Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers

[DesertRat]

As the birthrate plummets in South Korea, rural schools are emptying. To fill its classrooms, one school opened its doors to women who have for decades dreamed of learning to read.

GANGJIN COUNTY, South Korea — Every morning on her way to school, Hwang Wol-geum, a first grader, rides the same yellow bus as three of her family members: One is a kindergartner, another a third grader and the other a fifth grader.

Ms. Hwang is 70 — and her schoolmates are her grandchildren.

Illiterate all her life, she remembers hiding behind a tree and weeping as she saw her friends trot off to school six decades ago. While other village children learned to read and write, she stayed home, tending pigs, collecting firewood and looking after younger siblings. She later raised six children of her own, sending all of them to high school or college.

(snip)

Help came unexpectedly this year from the local school that was running out of school-age children and was desperate to fill its classrooms with students.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/world/asia/south-korea-school-grandmothers.html

[femmedem]

1. What a beautiful story. I got all choked up.

So much poverty and misogyny in the backstory, but so much resilience and joy now.
Reading this was a great start to my day.

[DesertRat]

3. Me too

[pansypoo53219]

2. love this.

[SunSeeker]

4. We're got plenty of illiterate adults that could use help here too.

I'll never forgot being taken to a courtroom as part of a school trip. There was a trial going on and an older black man was on the witness stand. He was handed him a piece of paper and asked him a question about it. He sat their silently, then began to cry. He said he could not read.

[dalton99a]

5. Great story.