아직 끝나지 않은 일The Work Still Ahead

I would like the courses to sell

Honestly, I would like my courses to sell well. I do not think I need to hide that wish while saying that I want to make lessons that help students. I want more children to watch the classes I have worked hard to record and to be able to follow them. That was also why I began writing the study book.

Don’t Solve Math in Your Head covers habits such as writing out working, learning the concepts first and revisiting even the problems you answered correctly. I hoped that reading about things I cannot explain fully in every lesson would help students follow the course. There are thirteen sections, available in Korean and English. I made the full text free to read on a phone at mathskim.com, without registration.

I made it free because I wanted more students to read it. Whether they are about to take a course or studying alone, I hope they can find the part they need. Reading a book will not, by itself, change the studying. The reader still has to try writing out a solution or recording why an answer went wrong.

I have questions too

While writing, and after finishing, I wondered whether the book was really well written. Recording lessons and producing a book mean that I have done my part of the work, not necessarily that students have received what they need. I am reminded of being told that my lessons were too fast even for the highest class in the medical-track division.

Hyunwoo, the student in the book, is fictional. I could not use a real student’s private information, so I brought together things I had observed in several students. The student types in these essays were constructed in the same way. Examples made to explain a point should not be read as events that happened to a particular student.

A student who has tried the book’s methods for a term may be able to tell me what I have not explained adequately. I am interested less in what they have read than in where they got stuck again. Whether the book is well written is not a question that ends when I close the manuscript.

What I would say to parents

“Believe in your child, but set clear rules for everyday life.” That is what I would like to leave with parents. My own parents supported me completely. I still think I would have rebelled had they kept pushing me to do better. At the same time, I wish the everyday rules had been clearer.

I hold both views. Trusting a child does not mean that daily life needs no boundaries. Nor can setting boundaries consist only of repeatedly telling them to do better. This comes from looking back at my own childhood; I am not trying to prescribe the same rules for every family.

To students, I would say: “Do your best. Don’t leave your future self with regrets.” I was a fearless child and a cramming student myself. This is not advice from someone who always studied impeccably. Just as I worked through past papers and revisited problem sets even in a short period, I mean that you should actually do the studying available to you now.

What is not yet decided

If asked what I will be doing in ten years, I tend to start with a joke. In this industry, people talk about the “number-one instructor”. I have heard someone go further and call themselves “number zero”. I would like to be number minus one. I am joking. Half joking, anyway. I do want to become a teacher more students seek out.

I mean it when I say that, ten years from now, I still want to be telling a grade-10 class to write their working down. A student may not immediately listen. I changed some habits only after making mistakes myself. I would like to be a teacher who can explain again then.

Since being the child who watched the numbers on car plates, I have moved between teaching and learning several times. In Britain, I went from teaching a student to applying to Cambridge. After graduating, I went from teaching classes to carrying my own exam admission slip again. I knew a great deal when I stood before students, but that did not automatically tell me what they did not know.

I have gathered these years under the title The Long Way Round. I do not mean that everything turned out well because I took a detour. There were periods of leave from university while I continued teaching, and lessons students found too fast. Having reached this point does not let me write a finished story.

For now, I am preparing the courses that begin in December. I move between the office, headquarters where we film, and home. I do not yet know whether students will like these lessons. I worry, and I want to do well. When I get home, the work continues.