hankyoreh

April 29. 　

A gloomy mood has recently spread among the first grade students at “B” Elementary School in Busan’s Haeundae District. This is because the puppet play they had been practicing to show off to their parents at the school athletics festival on May 1 has been canceled. Moreover, the students are also disappointed that the athletic festival for their first year of school will be carried out without their parents.

On April 22, the school sent out a notice to parents that the school had decided to scale down the athletic festival in connection with the sinking of the Cheonan. The notice stated that the entire nation is in a state of emergency with the sinking of the Cheonan, and since other organizations have scaled down festivals due to the country’s grief, the school also made the decision to scale down the festival to an athletic competition without the parents’ attendance in order to match this atmosphere. In the end, school officials decided that the festival would feature only student running events. The school requested that parents also, cooperate so that the event goes smoothly, canceling visits to the school by parents who expected to run relay races with their children.

At another elementary school in the nearby neighborhood of Annak in Dongnae District, a collection box for the families of the victims of the Cheonan was set up at the entrance of the classrooms on Tuesday and Wednesday. Through Thursday, the national period of mourning, the school put up a notice to parents on its homepage that called on students to wear achromatic colors, to wear condolence ribbons, to observe three seconds of silence when they enter their classrooms and to cooperate with collections for the families of the victims. The children also wrote letters to the sailors who died aboard the Cheonan. This is because the school asked students to freely post mourning letters on the school homepage.

On Tuesday, a notice to students of Class 3 of the third grade of “G” Elementary School in Gwangyang City, Jeollanam Province noted that 20 students had participated that day in a collection for the families of the Cheonan victims, and that the collection would continue until the next day. It said that participating together is also a form of education. Prior to this, the school sent a notice to each family, explaining that it was starting a voluntary collection fund and asking that parents send their children with donations. The school sent the money, collected by grade, with Class 1 of the second grade collecting 76,000 Won ($68), Class 3 of the third grade collecting 97,000 Won, and Class 1 of the sixth grade collecting 121,000 Won, to the Jeollanam Provincial Office of the Community Chest of Korea.

At “J” Elementary School in Incheon, Miss Lee, the student body president, has been going around the school since April 17 with a collection box for the families of the victims of the Cheonan. The school sent the money collected, a total of 1,304,700 Won, including 750,700 Won from the students and 554,000 Won from the faculty, to the Incheon City office of the Community Chest of Korea.

The response from parents at these schools to these events that have been place since the sinking of the Cheonan has been mixed. One parent, Kim Hwan-sik, 40, praised the school for informing the children about the sacrifice of the men of the Cheonan and teaching them about the process of grieving. Some others, however, have expressed disquiet, wondering if perhaps this was reminiscent of when they went to elementary school under the military dictators. Another parent, Ahn Hyeong-cheol, 41, remarked that children can also be sad with pure hearts, but it seems that the school is leading a forced atmosphere of mourning with even young students. Parent Lee Hyeong-sang, 40, wondered what a semi-forced collection whose immediate goal was not clear had to do with mourning the loss of the men of the Cheonan.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]