joy of Sharing / Lesson Objective: Learning from Artwork

Keep your distance from your parents
-The novel "Conversations with the Man in the Closet," by Ian McEwan
I sue my parents who brought me into this world.
-Capernaum, directed by Nadine Labaki
My child, our children's black hole
-Drama "Boy's Time," directed by Philippe Barantini
Self-respect and dignity within me, handkerchief
-The novel "Breath" by Herta Müller
Happiness is a spiral structure through repetition
-Paterson, directed by Jim Jarmusch
Parental abuse that ruins my child
-Social Criticism "The Birth of Monster Parents," by Kim Hyun-soo
Can we ever escape the cycle of poverty?
Essay "How Poor Children Become Adults," by Ji-na Kang
A broken bowl becomes a blade
Essay "I am the Mother of a Bully," by Sue Klebold
The peace of everyday life achieved through living
-Novel "Heaven," by Mieko Kawakami
For young Jean Valjean
Essay "No, We're Sorry," by Jong-ho Cheon
Stop killing our young workers
-Movie "Next Sohee," directed by Jung Joo-ri
The right to be loved just as you are
-A true story novel, "The Time You Become a Girl," by Amy Ellis Nutt

Epilogue / The Times That Raised Me

A great book for teachers, parents, and students to read together!

It is a confession offered to disciples and colleagues,
A warm hand of solidarity extended to teachers struggling today.

“Teacher, I’m not going to college.
“My grandfather said he had no money.”
A poor, helpless girl who lives alone with her grandfather, who receives basic livelihood security benefits, and whose parents are out of contact, and whose sensitive inner self is not emotionally cared for by anyone.
A Korean teacher who runs around looking for scholarships to help his student pay for college tuition.
This Korean language teacher, who is also a novelist, thought of his students not as students but as fellow writers, and for decades he steadfastly led a literary arts class at a high school, the forefront of college entrance exams.

But it was really strange.
Perhaps it was the power of writing, but children with many wounds and stories began to gather one by one in the literature class, and the teacher soon became the 'godmother of problem students.'

The teacher who carried his resignation letter around with him for 365 days has safely completed his retirement.
I realized this while recovering from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 43 due to extreme stress.
I always wanted to leave the classroom, but what kept me going were the school, the students, and writing.

About thirty children sitting in one classroom.
Not all of those kids come to school happy and eating fresh fruit and eggs every morning.
The night before, you may have stayed up all night crying with your ears covered because your parents were fighting so much, or you may have gotten slapped in the face by your drunken dad.

The teacher doesn't know.
We don't have the time to look into the inner lives of children.
I want to make eye contact with each and every child, ask them how they are feeling, and give them a warm smile, but there is always so much to do.
A deluge of official documents, drafts, petitions, and tests...
In a classroom that has already become sick, both teachers and students are holding on, unable to die.

On a busy Monday morning, when you're getting ready for work, you suddenly get a call from your favorite classmate.

"...
“Teacher, I left home to go to school, but I just can’t go.
“I feel like I’m going to hell.”
Somi kept swallowing her tears.
He said that the depression that started on Sunday afternoon led to the urge to harm himself.
He was barely holding on, but he didn't know what he was going to do.
“Somi, then it’s okay if you don’t come to school.
“Have a nice day.”
“Yes, sir.
“I’ll go back home after Mom goes to work.”
“Yeah, I definitely have to go home.
If you want to go somewhere else, just tell me your destination.”
Somi hung up the phone helplessly.
Although he was quick to vent his anger in front of adults, he was a child who knew how to apologize for his rude behavior...
」

Teachers cannot give up on children like this.
Teachers must sit down with students who have tattoos all over their bodies to hide their self-harm scars, students who are addicted to alcohol and gambling, and students who are perpetrators of school violence, and reach out to them.
We must look at him not as a suspect or a perpetrator, but as a student who needs to grow.
Even though I am a professional teacher, the children call me ‘teacher’ and hug me.

This book is a survival story of a Korean language teacher and novelist who survived for over 40 years in the Republic of Korea, a country obsessed with entrance exams.
It is a confession offered to students and colleagues who know their mistakes and trials better than anyone else, and it is also a hand of solidarity extended to teachers who struggle in the classrooms and hallways today.
Teacher Jang Jeong-hee, a teacher of teachers, said she believes in the power of a single candle, hoping that “my writing can become a small candle that warms the heart of someone going through a bitterly cold time.”
But he adds one word firmly.
"Put aside things like respect!"

“Both students and teachers need to find their own ‘breathing holes.’”
“It’s not that you get rusty when you rest, it’s that you get old when you rest.”

Comforting words of beauty and affection

The female diver endures extreme labor with her whole body and finally emerges from the water to let out the 'breathing sound' she had been holding back for a long time.
The breath I held in the depths of the sea, a fierce battlefield where life and death were at stake, until my body froze blue.
It's not just female divers who need breath sounds.
A part-timer working at a late-night convenience store, a nurse patrolling the wards, a day laborer hoping for a day's wages...
Perhaps everyone is desperately holding on, diving deep into reality like someone holding their breath underwater.
They all need a breather, even if it's just for a moment.

On the beach where the female divers work, there is something like white styrofoam floating around, and this is called 'tewak'.
You come up to the surface of the water while working and lean against this round styrofoam cradle to catch your breath for a moment.
It is literally a small 'breathing hole' in the vast ocean.

The author advises that in order to last long as a teacher, you must find your own breathing space, or tewak.
For him, that breathing space was writing.
I always carried a resignation letter with me because I wanted to focus on writing, but the truth is that I was able to write because I was a teacher, and I was barely able to endure my life as a teacher thanks to the power of writing.

“I wanted to cry.
No, I cried.
I went to the principal and told him I wanted to quit being the homeroom teacher, and I found myself shedding tears without realizing it.
In an increasingly fierce competition, children are hurt by each other's words and outrageous actions, and the resulting conflicts are brought to the school violence committee. And amidst the desperate intervention of parents, there's a sense of helplessness, of being unable to do anything...

As my body and mind grew increasingly exhausted, my colleagues left the teaching profession one by one, calling it "retirement."
Teachers who look at them with envious eyes and have to leave home every morning as if they have a heavy lump of iron hanging from their ankles.
Especially when I come across tragedies involving junior teachers, like the Seoi Elementary School teacher incident, my heart aches and I feel like someone should step forward and do something.

Of course, in reality, there are many really strange teachers.
Some people may think school was hell, and others may only have bad memories of their teachers.
But we all owe something to our teachers.
Because at one point, we were students, we are parents who entrust students to our care, we can become teachers, and we can have teachers as family members.
So, shouldn't we be able to send them support, if not respect?