Dasom embraces biracial students

Park Jun-ho, right, looks on as his classmate makes a cup of coffee at Seoul Dasom School. Park is learning both cocktail-and coffee-making but the emphasis is on the former for which there is a nationally-recognized test. / Courtesy of Seoul Dasom School

‘Jobs are future of the young’

By Kim Ji-soo

Park Jun-ho, who is an 11th grader at Seoul Dasom School, works the cocktail shaker and mixer as he prepares a Black Russian, Pina Colada and Manhattan, Friday. His instructor dutifully watches over to see how he is doing, whether he can make three cocktails in seven minutes. That’s a requirement for him to pass the national test to become a bartender.

Park, born to an ethnic Korean mother from China and a Korean father, is hard at work even on a holiday at the school in Hongin-dong, eastern Seoul.

“I hope to be able to find a job bartending after graduation, to make enough for a living,” said Park. The school educates the students well enough to pass the national exam in cocktail making, which is vital for employment in the sector.

Asked how much that would be in numbers, he replied “About 1.5 million won a month?”

In one of the most degree-oriented society, Park has decided early on to enter the job market right after graduation from high school.

The Seoul Dasom School is the first public alternative school that focuses on multiracial students including those who arrive in Korea later than their parents. The number of multiracial families is steadily increasing nationwide — estimated at about 750,000 as of July 2013 and expected to climb to 1 million by 2020. While there are multiracial students born in Korea and therefore start their education in the Korean language, there are also students who arrive later after their parents have settled in Korea for employment.

Students listen to a teacher explain how to work the excel program, which will help them gain employment after graduating from the high school. / Korea Times photo by Kim Ji-soo

“For the majority of our students, their mothers are from overseas countries who have been widowed or divorced and remarried a Korean man, and then after settling, invited their children to Korea,” said Lee Choon-keun, vice principal at the school.

Because it is a high-school, the children come with several years of education completed in their mother’s respective countries. Some haven’t completed or gone to school once a mother or in very rare cases of a father came to Korea for marriage or for work. Once the children arrive, they are living with step-fathers, sometimes taking care of their step-sisters and brothers, the vice principal said.

“They face a lot of challenges in school and at home, “ Lee said. “So we focus on teaching them Korean, but we give the students a choice of majoring in computer media or hotel tourism.”

Jang Se-young, an 11th grader, has a Korean father and a Vietnamese mother. She came to Korea about two-and-half years ago. For such a short-term resident, her Korean was quite fluent. She adroitly makes dry martinis.

“The focus is to create a clean flavor,” she said. She wants to explore both cocktail-making and a career as a barista after graduation.

The school is actually comprised of one floor in the Creative Hall of Seongdong Technical High School in eastern Seoul. It opened in 2012. Because the school recruited the students in all three levels; it also produced its first batch of graduates — three students — in February 2013.

It’s a small school, 40 new students per year. It’s also the country’s first public alternative school for multiracial students — meaning no tuition. The school doesn’t have its own building; it rents out the entire floor from Seongdong.A total of about 30 teachers and staff members make the school operate all-year around.

In the classrooms, students are generally quiet as the class ensues. Because it’s special session, the classes were limited to Korean and major-specific classes like teaching cocktail making, or how to do excel and power points.

In the intermediate-level Korean class, as the teacher Jang Ju-suk is busy explaining how to get to the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) test sites, some converse in Chinese. The students of Seoul Dasom School must earn TOPIK Grade 4 in order to graduate. The teacher repeatedly emphasizes to the students how TOPIK will grow more difficult in April, and then engages in drill sections along with students who follow along pretty well.

During regular semesters, the school offers classes through 4 p.m. including “therapy through art and music” for the students.

“These students are all good kids. But some seem lethargic and not zealous like the other students. One of my goals is to have these kids get gung-ho about their future, then I will know that they have adjusted somewhat to Korean life,” said Lee, the vice principal.

Beside the assistance from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, corporations such as CJ, Cuckoo and KPX have been assisting the school.

“The school could use help, for example in the provision of dinner for these students who could really use it,” said Lee. “But what the students really need is jobs.”The first and the second batch of the school graduates are still looking for jobs, while one is planning to advance to college.

Kim Seung-hee, a 17-year-old chose the Seoul Dasom School, specifically because she wants a job after graduation. Born in Korea with a Korean father and a Filipino mother, she said the school is also a second chance as she didn’t fare well in middle school.

“I am grateful for the chance to study at Dasom. Also, I know several seniors who went onto college but are still jobless. So I think Dasom is a good choice for me,” said Kim.