When Your Diary Talks Back

Written by Kyle about Korea, Republic of. Feelin' thoughtful
Kyle_thoughtful
One of my favorite students is a student named Nicole who is a 4th grade student in one of the top classes for her age.  I like her because she is smart (without being too smart or bragging about it) and she tends to have a more mature view on things than most people her age.  Heck, she probably has a more mature view on things than most kids in high school.  For example, when she was tasked an essay titled "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up", her essay basically said that she just wants to have a happy life, irregardless of what job she has.  I know at that age I wanted to either be a professional wrestler or a detective; I never really took the existential view on it.

Anyway, as a part of my class, the students write diaries where I correct their English and give them encouraging remarks on their writing.  Usually it follows the form of: "Yesterday, I did homework, then I played computer games.  It was fun."

However, Nicole, the Philosopher, actually writes diary entries as if no one is reading them.  Instead of talking to The Diary, I am the one on the listening end. 

Here is a recent diary entry, unedited:

Everyone will write about their times when they have special party.  But I don't.  I sometimes do, but this time, I won't.  I want to write diary about studying.  Why Korean students study too hard?  In Korean parents' story, some of the parents just play after the school.  Before they play all day but now, it's not.  It is opposite.  Now, students go academy after school.  In vacation, too.  Please... can you just see what we do?  We want to play!  We don't want to be studying machine!

First I have to say that what she is saying is true.  Basically, after their public school, kids go to various acadamies (called Hagwons in Korean), such as a Math Academy, Science Academy, Ballet Academy, and, in our case, an English Academy.  In other words, when we get our elementary school kids, they have already had a full day of school.  There are so many acadamies that a lot of kids are in school until 7 pm, with some kids actually doing school work up until 10! 
Kids Don't Sleep in Korea
Essentially, I agree with what she is saying.  I think that kids in Korea do too much work for their age.  But, I work in the same institution that she is complaining about and if I tell her what I really think, her parents might just pull her out of the school. I don't think my bosses would be too happy with me for that.  Besides, kids do a lot of complaining about, well, just about everything, so some of it is just youthful ingorance and/or the "parents just don't understand" thing.

So after thinking about it for literally 20 minutes, here's what I ended up writing back to her:

Studying and playing are equally important.  But, if we play too much, we won't learn enough.  However, if we study too much, we are unhappy.  I suggest that you do all of your studying quickly and efficiently so that you have as much time as possible to play.  And when you play, play with friends.  Everything is better with friends!

I hope I did a decent job of responding to her.  I'm not usually the one to mince my words, so it was difficult for me to say something truthful without saying what I really think.  I guess I can be happy that the diary entries aren't about boyfriend/relationship issues.  That's when I'm just going to write "Talk to your parents about that one!"

Note: the comic is from our friends at Roketship.

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