2020 Winter Intensives (Model United Nations)

What separates PEAI from any other hagwon? This is no doubt a question any prospective student would ask oneself before embarking on his/her journey with our community of learners.

As much as my pride and ego would have me believe that the answer might be as simple as the finest quality of teachers, and the devotion and affection with which lessons are carried out, in all truth, this is but only half the answer. The other — and no less important — half consists in the academic passion and fervor of the very students that are the objects of our jobs as teachers. If a teacher’s prime objective is to instill in students the kindling fire of passion for learning, all is for naught if students do not respond in turn — and it is precisely herein that resides the magic of PEAI. For in light of the lucid and humbling recognition that great teachers alone do not a community of learners make, no greater joy can be had — at least for one such as myself who calls teaching not only as his profession, but indeed a lifetime vocation — than when confronted with a group of students who exhibit all the makings of a thinker of the greatest caliber, one that not only yearns, but positively strives to reach the deepest of depths of humanity’s intellectual reservoir: it is those type of students that make teaching such an incredible journey, filled with ineffably profound moments of pride in recognition of the great promise they represent for the future.

During the Winter Intensives, I was privileged to teach, yet again, such a group of fine students: Nora, Huiwon, Dana, and Yumin. All throughout, they demonstrated not only remarkably keen intellect and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, but — most significantly — the earnest desire to change the world for the better. Time and time again, they went above the call of duty to create a work they could proudly call their own; part of this dedication can, of course, be explained away by pointing toward their need to satisfy their own curiosity — this is already in and of itself admirable — but perhaps what comprises the bigger reason is their motivation to forge their own future, a future in which they refuse to stand idly by as crises punctuate our world, a future in which they will not be content to pass off responsibility to others by simply pointing fingers at all those who fail to do enough. Instead, it shall be their future, its horizon brightened all the more radiantly by the dreams and hopes they carry for it.

I hope the works they produced during this Intensive can also provide for everyone else a peek into all that they promise for our future.

JP Teacher