Self-designed Ewha Overseas Program allowed the E-muses to experience the advanced cases of coping plans for school violence overseas. The E-muses, consisting of four team members, Lee Ji-seon (Education, 4), Na Shin-young (Education, 4), Song Hyeon-ji (Education, 3) and Ho Jeong-eun (Education, 4) visited Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom to obtain ideas concerning school violence.
“There has been a rising interest in school violence in Korea since the suicide incident of a middle school student in Daegu,” Lee said. “We wanted to find out how other developed countries were dealing with school violence.”
The E-muses visited schools and educational institutions to see how other countries were managing school violence.
In Finland, they visited the University of Turku, where the KiVa Koulu program was created. The KiVa Koulu program works for the purpose of fighting against school violence. Through the univeristy visits, the E-muses felt that Finland focuses on helping students grow up as socially-capable adults.
“We felt something that could not be learned through words,” Lee said. “We were refreshed to meditate on what real education is about.”
The E-muses also had an interesting experience in the Red Balloon Center in Cambridge. The center is a teaching institution for victimized students.
“We were touched to find out that the students who suffered from school violence had a craving for knowledge inside of them even though they are away from other students,” Lee said.
Moreover, the E-muses wanted to find out the effectiveness of the anti-school violence campaign led by ABA (Anti-Bullying Alliance) in the United Kingdom. They asked questions on the process of the campaign and how the networking between teachers, students and parents was occurring to prevent and solve school violence. The members are totally satisfied with their journey.
“The biggest advantage of this program is that we get to design the entire trip from head to toe,” Lee said. “The planning process requires a lot of work and is challenging, but the effort pays off in the end with a satisfying output.”
