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A citizenship lesson from the South Korea book

Respecting Community

Grades 2 to 5 · K-1 with an adult reading aloud · one 60 minute session or two 30 minute sessions

Why this lesson

Popular culture sells children a story where being young means ignoring the old, and where shared things are nobody’s job. Seoul answers both: families where generations live and learn together, a subway that keeps seats for elders, and a city that once tore out a highway to give a buried stream back to everyone. Respect is not old-fashioned. It is how a modern city of millions thrives.

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What the class makes: A care agreement for one shared space in their own school or home, written by the children who use it, posted in that space.

1

Title and welcome

What do we share? Children list things that belong to everyone and no one: the library, the hallway, the playground, the park, the bus. Who takes care of these things?

2

The greeting from the book

In Seoul, Alexandria learns the greeting “annyeonghaseyo.” It is how her friend’s family greets people through the day.

The cover of the Seoul, South Korea book: Alexandria and her friend
3

The wish inside the words

“Annyeonghaseyo” carries the word “annyeong,” which means peace and well-being. The greeting is really a caring question: are you at peace, are you well?

Ask the class: what does it tell you about a place when the everyday hello checks on how you are doing? In the book’s family, the way you speak to a grandmother also changes to show extra care. Children share how their own families show care to older family members with words.

4

Personal reflection

Three questions, written or drawn:

5

Something real to read or watch, and discussion

The story of Cheonggyecheon. For about fifty years, a stream through the middle of Seoul was buried under concrete and an elevated highway. In 2003 the city decided to take the highway down and bring the stream back, and in 2005 it reopened as a long public stream park where families walk, cool their feet, and gather. Read or show from the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s official Cheonggyecheon pages and published features on the restoration.

Talk it through together. Open each question when you are ready for the teacher notes:

What was Cheonggyecheon like before, and what did the city decide to do?
What children might sayChildren might say: it was a road on top of a hidden river; the city took the road away and let the water back. You can note that this was a choice, and choices about shared places are decisions communities make.
Who had to work together to bring the stream back?
What children might sayChildren might name: the city government, engineers, construction workers, drivers who changed their routes, neighbors who asked for it. Caring for a shared space is many people’s work, not one hero’s.
How do people in Seoul care for spaces everyone shares?
What children might sayFrom the book and the reading, children might name the subway seats kept for elders, clean stations, parks, the stream itself. Ask which of these took a rule, and which took a habit.
What is a shared place in your community that deserves this kind of care, and what would caring for it look like?
What children might sayEvery serious answer is right, from the school library to a local creek.
6

The six actions

How to respect a community, one action at a time.

🌍Learn about the world around you

Shared-spaces walk: the class inventories the shared spaces of their own school, then matches each one to a shared space Alexandria saw in Seoul: the subway, the park, the stream.

👂Learn how to listen

Elder wisdom: at home, each child asks a grandparent or an older family member or neighbor known to the family to teach them one thing they know how to do well, and listens to the whole answer without interrupting. Children retell what they learned to the class.

🗳Be involved in the decisions being made for you

Write the care agreement for one shared space the class chooses, with jobs children volunteer for. Propose, vote, adopt, post it in the space itself.

💡Learn about different ways of thinking

Many ways to show respect: bowing, handshakes, kind words, quiet voices, standing to offer a seat. Children compare how respect looks in their own families, and find what all the ways have in common.

🪞Learn about yourself

Respect self-portrait: one way I already show respect, one way I want to grow this month.

🤝Learn how to solve problems peacefully

The messy shared space: the class takes a real small problem in a shared space, a cluttered book corner or a chaotic supply shelf, and designs the fix together, then does it.

7

Before and now, then the close

Show photographs of Cheonggyecheon as an elevated highway and Cheonggyecheon today. Ask: What changed? What stayed? What did people choose to keep?

The stream was there the whole time. The community chose to uncover it.

Close with each child naming the one job they signed up for in the care agreement.

Alexandria smiling and waving

Thank you for exploring with us.

With thanks to the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Cheonggyecheon materials.

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