An undergraduate arts degree? Don’t ask about its rate of employment

 

I spent six years studying playwriting at a theater and film department. [Because it took so long,] people used to joke: “Did that include military service time too?” When I was in my first and second years I eagerly took part in student union activities. When I was in my third and fourth years I eagerly participated in theatre productions. During those six years, I also took a break from my studies after my first three consecutive years to have fun. Then I had to take more time off because I fell sick. The rest of my time, I worked part-time and worked on my own projects.

 

I graduated when I was twenty-eight years old [in Korean age]. This year I became twenty-nine. That’s the age which people often ask how it feels to be at an age “ending in nine.” [※Numbers ending in nine: Koreans believe that when you are at an age ending with nine (19, 29, 39, etc.) you should avoid moving house or making big decisions.]

 

▲ Teaching- Becoming an art lecturer working once a week on a six-month basis ©Ani

When I was a middle school student I practically lived in the library and adored the poet Yi Sang. I loved his work so much that I wanted to be just like him. But I chose a science high school in order to major in architecture. I studied hard and didn’t waste any time, concentrating only on my studies. However, when I was twenty I did poorly on my university entrance exam and was not accepted into the university of my choice—which was just as well, since I became ill and could not even attend my graduation ceremony. I spent the next year of my life convalescing at home. During that period I played computer games which I had not been able to play while I was studying, and I also worried about my future career.

 

The conclusion I came to was that worrying about the future is completely useless. I could very well die tomorrow or even right away. That’s when I decided to create art and also give up my original idea of having a specialized job while creating art as a secondary occupation.

 

At university, there had been ten of us studying in the same major. All of my classmates took different paths after they graduated. Some became writers, others went on to graduate school, took jobs in major companies, became lecturers, worked in a different field, got married, prepared for the civil service exam, disappeared… but only a few still think of themselves as prospective writers.

 

At one point, my department faced the possibility of shutting down the program altogether because it had a 0% employment rate. A full-time job in the arts is not the norm. I don’t know of any alumni who work full-time as artists (even though there may be one somewhere) and a majority of graduates combine their day job with working on their own projects. So now, I combine giving art lectures to children with being a prospective writer.

 

Becoming an art lecturer working once a week on a six-month basis

 

Right after graduating, I found a job as an art lecturer in the arts education division of the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. However, in my case, the term “finding a job” might be misleading. The department I work for hires lecturers once a year, but does not offer contract renewals and hires anew every year. An insect has a better life than I do. If I am hired [as I now have been twice], I only work for about six months out of the year. An insect lives the entire year.

 

The program, is an experiential and process-based multi-arts literature class for children and teenagers that takes place every Saturday. My reason for applying for this job was that I had a grand dream of helping children grow by means of art education. However, during my school years I did not even consider taking a course in education because I didn’t believe I was good enough to become a teacher. As a student having only experienced mediocre teachers, I thought that I could not be better than them, and dimly believed that I would not be a good influence on children.

 

However, there were not many full-time jobs available to me as a person without the special skills necessary to escape from part-time work. In addition, the job I was hired for was very appealing because it was related to my major and I could use the extra time to work on my own projects. Since I was used to working part-time and getting paid the lowest hourly rate, I now felt that my payment for lectures was a lot. (Of course, after having worked there for a while, I realized that the hourly wage should be raised because the pay rate had been frozen since ten years ago!)

 

After my documents had been reviewed and I had gone through an interview, a workshop, and a presentation evaluation, the job that I was first assigned to was at a library located in Chungcheong Province. My house was in Seoul and my workplace was in Chungcheong Province! I can remember how a wave of panic came over me when I saw the map. However, I faced the situation reminding myself that I had a job and that I should be very thankful for it. Without this job, what else could I do? And so, I went to Chungcheong Province for the first time in my life.

 

Right up until the first day of class, I prepared for it as much as I could—even though I didn’t know how I would manage the class and what I would talk about. The first thing I did was build the character of a teacher using my ideal of what a model teacher should be: bright, positive, energetic, and smiling. I also memorized the script of a lecture that I wrote and practiced it in front of other teachers.

 

However, there was a problem. I couldn’t practice in front of me real children, and the last time I had actually met and talked to children was when I was a university student and had volunteered for rural community work. And, I was an average urban twenty-something who had been raised in a four-member family system with my parents, my younger sibling and myself, and didn’t know who my neighbors were. After staying up all night worrying about whether the class that I prepared for would be appropriate for the children or not, I got on the express bus [to work] in the morning.

 

Having a job and being called a “teacher”

 

“Hello, children, nice to meet you!”

 

How many of you who are reading this article remember your childhood? On my first day, after having spoken to a number of children, I realized that except for a few special cases, the majority of children do not enjoy writing. At one point, I so was upset by the children’s constant demands to just have fun that I told them, “We need to make progress in class! We need to write!” I felt my own teacher character taking me over and shouting, “Kids, let’s write one more line!” I ended my first class completely exhausted.

 

▲ “I have nothing to write.” ©Ani

After writing the required notes about my classroom work—which were also a sort of letter of apology—and checking over the photos and videos I took and the children’s work, I made up my mind to give a better lesson for next week’s class.

 

However, this became a daunting task and even though I spent the entire week preparing, I was not able to fully convey my thoughts during the class. I felt stressed out. After an agonizing self-search, I realized that the teacher character that I had built for myself did not fit me well at all. It made demands on me that were too difficult and too emotionally draining. I realized that it was not only the children but also this other self that was alienating me. I had tried to act like a teacher, but by doing so did not in fact become a teacher.

 

Unable to evaluate my teaching, I decided to go to class and meet the children as my real self. In doing so, I found a preferred way of studying using a progressive style and I also found ways of coping with children interrupting or quarreling during the class. For example, when a child did not want to write, I asked him or her to write the reason why they did not want to write. Then, they had to submit a full one page paper. In their writing, I could then find what they were worrying about (which was different depending on the child).

 

I also found out that it is best to make an agreement with children, to have basic expectations but not force results, to be patient, and to give them nice compliments; all of these elements form a sort of playground. I am very happy when I see the children freely having fun in this playground which we created together. Above all, I am happy when I see a child gradually opening his or her mind to this process. Although I am called the teacher, I am the one who is actually learning a lot from the children.

 

There are, however, other sides to my teaching unrelated to the romantic view of writing. The children sometimes run frantically around and then injure themselves, coming to me with their bleeding heads. Sometimes they just sit down in pain from the stress caused by studying. Other children almost at the stage of puberty declare a meaningless war of nerves against me. I sometimes get thoughtlessly angry at those who have emotional scars because I don’t know where the scars are, and how I should care for them. There is also one child who has attention deficit disorder.

 

Even though I am coupled with an assistant teacher, I always feel that each class is a close call. In order to be better in the classroom, I participate in education workshops whenever I have the opportunity, and carefully observe other teachers’ classes. Moreover, I took a class to get a license in culture and arts education. Except for my driver’s license, that license is the only one I have which is certified by the government.

 

The meaning of a bank balance in a capitalistic society

 

In this program, whenever a course is finished, the children have a recital. This recital is one of the final outcomes of the class. Each person in charge has a different expectation for this recital. The preparations for this recital are nerve-wracking and the task leaves students and teachers alike exhausted. This event is contradictory in nature due to the fact that a marvelous result is expected even though our curriculum is process-oriented.

 

▲ I didn’t know how much I really liked children. ©Ani

At the library where I worked, a manager asked for mine and the assistant teacher’s participation so that we could prepare for the event with the children. Even though the recital was a voluntary unpaid task, we stayed up several nights to prepare for it. Because the library was far away from my house, I slept at a motel near the recital hall. And this, even though I had planned the whole thing! It was because I tried this and that and made a few mistakes.

 

We invited the parents and showed what the children had accomplished so far. I remember that some students refused to the last to present their work. Lastly, we also distributed a collection of their work. After the recital was over – and successful – one parent said, “I support this class.” By the end of the first year, I had tasted four seasons in Chungcheong Province.

 

This year the competition for this job intensified because the art teacher employee quota was cut by half and the number of applicants increased. After the interview, I came back home and laid down on the bed. I imagined what life would be without money. In this capitalistic society a bank balance seems to give one a sense of self-respect. If I really didn’t have money at all, what kind of life would I live? How would I survive? Even if I didn’t die of hunger, I was sure that my body and mind would suffer. I suddenly felt faint. Could I do the part-time job that I used to do during winter? I felt depressed at first, then felt strange as I calmed down. I asked myself: “If I had to go back to my part-time job, wouldn’t I then fully understand what true self-respect really is?”

 

Nowadays, I teach in Incheon. But the night before a class I still cannot sleep because I feel anxious. I am a second-year teacher, and yet, I’m still struggling.

 

When will I make my debut as a playwright?

 

The story of my life, so far, is about my once-a-week job. On the other days, I prepare for class; do easy part-time work; write; participate in a choir; take a class; see a performance; or go to meetings for my theater company. Recently, a theater company which my friends and I created produced a show in Daehangno [Seoul’s theater district]. This cost money, but fortunately, the production was financed by a supporting fund. We did not put out money, but we also did not make money. It’s the same story for everyone who puts on their own shows.

 

The theater jobs we’ve all worked at so far were either paid—but at a ridiculously low wage – or unpaid, or were supposed to be paid but we never received the money. Whether we worked with little or no pay, it didn’t matter—we even used our own money to get our part of the project done.  Along with the strange system in which the owner of the theater (in other words, the owner of the building where the theater is located) makes money by our theatrical works, there are various reasons that make me feel that it is difficult to gain a livelihood working in the theater. Of course, there are people who do make a living by working in theater. However, I am not one of them—for now.

 

Since I turned twenty-nine, I have heard the same kind of things from people around me: “Can you make money in theater?” “You are almost at the best age to marry,” “You should hurry to get a job as this may be your last chance!” Or “You are too late.”

 

My ideal life would have been to make my debut as a playwright right when I graduated, and then write numerous other plays. However, life does not work out as we wish. Twenty-nine years old, and already two years out of college—when will I, still a prospective playwright, make my official debut? Will I suddenly become a playwright one day just like I suddenly became a teacher? Who gives you the title of playwright? Students came to me and I became a teacher; will an audience come to my theater so that I can become a playwright?

 

I will not make the same mistake that I did for my first teaching class. I will not pretend to be Yi Sang thinking that I will then become Yi Sang. Making believe that I already was a teacher did not make me a teacher, and making believe that I am a playwright will not make me a playwright. But I would love to call myself “Ms. Lee, playwright.”

 

There will be something at the end of this road

 

▲ “Joy” by Jo Seung-ha. ©A-ni

I half-jokingly say that if I could eat caviar—thanks to my writing—I would quit my teaching job. It’s not that I dislike my teaching job, but I’m thinking about how I could mix art education and my writing work. I am still unsure about living as a teacher. If all the time I am being called a “teacher”—something that I had not expected—then one day, I might just quit everything else and devote myself to teaching. Or I might radically change career directions.

 

It is a great feeling to get paid for working. We could die tomorrow, which is why we should all live our lives to the fullest today. I can support myself with the money that I’m making but I may have difficult days to come if I am not hired next year. What other job would be appropriate for me? Could I continue to write for myself? How would I feel if I were not able to spend time with children anymore? Maybe I could do it in a different way. Or I could write a play about them—I already have thought about all this.

 

Anyway, I have to leave my worries for next year. Now I have to concentrate on my class this coming Saturday. My rhythm of life is by itself stable with my writing work and my classes every week.

 

“JERRY: It’s one of those things a person has to do; sometime a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.”

-Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, Modern American Plays, ed., Byun Chang-ku and Lee Hyung-shik (Seoul: Shinasa, 2008).

 

What will be at the end of this road? Will there be the “I” that I really want to be? Or the “I” that people around me want me to be? Maybe no one else will live the exact same life that I will. If so, there is no one who is walking the road that I am walking. I must continue to walk. I would love to walk slowly. I hope I would not run with people near me even if they started to run. I would walk or take a rest or go back to the road. Nonetheless, the road that I have been walking on is not going to disappear from my memory. By continuing to walk, I will meet the end of the road. I will be there. Life does go on. [Translated by Jieun Lee]

 

-Published: October 13, 2014. Original article: http://ildaro.com/6847

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

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