Recession-Proof Investment

By Dennis Yang

Contributing Writer

In the current global economic and political climate, the only thing certain is the uncertainty of all that is around. Foreclosures and mortgage catastrophes are cascading from Stockton, California to Tallahassee, Florida.

Banks are miserly about extending loans and America's once omnipotent currency and world's means of exchange is quickly losing its luster and global appeal.

To further complicate matters, Iran is busily enriching uranium, Al Qaeda is regrouping and regenerating in Afghanistan, and America's image around the world can be summed up by a cursory glance at the ongoing protests in South Korea.

The world is far from stable. In such times of change and unpredictability, the only bonds worth hanging onto are those established through long-term relationships.

One of these bonds, which the grand-ole sage, Confucius, extolled, is the relationship between student and teacher. The student/teacher relationship is one that has changed remarkably since Confucius was alive.

In South Korea, a traditionally conservative nation, teachers are historically lavished with abundant accolades and seen as moral beacons for youths trapped in the wilderness of adolescence.

Although teachers are no longer viewed in comparable esteem, the motivation of committed educators has not wavered despite a societal recalibration of the respect given to public school teachers.

Having the privilege to teach at Gimhae Foreign Language High School not only assures me the opportunity to educate the burgeoning elite of this nation, it exposes me to innumerable public school teachers who, to borrow a phrase from Singapore Airlines, are a ``class beyond first.''

Last night, during a pleasant evening of dinner and conversation, the physical education teacher, who has 27 years of experience, soberly uttered his cardinal career objective before retirement: ``to be recognized as a good teacher and to be respected and remembered by all those you have touched.''

His statement was candid, eloquent, and lacked any whiff of the materialistic and competitive culture that has swarmed other sectors of the nation.

His words may not be an aberration, but it absolutely needs to be publicized and underscored as a testament to the idea that success is indisputably a definition that is wholly personal and not communal.

If one tirelessly strives to reach a conception of success that is constructed by anyone other than themselves, the road will be grueling and most vitally, unsatisfying.

As an English teacher, I sometimes get caught up in competition between colleagues, popularity contests among students, and other trivial matters that deserve less attention than I pay them.

Perhaps it was illuminating for me to hear someone who just tried to be the best at what he did, without boasting of past feats or self-hyping prospective career alterations.

That is an area in which I am not beyond my years and an area that, once reached, ensures maturity and real self-confidence.

After much reflection, I now know that the greatest gift my students could have given me is the ability to be preoccupied with that which is not me. I'm not there yet, but hopefully on more solid footing than in the past.

The writer teaches writing, world news, and TOEFL writing at Gimhae Foreign Language High School in South Gyeongsang Province. He has a master's degree from Duke University and will be attending Columbia University's Teacher's College in the fall of 2008.