Helping babyboomers to prepare for post-retirement life

Students at the first 50+Life School busily writing in this file photo. / Courtesy of Jung Gwang-pil

By Kim Ji-soo

In his 2015 essay about living as a novelist, Japanese writer Murakami Haruki mentions the need of a certain space for personal recovery.

And who would disagree? For Koreans, especially those in pressure-cooker metropolises such as Seoul, such a space is both a necessity and a rarity. While they need the space for their well-being, the space is hard to find.

Jung Gwang-pil, dean of the “50+Life School” at the Seobuk 50Plus Campus in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, wants however people who apply to his school to be little more serious. The school recently opened its first program.

“I had people write a one-page essay on ‘mind-riddance’ or why they want to take part in the school. Mainly, they are asked to write what they want to purge from their minds or life now, and what they boldly want to add to their life in the future,” Jung said in an interview with The Korea Times.

The school’s name “50+Life School” refers to a person’s first 50 years and subsequent 50 years. In fast-aging Korean society, many people are expected to live up to 100. The school targets Korea’s baby boomers — those born between 1955 through 1963 — who have led Korea’s rapid growth and transition to democracy.

“In a way, you may say this generation is fortunate in that they are the last generation to fully enjoy life-time employment,” said Jung.

“But at the same time, they are the generation that does not know how to live life freely and that has always done what their jobs and their families have demanded of them.”

“We want these people to be ready to face the new reality in which they may live 50 more years, and learn to live for themselves, rather than for their workplaces, families,” Jung said. “To find new relationships, they must join a group of people with whom they can share new values,” he added.

Jung, a life-long activist and educator and former principal of the well-known alternative school Ewoo School in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, said that he wants to differentiate “50+ School” from existing ones in Korea that teach how to achieve success or that focus on teaching humanities on an amateur-level.

The school’s first program opened on May 4 and will run through July 7 with a four-hour weekly class. The first two-hours of the class are the school’s essence where the curriculum includes studying a film to ask probing questions about oneself in order to prompt participants to start talking and meeting with “human libraries” or individuals who have achieved meaningful transitions in their lives. In the final weeks, the students will be asked to create their own networks or communities.

He said he wants people to find out what they want, and who they are, rather than live as “somebody’s parents or somebody’s children.”

“Otherwise you will become a ‘kkondae,’ be full of rage and resentment, and start having conflicts with those around you especially those close to you,” said Jung. The word “kkondae” is a Korean slang that negatively refers to the older generation who expect to be served and respected because of age.

The school is where his students can deeply think and muster the courage to do something new.

Asked if these questions are confronted too late in life, he said he initially wanted to establish a school for 10th-grade students.

But as Korean society ages fast, it is producing a generation of retirees and soon-to-be retirees who face a different reality from the previous generation who got to retire in their late 50s and perhaps spent a decade before dying. But now people who retire in their 50s face the possibility of living longer. Even with some savings — some say about 700 million won is about the average post-retirement savings required for Koreans — many face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives either mountain climbing or taking care of their grandchildren. Jung decided on this group also because they still have some economic capability. According to a report issued this year by the “Research Institute for 100 Years of Life,” which is affiliated with NH Investment & Securities, Korea’s 50-somethings on average possess 340 million won in net asset and national and retirement pension benefits.

In real, the school receives applications from those aged 45 through 65.

“Having a diverse mix of students, meaning those with different life experiences and backgrounds, was what we wanted,” said Jung. “It is important to have two different people, let’s say a person who has retired and is two years into his or her retirement and one who is just headed toward retirement, together,” he said. A combination like that would starkly contrast the reality of the person that has already retired against the dream harbored by a person who has yet to retire.

“People in this age group have been thinking about their life after retirement one way or another, and also they are the most financially stable among various generations,” said Jung. Yet, the school that is part of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s “50+ Foundation” only charges 60,000 won for the entire program.

Jung has been an activist and educator all his life. “What educator does not act?” he asked back. He grew up during the iron-fist rule of President Park Chung-hee and entered the prestigious Seoul National University but was expelled in his first year for student activism. He entered the military service in 1979. He served for 33 months, after which he went into labor activism by finding work as a lathe worker at a factory in Cheonggyecheon, Seoul. He then stepped up his labor activism nationwide, through which he found his mission in education. He built up the extensive network of people and relationships during that time to tap into when planning for the Ewoo School. Jung briefly got involved in politics in 1990s but decided that education was his path.

He founded the Ewoo School in 2003 and served as its principal through 2011. Unlike the hyper-competitive curriculum in other schools that aim to get more students into prestigious colleges, the Ewoo School’s curriculum focuses on producing well-rounded students by emphasizing internships in the students' prospective industries, as well as volunteer work.

“Then, as now, I want to show that education or school means allowing students or people to grow,” Jung said, explaining that growing means going through several instances of trial-and error.

Jung wants to expand the school nationwide eventually, because, he said, educating this generation will be easier and may address social problems efficiently. He believes his school, modeled after the Denmark schools for life, is a movement within the civic sector, which has lagged behind Korean economic development and in effect, has turned into a jungle.

His personal values may help toward his goals. “It is a bit personal but I find challenges very fun. I always preferred the difficult routes,” Jung said. “I also believe that I will do everything that is deemed necessary,” he added.