1. Making a happy school

 

  Since founding Gandhi School at the foot of Mt. Jiri in Sancheong, Gyeongnam in 1997, I have been teaching children for 14 years in Korea and 10 years in the Philippines. And late in 2019, I decided to retire from teaching. Why am I retiring?

 

  I am not a teacher type person. My life as a teacher does not suit me well. Always being excited about new ideas, I am eager to experiment with them, so teaching does not suit me well. I am always immersed in and experimenting with new things even though teaching has to be consistent and focused on the lives of children, so it is hard for me to keep an eye on them. Founding a school also started with my desire to create and apply new ideas, and I had never wanted to become the principal. I just wanted to do my role as a founder and an educational programmer. However, the person who decided to serve as the principal at the school failed to get consent from his wife and was put on the verge of being expelled from the house, so I had to temporarily served as the principal grinning and bear it and I have been the principal for 24 years in the end, which means my life must have been truly unfair.

 

  But why did I found Gandhi School? When I was in high school, I hated going to school. I wanted to drop out of school when I was in the first grade at high school, but I couldn’t get permission from my father. However, I always went to school at lunch and come back home early, and I spent most of my time in reading books about philosophy and psychology at school while sitting in the back seat. I was a so-called ‘problem child’. Since the school was so boring, and no one listened to us, I made a sort of secret club with my friends and name it ‘Hutsoriam’. What is that? Well, I just made the name by adding ‘ism’ to the word ‘Hutsori(Nonsense)’. It literally means “Nonsense-ism” Since our school and teachers treated our stories as nonsense and our stories became nonsense, we, nevertheless, wanted to talk stores that make sense. Every day at lunchtime we gathered talking about this and that. One day, when I was in the third grade at high school, I have said I would make a happy school, not like the school I went, during ‘Hutsoriam’ debate - a school where teachers listen to children’s stories; a school that treats students as humans; a school from which children never want to be absent because it is so fun at school; and a school where children got sick because they so much wanted to go to school during holidays or vacation. 20 years after casting this spell on me, I found a school. It sounds like a fairy tale, but after the foundation of the school, my life has been really a time of pain and adversity and I must say that it was a time of hardship that began like a fairy tale. So we must not talk about our dreams carelessly. Moreover, we must not make great promises to ourselves or to cast spells on ourselves so easily. I sometime regret saying it to myself that it would have been nice to have had a new adventure that suits my life after leaving the school after 10 years since founding the school. But it became more difficult to leave the school after winning the TJ Park Education Award in 2008 because it added sense of responsibility. Ha ha ha. So I learned a lesson that we must not receive an award without careful thought.

  

  After deciding to retire from teaching late last year, I looked back on my life. First of all, I asked myself whether I really made a happy school after saying I would found a happy school. I had to admit my failure. As a type of person who could not adjust myself to organizational life, I have served as the school principal, so it is so obvious that I could have not managed the school properly. I always lived as a ‘maladjusted principal’ because I couldn’t adjust myself to the school I founded. However, there is a few things that I have come to realize during my long teaching life, and I will tell you about two of them. One is about nature and the other is about self-discovery.

 

  The first is about ‘nature’. Nature is the most important factor in teaching. education. Students learn a lot from nature, and nature has the power to heal us. Humans say they have created civilizations and conquered nature, but humans can never survive or be happy without nature. One of the things in which I am currently interested a lot these days is restoring the forest. I am planting and growing various kinds of native trees where I live. To grow trees properly and quickly, the soil needs to be restored. If I use tropical climate conditions properly, I can create a small forest in 3 years. It will take about 15 years in Korea, but here in the tropics, I can create a forest in 3 to 5 years. After planting and growing trees for 2 years, I have almost created a small. After a few months of living at the foot of Mt. Jiri in Sancheong, children come to realize that the stars in the night sky are beautiful, enjoy soaking their feet in the stream; and feel cool and clean air, and everyone grows up as a poet complimenting nature. So my thought of ​​giving back nature to children still remains the same. No matter how much technology advances and the world turns into a digital world, humans are still creatures living in the nature and cannot exist outside of it. This means that only the lifestyle of living with nature can make human life more filled.

  The second is about “self-discovery”. Children learn only what they have interests in. We cannot learn from listening to boring lectures. They listen, but don’t learn. Their brain is already inactive and they think about something else by setting their brain to sleep mode. Children spend most of their time that way and they become used to it. When they go to school, their brain almost goes into sleep. In this way, children get tired of learning and develop a nasty illness that makes them not try to learn anything. If parents declare to become supervisory parents and continue to put stress on their children in learning to make their children successful, their children get tired of learning. Of course, their temperament also becomes nasty. Do they have to know the basics? But what are the basics? Are language and mathematics the basics for our life? Or is it cooking, cleaning, building a house and something like that? Some people say that this is the most important basics for life, or that is the basics for life. They all make sense. But what is more important is learning even one thing properly with fun, isn’t it? There is so may things to learn in our life, but our life is too short, too short to learn everything.

 

One day when I was studying in the United States, I took my child to Disneyland. It was huge and there was so many things to do. I had no idea what to do out of hundreds of things to play. But we had one day. Considering the time spent queuing up, even if we play all day, we will have the time to go on only 10 things. What should I do. Do I have to start from Play 1? No, we start with what we want to do the most and move on to the next. If we like a certain play too much, we can go on that play twice or three times. If this is the way we live, can’t we say that there is neither sequence of learning nor specific basics in our life? In other words, we just need to learn what we really want to learn.

 

  This is the teaching for self-discovery, which means that we let our children learn what they really care about and need. When children have real freedom and choices, some children do woodwork all day long; some build or make things; some read books; some draw pictures; and some sing songs and make music; and some enjoy sewing and making clothes. Time passes so quickly and children really learn something. God has given us different interests and needs, and the teaching for self-discovery is aimed to let children discover their interests and needs and find things they can love and do. For more than 20 years, I have always watching children discover themselves, find their interests and enthusiasm, immerse themselves and achieve something. I believe this is the essence of happy education.

 

 

 

2. My life after retirement

 

 Late last year I decided to retire from teaching. Thinking about this and that late in December, I started to think that I have lived a very pathetic life and I could not escape from repeated mistakes. When drawing my life 10 years later, I feel more miserable, so I came to the conclusion that if I continue to life this way, I will probably die alone in 10 years without a friend. I came to realize that since I have lived as a workaholic when I was young and didn’t spend much of my time and energy in building and maintaining relationship, I had few close friends and few people to talk to when facing loneliness or difficulties in my life. I couldn't sleep for almost ten days because of the thought that I have lived meaningless life.

From early in 2020, I started to express my heart by playing the piano-I started expressing my heart through music. Here in the Philippines a period of self-isolation was declared in last April, and I was shut up in the house for 1 month in Apr. But that period became a time of great blessing in my life. With my two daughters- my second daughter Si, Eun, who was 6 years old, and my Filipino foster daughter Cris, who was 12 years old, I studied in the morning, did exercise in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the time mainly playing the piano. When I was 10 years old, I quit learning the piano after learning for a few months, and 50 years have passed without learning the piano properly. Now I started learning the piano again when I was in my 60s. In the past, I used to play impromptu with my guitar, but this time I sang sing songs while playing impromptu with the piano. Overwhelmed with sorrow and pain from the depths of my heart, I fell for the piano. Music has become a part of my life through the self-isolation period, a big turning point in my life.

 

  In the past 6 months, I could play impromptu from time to time as well as practicing the basic music pieces for piano. My heart was greatly solaced and I was able to gradually escape from my sorrow and pain, which was a momentous change to me. We humans always tend to be hurt and have pain in the heart. If this is not healed properly, we may do weird behaviors or be stricken with emptiness, frustration and sadness, having difficulties in leaving an energetic life. So maybe we need love, art, or religion that can soothe our hearts.

 

 

   After retirement, I started to shape my thoughts for the next decade after retirement. Even though it is yet to complete, I started gathering things that I thought would be nice if I could say: “I've been living this way for the last 10 years” by looking back on the last 10 years after 10 years. I’m still making it and it’s a bit embarrassing, but allow me to introduce them anyway.

 

1. The overall goal for the next 10 years: To be reborn (Not to improve my life)

 

(1) Live through actions, not words (Teachers tend to talk too much)

(2) Reborn as an artist, not an educator (I was born as an artist, not an educator)

(3) Tune a sense of humor in everything (Teachers are usually too serious)

(4) Do not intervene in the lives of others, and do not attempt to become a savior for them (This is another nasty habit of educators)

 

2. The next 10 years - A list of things I would like to say by saying : “I have been living this way in the last 10 years.

-What would I like to say about my life in 2030? (2020-2030)

 

(1) I have been playing the piano in the last 10 years

(2) I have been making music in the last 10 years, and I used to play music for people close to me

(3) I have been working in architecture and landscape as a designer in the last 10 years.

(4) I have been studying trees and forests and creating forests in the last 10 years

(5) I have been on one long trip every year and one short trip every month in the last 10 years.

(6) I have continuously exercise (cycles, swimming, strengthening muscles, etc.) in the last 10 years.

(7) I have kept or made a few close friends in the last 10 years

(8) I have said a grace in the last 10 years.

(9) ....

(10) ....

   

3. Epilogue

 

  The outbreak of Corona pandemic has changed the whole world. What we need most now, I think, will be the wisdom to fully enjoy life with the limited resources we have. We need the wisdom to live a rich life by abandoning our attitude towards having more; giving thanks for what we already have; and using them well.

 

  I started getting new habits one by one according to the 10-year plan. I will introduce just two of them. One is paying a grace every day, and the other is making music.

 

  In Dumaguete City in Negros, the Philippines, where I live, the eastern sky begins to turn red and the day dawns bright around 5:10 in the morning. In the tropical Philippines close to the equator, the morning breaks at almost the same time throughout the year. At that time, I pray in a posture of bowing while looking at the sky in the east of the sea. I thank God for allowing me to live today. I often say a grace in tears because I am so grateful and with the life and time given today, I can do the things I love and I can love my family and friends.

 

  Another new habit I started is making music, a piece of music that I can play for others, not impromptu. Here at Gandhi School in the Philippines, a 59-year-old woman named Bonnie, who had been a teacher at Gandhi School, is dying of cancer. Since she had never married and has no children, she is living alone in her house, giving herself pain relief injections and using oxygen bottles in preparation for her death. At dawn a week ago, I suddenly thought I would make music for her, and I started making songs and lyrics for her. I visited her last Wednesday to tell her that I was making a song for her, asking her opinion. She said it was an honor and I got permission. I've been working hard on making a song for her, writing lyrics over the last 1 week with the thought of playing it once while she is alive and once at her funeral. It means that the first music I make will be for one dying person. Allow me to introducing the lyrics of the first line of the song I am making. It is a pity that I could not play the song.

 

  My friend, my friend, Bonnie

  It's time to say good bye

  We smile, we smile, we smile

  We cry, we cry, we cry

  We pray, we pray, we pray,,,

 

  I always think that I need to completely close the door of my past to live a new life. It is because I will repeat the same mistakes if I am bound by my habits in the past. Now, I want to retire from teaching; live as an artist, not an educator; live a life of joy, not a life of duty; and live with love in my heart.