Chapter 8. School (1)
The flower buds started to bloom.
It was finally March.
Yu-ye’s first day of school came sooner than he expected.
Yu-ye’s grandmother insisted that she attend although she had work, then even showed tears as she said in a trembling voice of how she couldn’t believe how fast her little boy grew. In between her mixed emotions of pride and sorrow, she must have thought about her runaway daughter too.
Yunyoung also attended his first day of school. She had explained the situation to her homeroom teacher beforehand, then begged until she got an ‘ok’ to be excused from her morning classes. Yu-ye thought she would burst in tears as soon as she saw him, but instead, she grabbed a hold of his shoulders, then started a long lecture about school.
The topic was: ‘How to get along with friends in 10 easy steps’
Yunyoung had never seen Yu-ye play with the kids his age. The youngest person he had ever talked to was Yunyoung herself, who was 6 years older than him. It didn’t take much for her to predict his future depressing social life at school.
She went on for hours about how he had to talk a lot, listen carefully, and other obvious things Yu-ye already knew. It was all easy common sense, but Yunyoung thought the world always contained inexplicable curve balls that one would never find the answers to unless they knew the basics.
She believed interpersonal relationships were one of them.
Did Yu-ye benefit from her passionate lecture? He didn’t seem to hate school. It was hard to tell. Yu-ye always had the faintest amount of facial expression that even Yunyoung couldn’t read at times. She thought if she knew anything from watching him every day, one thing was for sure. He didn’t have a problem with school.
Only then was Yunyoung relieved, then went back to focusing on her own studies.
Quite different from Yunyoung’s thoughts, Yu-ye’s life at school was meek. It was hard to say that he didn’t adapt, but it was equally hard to say that he did. His school life was confusing because it was indecisive. He almost never talked to any of his classmates, yet none of them wanted to make fun of him or leave him out. Occasionally, some would pick a fight because of Yu-ye’s resting facial expression, which seemed as if he always had a problem, but because Yu-ye always ignored them or admitted his defeat, there was nothing left to fight about.
Soon after, Yunhwa, Yu-ye’s homeroom teacher noticed his peculiarity.
The trigger was when she conducted her class outside.
Normally, she would always have her class indoors, away from the summer heat, where she would push all the desks to the back of the classroom to have fun activities. This was because she wanted to protect the young, fragile skin of her students from the blazing sun, but on that day, the heat had died down enough to go outdoors. Yunhwa had noticed how her students felt trapped inside the classroom every day, and decided to use the school track field to have the class.
She taught them how to play dodgeball, then split them into teams for a match. For a while she coached from the side and answered the curious questions about dodgeball, then had a trip to the bathroom. On her way back, she found a child sitting on the steps to the flower garden. It was Yu-ye.
She had been keeping an eye on Yu-ye from time to time before.
Normally, children his age behaved like a pack of wild animals if she were to take her eyes off them for even a second. But this boy always seemed collected and calm no matter what she did. It would be weird if she didn’t notice him.
He stood there, on top of the warm soil, with his eyes closed like a cat enjoying his sun. He was expressionless like any other day, but for some reason, he looked as though he was enjoying himself.
“Hey…Yu-ye, why are you sitting here alone?”
“Um… I have an upset stomach……”
“Oh dear. Does it hurt a lot?”
“No, it’s okay. I think if I sit here a bit, I’ll be better soon.”
She gave his head a pat with a smile as she examined his face. He was right. It didn’t seem like he had too big of an ache. But she decided to take him to the health office just in case. She grabbed a hold of another teacher who happened to pass by, and sent Yu-ye with the teacher up to the office. After that day, she had forgotten about the whole incident with Yu-ye.
A couple days later, she caught Yu-ye sitting alone again. This time, it wasn’t during class but during lunch time. Her students quickly scarfed down their lunches then hurried outside to play the dodgeball Yunhwa taught a couple days ago. They drew a boundary on the floor, picked teams, then giggled and laughed while they played. Yunhwa had just finished eating as she stood near the window with her coffee she bought from a vending machine. It was to make sure that if anyone was to get hurt, she could run outside right away to help them.
Their scrambling little feet and the excited shouting made her smile.
She mumbled with a satisfied sigh.
‘This is why I became a teacher’
While watching the children, she felt someone’s presence to the side of her. She turned around to find Yu-ye, sitting at a desk, resting his chin on his hand, tilting his head to look at the children as she did.
He looked pleased as if he was a teacher too.
Yunhwa walked up to him and decided to strike up a conversation.
“Yu-ye.”
“Yes? What is the matter?”
“Why aren’t you playing outside?”
Yu-ye stretched his neck to look up at the sky, then shook his head. It was nice that the sun was covered by the clouds, but it was still a hot summer day.
“It’s hot outside. I’d rather stay here”
“O.. Oh…Really?”
Yunhwa started to worry as Yu-ye went back to look out the window. What if he was being left out? Or bullied? If not, why would a boy so young want to stay inside the classroom?
“Yu-ye, that’s not good for you. You still need to move your body even when the weather is hot.”
“I’m really okay……”
“Here! Let me go with you.”
Yunhwa mistook Yu-ye’s body language, pulling him outside. For a middle schooler or a high schooler, the student himself or herself would have to try on their own to get along with others, but for an elementary schooler, everyone could be friends with a quick fix from his or her teacher.
Yunhwa came up to the group of students playing dodgeball at the edge of the field. She thrusted Yu-ye in their game and made sure no students were harassing him or leaving him out. To her surprise, Yu-ye was well accepted into the game. The boys from her class even gave up a spot in the middle for him.
The middle was special. It was where the most fun happened. Rather than throwing the ball from outside the boundaries, children liked dodging the ball from the inside. When Yunhwa first taught them dodgeball, there was even a fight to get into the middle. Yet, the kids seemed to have no problem with giving Yu-ye one of their most precious positions.
“When the first bell rings, all of you have to come back in. Okay? Don’t be late.”
The children all replied “Yes Ma’am-” in unison.
Feeling accomplished and uplifted by the sight, Yunhwa returned to her class satisfied.
The first bell had rung, but as she expected, the students didn’t come in.
Yunhwa came out to the field as soon as the bell rang, expecting her students to be in the corner of the field still playing dodgeball. However, from afar, she spotted Yu-ye walking casually toward the classroom. She was sure she saw him play with the other students even a little while ago.
“Why are you coming from there?” Yunhwa asked in confusion, but the only response she received was that he went for a short stroll. She felt it odd that an elementary school boy would use the word ‘stroll,’ but that wasn’t the end to his peculiarity.
Similar events kept happening.
No matter how much Yunhwa asked, scolded and persuaded, Yu-ye did not get along with the other students. If it was a matter of being simply outcasted by her students, she could have truly made a difference, but the children seemed to like Yu-ye. Rather, it was Yu-ye outcasting the students.
As an amateur homeroom teacher who had only been teaching for a few years, this was a huge dilemma.
This would not be solved by helping him ‘get along’ but rather she had to make him understand and feel what ‘getting along’ really is.
She was stuck in a rut. She couldn’t think of a good idea.
‘This is the end if I give up! Come on, let’s do this!’
Yunhwa felt encouraged and responsible.
However, the world didn’t always move as she wished.
Other than the problem of ‘getting along,’ her head ached from another problem. Yu-ye’s poor in-class attitude.
Yu-ye never paid attention in class.
As always, he would stare directly in front of him with his eyes half closed most of the time. If Yunhwa was to quickly walk up to him thinking he fell asleep, his eyes opened wide in a split second, then looked at her, confused of her intentions.
Yu-ye was focused on the breathing technique.
Yunhwa knew that he was thinking of something other than the class material, but since it wasn’t bad enough to point out, she couldn’t do more than pretend to look around the whole class, then return to her seat.
She felt strangely ridiculed by the little boy, and became annoyed.
Yunhwa began to watch over Yu-ye even more. One little slip and she was going to catch it right away to lecture him about the true behavior of a good class student. But her wishes never came true. Apart from his class attitude, Yu-ye’s scores were always perfect.
Because her students were only 1st graders, they were never given any form of an official test. However, Yunhwa would score her students from time to time to keep in track of how they were doing so far. Yu-ye always took first place.
If she were to exaggerate a little, Yu-ye was the perfect student for any teacher. His class behavior was a bit disheartening but his learning skills were through the roof. When she would explain a hard concept, he understood it fully and flawlessly.
He never asked questions, had a great memory, and his interpretation skills were perfect. Even when Yunhwa didn’t explain very well, he understood nonetheless.
As time went by, Yunhwa began to grow her ambition.
Yunhwa had graduated elementary, middle, and high school like any other student, then struggled to pass the license exam to be a public-school teacher. After a couple failures, she was able to pass. For a woman like herself, Yu-ye seemed to be a genius. A person out of this world.
He didn’t seem to be educated at home, but was always the model example for everyone in every field.
Yunhwa finished her lunch that day, and continued to spread the wings of her imagination, staring at Yu-ye who gazed out the window.
Maybe this child will become some huge historical figure later and come back to the 1st teacher he has ever had to thank her. He would say ‘It’s all thank to you!’ then she would become the role model of the great historian!
‘It’s so materialistic but I really wish that was the case……’
Yunhwa became fired up from her own scenario.
After checking that she had a couple more minutes of lunch to spare, she asked the sub-homeroom teacher to watch the room and walked straight into the vice principal’s office.
Her plan was to give Yu-ye the genius test that she could get with the help of her school. She couldn’t directly mention it was for Yu-ye. She had to intertwine the test with the promotion of the vice principal and how it would help him. She was confident.
The vice principal was thankfully sitting in his chair after his lunch.
“Mr. Vice Principal, could I borrow a little bit of your time?”
“Ah! Ms. Jung, please come in. How was your lunch?”
“It was very delicious. Thank you. How about you…?”
“I too had a wonderful lunch. What brings you here?”
Hearing his question, Yunhwa looked up at the clock on the wall.
It was 20 minutes till lunch ended. She needed 10 minutes to get ready to teach her class. There wasn’t much time to talk.
She saw that the vice principal started to feel uninterested. It was time to talk in all seriousness.
“I need to inform you about the genius test……”
Yunhwa got straight to her point, then took a little break to have the vice principal focus and hear her details. But her words were cut off by his questions.
“Hm? Ms. Jung, how do you know about the genius test? I never told any of the other teachers yet. Wow. And here I thought you were just a 2-year-old amateur teacher, but you seem to have a good source of information. Where did you hear that the country is conducting a genius test?”
Yunhwa calmed the chills she started to get at the back of her neck as she continued. According to the vice principal, it was only yesterday when the government issued any form of information on the genius test. Students pertaining to the top 5% of the school was to be picked and referred to the test by the teachers. The students picked must have an agreement letter signed by the parent, take the genius test, then wait for the message by the government agency for further action if needed.
Yunhwa pretended as if she knew. ‘Hehe. Now I just have to make my Yu-ye take the test.’
The vice principal made the big announcement that afternoon during the staff meeting. Each teacher was to select 1 to 2 students of their choice. The choice was free to make, but he mentioned that their results would go into the teacher’s evaluations for the year, and to choose carefully. The teachers all had the same face. They all weren’t sure if it was a benefit or a disaster.
Yunhwa already had her first pick. She called Yu-ye’s house.
Chapter 8. School (1)
The flower buds started to bloom.
It was finally March.
Yu-ye’s first day of school came sooner than he expected.
Yu-ye’s grandmother insisted that she attend although she had work, then even showed tears as she said in a trembling voice of how she couldn’t believe how fast her little boy grew. In between her mixed emotions of pride and sorrow, she must have thought about her runaway daughter too.
Yunyoung also attended his first day of school. She had explained the situation to her homeroom teacher beforehand, then begged until she got an ‘ok’ to be excused from her morning classes. Yu-ye thought she would burst in tears as soon as she saw him, but instead, she grabbed a hold of his shoulders, then started a long lecture about school.
The topic was: ‘How to get along with friends in 10 easy steps’
Yunyoung had never seen Yu-ye play with the kids his age. The youngest person he had ever talked to was Yunyoung herself, who was 6 years older than him. It didn’t take much for her to predict his future depressing social life at school.
She went on for hours about how he had to talk a lot, listen carefully, and other obvious things Yu-ye already knew. It was all easy common sense, but Yunyoung thought the world always contained inexplicable curve balls that one would never find the answers to unless they knew the basics.
She believed interpersonal relationships were one of them.
Did Yu-ye benefit from her passionate lecture? He didn’t seem to hate school. It was hard to tell. Yu-ye always had the faintest amount of facial expression that even Yunyoung couldn’t read at times. She thought if she knew anything from watching him every day, one thing was for sure. He didn’t have a problem with school.
Only then was Yunyoung relieved, then went back to focusing on her own studies.
Quite different from Yunyoung’s thoughts, Yu-ye’s life at school was meek. It was hard to say that he didn’t adapt, but it was equally hard to say that he did. His school life was confusing because it was indecisive. He almost never talked to any of his classmates, yet none of them wanted to make fun of him or leave him out. Occasionally, some would pick a fight because of Yu-ye’s resting facial expression, which seemed as if he always had a problem, but because Yu-ye always ignored them or admitted his defeat, there was nothing left to fight about.
Soon after, Yunhwa, Yu-ye’s homeroom teacher noticed his peculiarity.
The trigger was when she conducted her class outside.
Normally, she would always have her class indoors, away from the summer heat, where she would push all the desks to the back of the classroom to have fun activities. This was because she wanted to protect the young, fragile skin of her students from the blazing sun, but on that day, the heat had died down enough to go outdoors. Yunhwa had noticed how her students felt trapped inside the classroom every day, and decided to use the school track field to have the class.
She taught them how to play dodgeball, then split them into teams for a match. For a while she coached from the side and answered the curious questions about dodgeball, then had a trip to the bathroom. On her way back, she found a child sitting on the steps to the flower garden. It was Yu-ye.
She had been keeping an eye on Yu-ye from time to time before.
Normally, children his age behaved like a pack of wild animals if she were to take her eyes off them for even a second. But this boy always seemed collected and calm no matter what she did. It would be weird if she didn’t notice him.
He stood there, on top of the warm soil, with his eyes closed like a cat enjoying his sun. He was expressionless like any other day, but for some reason, he looked as though he was enjoying himself.
“Hey…Yu-ye, why are you sitting here alone?”
“Um… I have an upset stomach……”
“Oh dear. Does it hurt a lot?”
“No, it’s okay. I think if I sit here a bit, I’ll be better soon.”
She gave his head a pat with a smile as she examined his face. He was right. It didn’t seem like he had too big of an ache. But she decided to take him to the health office just in case. She grabbed a hold of another teacher who happened to pass by, and sent Yu-ye with the teacher up to the office. After that day, she had forgotten about the whole incident with Yu-ye.
A couple days later, she caught Yu-ye sitting alone again. This time, it wasn’t during class but during lunch time. Her students quickly scarfed down their lunches then hurried outside to play the dodgeball Yunhwa taught a couple days ago. They drew a boundary on the floor, picked teams, then giggled and laughed while they played. Yunhwa had just finished eating as she stood near the window with her coffee she bought from a vending machine. It was to make sure that if anyone was to get hurt, she could run outside right away to help them.
Their scrambling little feet and the excited shouting made her smile.
She mumbled with a satisfied sigh.
‘This is why I became a teacher’
While watching the children, she felt someone’s presence to the side of her. She turned around to find Yu-ye, sitting at a desk, resting his chin on his hand, tilting his head to look at the children as she did.
He looked pleased as if he was a teacher too.
Yunhwa walked up to him and decided to strike up a conversation.
“Yu-ye.”
“Yes? What is the matter?”
“Why aren’t you playing outside?”
Yu-ye stretched his neck to look up at the sky, then shook his head. It was nice that the sun was covered by the clouds, but it was still a hot summer day.
“It’s hot outside. I’d rather stay here”
“O.. Oh…Really?”
Yunhwa started to worry as Yu-ye went back to look out the window. What if he was being left out? Or bullied? If not, why would a boy so young want to stay inside the classroom?
“Yu-ye, that’s not good for you. You still need to move your body even when the weather is hot.”
“I’m really okay……”
“Here! Let me go with you.”
Yunhwa mistook Yu-ye’s body language, pulling him outside. For a middle schooler or a high schooler, the student himself or herself would have to try on their own to get along with others, but for an elementary schooler, everyone could be friends with a quick fix from his or her teacher.
Yunhwa came up to the group of students playing dodgeball at the edge of the field. She thrusted Yu-ye in their game and made sure no students were harassing him or leaving him out. To her surprise, Yu-ye was well accepted into the game. The boys from her class even gave up a spot in the middle for him.
The middle was special. It was where the most fun happened. Rather than throwing the ball from outside the boundaries, children liked dodging the ball from the inside. When Yunhwa first taught them dodgeball, there was even a fight to get into the middle. Yet, the kids seemed to have no problem with giving Yu-ye one of their most precious positions.
“When the first bell rings, all of you have to come back in. Okay? Don’t be late.”
The children all replied “Yes Ma’am-” in unison.
Feeling accomplished and uplifted by the sight, Yunhwa returned to her class satisfied.
The first bell had rung, but as she expected, the students didn’t come in.
Yunhwa came out to the field as soon as the bell rang, expecting her students to be in the corner of the field still playing dodgeball. However, from afar, she spotted Yu-ye walking casually toward the classroom. She was sure she saw him play with the other students even a little while ago.
“Why are you coming from there?” Yunhwa asked in confusion, but the only response she received was that he went for a short stroll. She felt it odd that an elementary school boy would use the word ‘stroll,’ but that wasn’t the end to his peculiarity.
Similar events kept happening.
No matter how much Yunhwa asked, scolded and persuaded, Yu-ye did not get along with the other students. If it was a matter of being simply outcasted by her students, she could have truly made a difference, but the children seemed to like Yu-ye. Rather, it was Yu-ye outcasting the students.
As an amateur homeroom teacher who had only been teaching for a few years, this was a huge dilemma.
This would not be solved by helping him ‘get along’ but rather she had to make him understand and feel what ‘getting along’ really is.
She was stuck in a rut. She couldn’t think of a good idea.
‘This is the end if I give up! Come on, let’s do this!’
Yunhwa felt encouraged and responsible.
However, the world didn’t always move as she wished.
Other than the problem of ‘getting along,’ her head ached from another problem. Yu-ye’s poor in-class attitude.
Yu-ye never paid attention in class.
As always, he would stare directly in front of him with his eyes half closed most of the time. If Yunhwa was to quickly walk up to him thinking he fell asleep, his eyes opened wide in a split second, then looked at her, confused of her intentions.
Yu-ye was focused on the breathing technique.
Yunhwa knew that he was thinking of something other than the class material, but since it wasn’t bad enough to point out, she couldn’t do more than pretend to look around the whole class, then return to her seat.
She felt strangely ridiculed by the little boy, and became annoyed.
Yunhwa began to watch over Yu-ye even more. One little slip and she was going to catch it right away to lecture him about the true behavior of a good class student. But her wishes never came true. Apart from his class attitude, Yu-ye’s scores were always perfect.
Because her students were only 1st graders, they were never given any form of an official test. However, Yunhwa would score her students from time to time to keep in track of how they were doing so far. Yu-ye always took first place.
If she were to exaggerate a little, Yu-ye was the perfect student for any teacher. His class behavior was a bit disheartening but his learning skills were through the roof. When she would explain a hard concept, he understood it fully and flawlessly.
He never asked questions, had a great memory, and his interpretation skills were perfect. Even when Yunhwa didn’t explain very well, he understood nonetheless.
As time went by, Yunhwa began to grow her ambition.
Yunhwa had graduated elementary, middle, and high school like any other student, then struggled to pass the license exam to be a public-school teacher. After a couple failures, she was able to pass. For a woman like herself, Yu-ye seemed to be a genius. A person out of this world.
He didn’t seem to be educated at home, but was always the model example for everyone in every field.
Yunhwa finished her lunch that day, and continued to spread the wings of her imagination, staring at Yu-ye who gazed out the window.
Maybe this child will become some huge historical figure later and come back to the 1st teacher he has ever had to thank her. He would say ‘It’s all thank to you!’ then she would become the role model of the great historian!
‘It’s so materialistic but I really wish that was the case……’
Yunhwa became fired up from her own scenario.
After checking that she had a couple more minutes of lunch to spare, she asked the sub-homeroom teacher to watch the room and walked straight into the vice principal’s office.
Her plan was to give Yu-ye the genius test that she could get with the help of her school. She couldn’t directly mention it was for Yu-ye. She had to intertwine the test with the promotion of the vice principal and how it would help him. She was confident.
The vice principal was thankfully sitting in his chair after his lunch.
“Mr. Vice Principal, could I borrow a little bit of your time?”
“Ah! Ms. Jung, please come in. How was your lunch?”
“It was very delicious. Thank you. How about you…?”
“I too had a wonderful lunch. What brings you here?”
Hearing his question, Yunhwa looked up at the clock on the wall.
It was 20 minutes till lunch ended. She needed 10 minutes to get ready to teach her class. There wasn’t much time to talk.
She saw that the vice principal started to feel uninterested. It was time to talk in all seriousness.
“I need to inform you about the genius test……”
Yunhwa got straight to her point, then took a little break to have the vice principal focus and hear her details. But her words were cut off by his questions.
“Hm? Ms. Jung, how do you know about the genius test? I never told any of the other teachers yet. Wow. And here I thought you were just a 2-year-old amateur teacher, but you seem to have a good source of information. Where did you hear that the country is conducting a genius test?”
Yunhwa calmed the chills she started to get at the back of her neck as she continued. According to the vice principal, it was only yesterday when the government issued any form of information on the genius test. Students pertaining to the top 5% of the school was to be picked and referred to the test by the teachers. The students picked must have an agreement letter signed by the parent, take the genius test, then wait for the message by the government agency for further action if needed.
Yunhwa pretended as if she knew. ‘Hehe. Now I just have to make my Yu-ye take the test.’
The vice principal made the big announcement that afternoon during the staff meeting. Each teacher was to select 1 to 2 students of their choice. The choice was free to make, but he mentioned that their results would go into the teacher’s evaluations for the year, and to choose carefully. The teachers all had the same face. They all weren’t sure if it was a benefit or a disaster.
Yunhwa already had her first pick. She called Yu-ye’s house.
