Newsline: Brethren teachers fall in love with work in North Korea

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl

Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

Brethren teachers fall in love with work in North Korea

(Feb. 10, 2011) Elgin, IL -- Brethren teachers Linda and Robert Shank

return to North Korea this month for a second semester teaching at the

new Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) on the

outskirts of the capital city of the Democratic People's Republic of

Korea (DPRK). The Shanks have been teaching and living at PUST since

classes started Nov. 1, but were in the United States for the holiday break.

"The chance to meet these wonderful, bright, talented, respectful young

people is a privilege beyond anything. I don't even believe it yet,"

commented Linda Shank during an interview at the Church of the Brethren

General Offices, where Robert Shank also led a chapel service for

denominational staff. They have "fallen in love" with their work at the

>university, he reported.

The Shanks are teaching in N. Korea under the auspices of the Church of

the Brethren's Global Mission Partnerships and Global Food Crisis Fund

(GFCF). Since 1996, the fund has provided grants in N. Korea for hunger

relief, agricultural development, and farm rehabilitation, and supports a

cluster of farm cooperatives in order to help boost agricultural production

and equip the country to avert periodic famine.

Robert Shank holds a doctorate in wheat breeding and has conducted rice

research. Linda Shank holds a master's degree in counseling and learning

>disabilities.

Part of a combined international and Korean faculty at PUST, the Shanks

are two of seven teachers from Western countries including the US, Great

>Britain, and the Netherlands.

The all-male student body includes 100 undergraduates, and 50 graduate

students in three schools: Technology/IT, Business and Economics, and

Agriculture/Life Sciences. The student body is expected to grow, as the

university's 240-acre campus was built to accommodate more than 1,000.

International faculty is allowed off the walled campus only for escorted

scheduled activities such as shopping at embassy stores and sightseeing.

Lesson plans and lectures are approved in advance, and staying on the

topic is required. However, the fear of encountering excessive rigidity

>quickly evaporated.

"I was concerned that they would be really inhibited students," Linda said.

Remembering her previous work with young people in nations affected by

violence, she said, "sometimes you see guarded eyes or troubled eyes,

however, these students are so normal, so undamaged."

In the first semester, all the students were required to focus on English.

Linda taught reading/writing which included journaling, from which she

learned much about everyday life in N. Korea and the students' families

>back home.

For most of the undergraduates, this is their first time away

from home and their first encounter with someone international. PUST

attracted top-ranking students selected to attend the new institution from

secondary schools and other universities. Having previously been top

students, inability to be number one in class leads to fear of failure, which

is a running theme of the journals. "I feed back to them all the time that

while all 100 cannot be number one at PUST, they will be competent

leaders when they take up their jobs in their country," Linda said.

"A challenge in class was understanding each other," Linda reported.

"After two days I asked the class how much they were understanding of

the verbal instruction. They said, 'Less than 30 percent'; after six weeks

they said, '58 percent.' I also had difficulty understanding their spoken

English, so we were all challenged in verbal interactions!"

However, they were not challenged in enjoyment of the interactions. As

groups of vocabulary words accumulated, a mini-lesson would develop.

One group of words was consensus, unity, and harmony. The Korean word

for grandmother is "halmony." Linda joked that when children are

disagreeing and "halmony" arrives, harmony arrives. Future journals

included, "I apologize to 'halmony' for sleeping in class." "I apologize to

>'halmony' for not having my homework done."

Linda views her work not as a call to change things in a traditionally closed

society, but to educate the next generation of leadership for a nation. She is

clear that the teacher's job at PUST is not to "fire up" students, but to

nurture them to succeed within the society. Even though the Shanks are

aware that simple exposure to international people shifts the boundaries for

their students, Linda said, "We have to be very careful not to lead them

>down that path.... Their society needs them."

An original hope for Robert's work was to connect the university research

with the farm cooperatives supported by the GFCF. Now it seems that may

not be possible because of governmental divisions between departments

that oversee education and agriculture. However, the Shanks are holding

continued conversation with mission executive Jay Wittmeyer; GFCF

manager Howard Royer; Pilju Kim Joo, president of Agglobe Services

International, which is a key partner in the farm cooperatives enterprise in

N. Korea; and Marv Baldwin and Bev Abma of the Foods Resource Bank,

>another key partner.

In place of connecting with the farms, Robert Shank now plans to put to use

some of the university's extensive campus. He hopes to grow vegetables and

fruit trees, develop nurseries, and create demonstration plots. Much of the

campus lacks top soil and is thinly covered with weeds at the moment, he

said, and university President Kim has asked him to "make it beautiful," he

>reported with a smile.

His idea is to do onsite teaching of bio-intensive agriculture and seed saving,

"growing for calories and carbon (sequestration), building soil organic matter,

and looking at a lot of grains and root crops." He is collecting seeds for 11

vegetables in different varieties, including Chinese and Korean variations. The

Shanks' luggage when they return to N. Korea in late February also will

include microscopes, textbooks, and other supplies for a graduate-level class

>on advanced genetics.

For more information see www.PUST.kr and an article about PUST at

>www.38north.org.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing

the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in 
community.

The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is 
one

of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 300th anniversary in 
2008.

It counts some 123,000 members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and

has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic,

>Haiti, and India.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

>Director of News Services

>Church of the Brethren

>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120

>800-323-8039 ext. 260

>cobnews@brethren.org