In this blog post, I’ll summarize my academic experiences and school activities during high school, examples of consideration and cooperation, and my vision for the ideal elementary school teacher—along with the preparation required to become one.

Academic Experiences and Reflections

While studying Korean in my freshman year of high school, I realized that the volume and depth of literary works I had to learn had increased significantly compared to middle school. In middle school, learning was primarily focused on appreciation, but in high school, even for the same work, I had to outline the plot and understand the text in detail. It was a heavy burden to simultaneously keep track of background knowledge about the author, the historical context in which the work was written, and the vocabulary within the text along with its interpretations.
When I analyzed one work and then moved on to another, I often couldn’t recall the notes I’d taken previously, and when solving problems, my interpretations of the works would get jumbled, leaving me with only fragmented, memorized knowledge. To address this inefficiency in my learning, I began creating my own “self-study worksheets” for literature. By “self-study worksheets,” I mean study materials I organized from my own perspective—not materials created by others—in a way that only I could understand.
For example, when creating a study guide for Lee Sang’s “Wings,” I began by illustrating the key scenes myself. I meticulously took notes on the meanings of the characters, settings, and props appearing in each scene, and organized the plot and outline in a mind map format to make them easy to grasp at a glance. Additionally, rather than writing everything in the same color, I used different colors based on importance to create my own visual cues.
Using this method, I accumulated one page of material per work, and when necessary, I would organize multiple works on a single page through comparative analysis. As the materials accumulated, a “home” for my interpretations naturally took shape, allowing me to look things up immediately whenever I couldn’t recall details while solving problems. As I repeatedly reviewed the study materials and the mind maps and images became etched in my mind, it became easier to recall them when solving exam questions, and studying literature became much smoother.

Major School Activities and Reflections

In my sophomore year of high school, I joined the Modern Literature Debate Club. It was a club founded by upperclassmen, and it primarily focused on holding discussions about modern literature. Although I had only ever imagined participating in such activities before, thanks to the upperclassmen’s initiative, I gained the opportunity to get involved firsthand.
The club led by the upperclassmen met relatively frequently and covered a large number of works; their approach focused on studying content by simultaneously examining multiple works organized around specific authors. Although we were at the point where we needed to start preparing for college entrance exams, we had some flexibility, so we chose to hold theme-based discussions rather than studying by author. For example, we compared, analyzed, and discussed works grouped under historical themes such as the Japanese colonial period and oppression.
Our team met regularly once a week, and we established a rule to select and read the works for the next meeting in advance. By delving deeply into one theme or work per week, we were able to explore the works from various perspectives. Repeatedly studying the works we encountered in class through the club served as natural review, and I participated in the discussions more actively than anyone else by reading the works and preparing materials.
The major themes covered in the club were extremely diverse, including variations on love, the pains of growing up, the daily lives of ordinary people, the yoke of poverty, criticism of materialism, resistance to oppression, the scars of war, strategies for surviving turbulent times, life under Japanese colonial rule, the dreams of rural people, and the spirit of craftsmanship and artistry.
We either identified themes within the works we read or selected them directly through discussion. For example, under the theme “Variations on Love,” we examined Hwang Sun-won’s “A Sudden Shower,” Kim Yu-jeong’s “The Camellia,” Ju Yo-seop’s “The Love Guest and Mother,” and Hyun Jin-geon’s “Ms. B and the Love Letter”; under “The Daily Life of the Common People,” we explored Yang Gwi-ja’s “The People of Wonmi-dong” and Lee Tae-jun’s “The Real Estate Agency.”
Additionally, under “The Shackles of Poverty,” we examined Hyun Jin-geon’s “A Lucky Day” and Kim Yu-jeong’s “Manmubang,” while under “Criticism of Materialism,” we covered Kim Yu-jeong’s “The Bean Field Where Gold Is Harvested” and Lee Tae-jun’s “The Stone Bridge,” among others. The materials I compiled through reading, discussion, and writing were kept as personal study resources and proved to be a great help in my subsequent studies.

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

During my sophomore year of high school, I served as the head of the classroom maintenance committee. The committee typically worked quietly behind the scenes to keep the classroom environment tidy. Our main duties included finishing up classroom cleaning, decorating the bulletin board at the beginning of the semester, organizing items piled on top of lockers, and cleaning fans and space heaters. Although many students did not recognize my efforts, I approached my role with a sense of responsibility and diligence.
Although our team was small—consisting of only about three members—we were actually able to collaborate very efficiently. For example, when cleaning the fans, we divided the tasks: one person disassembled the fan and cleaned the motor, another washed the blades and the main unit, and the third wiped everything down and dried it. We also made a concerted effort to maintain classroom hygiene, such as disconnecting monitors to clean the insides when dust accumulated on the power strips.
Since personal items, gym uniforms, and shoes were often left scattered on top of lockers, we introduced a system where we placed baskets next to the lockers to collect these items and keep them organized. As these small efforts added up and the classroom became cleaner, it reached a point where the cleanliness was maintained without any specific instructions from the homeroom teacher or classmates.
In particular, I felt a great sense of fulfillment when I was thanked for protecting students from fine dust by consistently cleaning fans and space heaters. Through this process, I learned how to show consideration and cooperate with others, as well as the sense of responsibility required in group living.

Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation for Application and Career Plans

In my view, the ideal elementary school teacher is not merely a transmitter of knowledge, but someone who nurtures students’ critical thinking and expressive abilities. Elementary education must lay the groundwork for various subjects and provide a solid foundation that enables higher-level learning. In this regard, as a Korean language education major, I wish to conduct lessons that enhance students’ critical thinking skills.
I believe that in elementary school, enriching students’ thinking and fostering their creativity is more important than merely conveying knowledge focused on college entrance exams. Rather than stopping at simply analyzing literary works, I aim to stimulate students’ imagination and expressive abilities through various activities to lay the groundwork for creative writing. To this end, I plan to have students express the emotions they experience in daily life through various means, such as songs, rhythmic movements, games, and group activities.
For example, I will design activities such as having students collaborate to compose and sing a song conveying a message of reconciliation after a fight with a friend, or writing a letter with illustrations to praise a friend they like. By participating in these activities, students will naturally develop their critical thinking, creativity, and expressive abilities.
My strength lies in my ability to design such educational programs and apply them in the classroom. I am comfortable creating Korean language learning content myself and am eager to develop effective materials that students can engage with joyfully. In high school, I created my own worksheets, typed up literature teaching materials, and produced reading materials for discussions.
Through this process, I developed my own mind-map and image-based learning methods, which yielded excellent results. I view the process of developing new teaching methods in Korean language education, applying them to students, and verifying their effectiveness as a research project in itself. I aspire to become a teacher who can systematically conduct such research and incorporate the results into my classroom instruction, and I believe this is both a privilege and a duty of a teacher.