In this blog post, I will summarize what I learned through my academic experiences, school activities, instances of consideration and cooperation, and career preparation process during high school.

Academic Experiences and Reflections

I took my first Classical Chinese class in my sophomore year of high school. Since I had almost no experience learning Chinese characters through my first year of middle school and high school, I initially lacked confidence in both Chinese characters and Classical Chinese. However, as I learned each character step by step and worked through the textbook, I realized that studying Chinese characters was more interesting than I had expected.
My teacher did not conduct classes focused solely on rote memorization and exams. Instead, she explained the origin, etymology, and meaning of each character through storytelling, which naturally sparked my interest in Hanja. This storytelling approach helped me perceive Hanja not as mere symbols, but as a language with its own context and meaning.
The most significant change I experienced while learning Hanja was that I became able to read newspapers. Hanja characters often appear in the editorials and articles of the general-interest newspaper I subscribe to, but I used to be unable to read them. Since I started studying Hanja, I’ve come to understand everyday Hanja, and I can even interpret the Hanja used as annotations in Korean language passages, which has made reading much more enjoyable.
I’ve moved beyond simply memorizing Hanja words and have found it fascinating to study the interpretation of classical Chinese passages and literary works. The textbook included classical Chinese poetry, historical essays, folk songs, and long poems, and we engaged in activities analyzing and translating them. Since simply knowing the pronunciation and meaning wasn’t enough for interpretation, I made an effort to learn the order and methods of interpretation, and as a result, my grades in the classical Chinese course improved. Through this experience, I came to believe that a foundation in Chinese characters and vocabulary is essential for studying all subjects.

Writing about major school activities and reflections

I have been active in a creative writing club since my sophomore year of high school. This club originated from an after-school study group formed to learn literature, and during my freshman year, we primarily focused on solving past exam questions to improve our literary interpretation, criticism, and comprehension skills. At that time, we practiced interpreting works studied in class by focusing on author analysis, historical context, and literary analysis, and whenever we had free time, we studied the authors’ lives and backgrounds using reference books.
With the guidance of a teacher and the support of friends who shared the same interests, our after-school gatherings naturally evolved into a club. Thanks to our teacher’s consistent guidance, which extended beyond the classroom, we broadened our understanding of literature while also taking on the challenge of creative writing. Through the process of reading and discussing various works, we developed a desire to experience the perspective of an author creating their own work.
In the club, we repeatedly shared our works with one another, exchanged reviews, and received feedback from our teacher. As our skills improved, we began submitting our works to external literary contests and school creative writing competitions. Although we valued the writing process and the joy of expression over the results, we were fortunate enough to win awards in several competitions. These achievements served as motivation for our club activities, and we also gained the experience of compiling and distributing a club anthology together with our teacher. The process of producing the anthology involved refining our individual works and selecting our best pieces, which served as an opportunity to cultivate a sense of responsibility and self-reflection regarding our writing.

Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections

In my second year of high school, I served as class president and led the class for a year. As class president, my primary focus was helping class members feel a sense of belonging and form bonds with one another. My classmates had strong personalities and were quite active, so they would participate enthusiastically whenever I planned group activities.
I frequently held class meetings to gather opinions and personally planned and organized events such as class sports days and team-building activities.

During school-wide events, I fostered an atmosphere where our class could come together as one and work cooperatively. For the sports day, we produced matching team T-shirts and hats to strengthen the unity of our competition teams, and we wore them together while cheering. This production process was led by me, the vice-class president, and the heads of each committee.
Rather than leaving decisions on design, color, and the selection of the manufacturer solely to the executive committee, we conducted surveys and votes to reflect the opinions of the entire class. We selected a design through a vote from several options and collected a variety of ideas by encouraging students to freely share their thoughts before finalizing the design. Thanks to our meticulous attention to detail—from adjusting sizes to managing the ordering process—production was completed without a hitch, and the uniforms became a lasting symbol of our class’s sense of belonging.

Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation for Application and Career Plans

Through reading, I was able to cultivate the sensitivity and understanding required of an educator. Reading coming-of-age stories, classics, and modern novels allowed me to follow the protagonists’ journeys of growth, which helped me understand students’ developmental tasks. For example, by reading works such as Lee Mi-ryeok’s ‘The Yalu River Flows’, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, and ‘Demian’, I broadened my perspective on understanding children through the conflicts and self-reflection experienced by the characters.
My dream is to become an elementary school teacher in the future. Since elementary students are in a critical phase of learning self-direction and self-control while forming their individuality, I believe it is essential to provide character education tailored to their developmental stage and to develop learning materials that satisfy their curiosity. The perspective on students gained through reading serves as the foundation for concrete lesson planning and an educational attitude.
I believe that to become an educator, it is essential to go beyond simply imparting knowledge and instead strive to understand situations from the children’s perspective. I have a strong tendency to observe my surroundings and the people around me, maintaining a certain distance to better understand them, and I strive to view problems through a positive and inclusive lens rather than through rebellion or criticism. This attitude has fostered empathy and altruism, contributing to the formation of the character and values required of an educator.
Moving forward, I plan to develop educational materials tailored to students’ perspectives and conduct more in-depth research on teaching methods that reflect their developmental characteristics. I believe the insights gained through reading, along with my experience in club activities and classroom management, will serve as practical resources for understanding and guiding students in the classroom.