North Korea is more than an authoritarian state, it is also a place where people live. How do we help teams of North and South Korean students tell that story?
Project overview
Daum School is an alternative Christian middle and high school "empowering the next generation for a reunified Korean Peninsula for [their] students to become global leaders who are prepared to meet the demands of their time." It is based in Seoul, South Korea. It is unique in the context of South Korea in that it is based on explicitly welcoming North Korean defectors and children of defectors along with South Korean students.
The partnership. I was chosen as part of a team of 3 students from Minerva University to mentor an English class of North and South Korean high schoolers in the creation of a collection of storybooks on life in North Korea. The students worked in hybrid groups of 3 to 4 students. Our head supervisor was the English teacher running the class. An underlying thread during the project was that North Korea was more than an authoritarian state: it was also a place where people lived. The books gave students the space to tell their own stories about the place they or their families come from, or to help tell a friend’s. They were also originally meant to be presented as part of a student presentation during the end-of-semester festival.
My 3-level role
Team lead. I kept the mentoring groups on track, coordinating availability across the team and stepping in on logistical or creative obstacles as they came up.
Mentor. I worked directly with three students on their individual storybooks, teaching story structure and the basics of character building, working through translators.
Coordinator. I was the main communication point between the student team, our Minerva supervisors, and Daum School, running periodic check-ins with the teacher and keeping Minerva informed on what was and wasn't working.
Timeline
September 2021 - December 2021
Highlights
Disclaimer. Due to the highly sensitive nature of the population and the project, this case study will not contain pictures, deliverables or names in order to protect the students. I hope you enjoy the placeholder doodles!
The challenge
Language barrier
My teammates and I only knew a few words in Korean
Sensitive subject matter
Given the demographic we were working with, the topic of life in North Korea is highly sensitive
Class hour and semester constraints
We were called in to work with students once a week for the duration of one hour, for a project that would last less than three months
How it ran
Story structure teaching through translators. We had to rely on the English teacher to translate what we were teaching, and often found ourselves relying on the more English-competent of the students in the individual groups to do the heavy lifting of the translation. We overestimated how much translation apps could help us, and I would make sure students do not have to do extra labor to compensate for our shortcomings in a future project.
Extra sessions when needed. Even if it was not mandated by the rules of my project, I made space to meet with my group outside of class hours to make progress on the projects when we were falling behind schedule.
Mental health check-ins. We made sure to keep the students’ level of comfort with each story at the forefront of our priorities. Thankfully, since the students had full creative control over their stories, we did not run into a scenario where they became distressed by the subject matter.
Kakao talk protocol for Daum School. We centralized all communication with the school and students on Kakao Talk. My teammates and I had a group with the English teacher for coordination purposes, and each one of us had their separate group chats with our individual groups to check on progress and obstacles. In my group, I sent a recap of each session and tasks to make progress on for the week.
Cross-group coordination on Telegram for Minerva University. My Minerva teammates and I had our separate Telegram channel to coordinate travel to the school (it was an hour away from our residence hall), and to give updates about how the individual groups were moving towards completion of the storybooks. I also used the channel to communicate any updates from our Minerva University supervisor to the group.
The coverage rule
The project happened alongside a busy academic semester, and so we once ran into a big coordination problem: the three of us, caught in the stress of midterms, told the English teacher we were not going to make it to the class at the last minute. This misstep put the burden of handling the three groups we would not be helping on the teacher, with little space for her to find substitute mentors for the day. Going forward, my teammates and I agreed to have at least one person present during academic rush periods: we would have an internal poll a few days prior to make sure we did not repeat that mistake.
Descoping
Despite our best efforts, most of the projects could not be ready by the planned end-of-semester festival given the pace at which we were moving. We were therefore faced with two choices: speed up the process while sacrificing the quality of the storybooks, or focus on finishing the storybooks that could be presented in a future semester. We opted for the second choice, in coordination with Daum School.
Language barrier = invisible labor for someone. Going into the project, I believed that translation apps could do the heavy lifting for communication. I quickly realized I was wrong, and witnessed either students or the English teacher absorb the weight of our lack of proficiency in Korean. If I were to assist a similar project in the future, I would make sure to double check how proficient participants are in languages that I speak, and should there be a gap, advocate for having a speaker of their language on my team. It is highly important to not make participants provide labor for the team’s shortcomings, especially in a social impact context.
When an external partner depends on my team, availability needs to be a system. The day where our academic responsibilities left the teacher stranded, I learned that it was highly important to have a strong availability and coverage system during projects that required attendance at specific, critical times. This is especially true when working with an external partner.
Facilitating creation requires restraint. As a highly creative person, I often found myself wanting to suggest a myriad of ideas to the groups I was mentoring, but I stopped myself. My job was to strengthen ideas, not add mine, and so I focused my feedback on character and story questions to make them stronger. It was frustrating at first, but I quickly saw the value of seeing students’ ideas flourish under my guidance. For any similar future projects, I am now able to fully embrace my assistant role.