5
Eagle Academy
Eagle Academy was not a bad place to work.
The teachers were well compensated and the children motivated.
With only ten students per class, everyone was able to practice writing, listening, and speaking as well as solving difficult math and science problems. The parents who paid dearly for after-school and weekend lessons in the Daechi-dong hagwon witnessed notable progress—not a guaranteed outcome for a reputable hagwon even in Gangnam.
Eagle Academy’s reputation had spread, traveling to even Apgujeong, where Sonya lived.
With long waiting lists, there was almost never any room for new students who were not siblings of graduates.
Sonya’s two boys were already enrolled at the best tutoring center near the Hyundai Apartments and performed at the tops of their classes, so she hadn’t seen a need to change anything.
If there were any issues, however, Sonya would have barreled through any closed doors for her sons with all the resources she could muster.
And so she told Helen to push her way into this famed hagwon only blocks from their house.
Tom Song, the American owner of Eagle Academy, had put up the Sheetrock himself. He and his Korean wife, Clara, had painted each wall and ceiling of the two-floor space, which they had rented from Tom’s former Cornell classmate Renee Cha.
Tom and Clara had divided the two-hundred-square-meter space into six classrooms, one common area, and two professional offices.
Inspirational posters featuring inventors, presidents, and writers papered the corridors.
Everywhere you looked, Tesla, Edison, the three Roosevelts—Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor—and the likes of Shakespeare, Locke, and Montaigne and their most celebrated quotations encouraged young minds to persist and excel.
From the corner of a stairwell, a poster of Helen Keller exhorted: “We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.” Teenagers challenged Keller’s idea: Effort didn’t cut it.
They were too short for professional basketball or modeling, or lacked the singing voice to become an idol.
Tom would answer with Oscar Wilde, who was up there with Mark Twain for a snappy retort: “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
Clara was undeterred by mocking adolescent shrugs and eye rolls.
She framed a color photograph of Nelson Mandela with the quotation “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Though Tom was not religious, Clara was, and she tacked up Bible quotations about love and forgiveness and, of course, the well-known verses from Saint Paul instructing the runner to run his race swiftly and to put on the armor of God.
She knew the book of Proverbs cold. Her favorite: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
In five years, without any advertising, Eagle had become the most in-demand hagwon in the area. Its students outperformed their peers, but more importantly, they wanted to study there.
The informational meeting with the Koh children was more or less a courtesy.
Clara, who had always liked Nari and her daughter, Yun, had explained to them that there was no space at the hagwon.
However, she and Tom would be willing to interview the Koh children for the waitlist in case an opening came up.
One of the teachers had to assess Tom’s friend’s son anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem to have the Koh children assessed at the same time.
In Tom’s crowded office, its white walls lined with waist-high bookshelves stocked with study guides as well as Tom’s framed diplomas from Cornell and Teachers College, the owners greeted the three teenagers and their mother.
The Koh children and Helen took their seats on the two sofas separated by a low coffee table, and Tom and Clara sat on upholstered armchairs opposite each other. Tom thanked the family for coming in.
“Yun insists that Mido just has to be in her classes. I think she’s said the same to all her teachers,” Tom said, smiling at Mido.
“Mido, do you prefer to speak in English or Korean?” Clara asked in English.
Mido and her brothers were surprised, not having thought they had a choice here. She hesitated, then answered, “English, please.”
“Bo?” Tom faced the oldest child.
“English is easier for all of us,” Bo answered.
“Yep. Same,” DH said with a slight Australian accent, which he had been learning to dial down.
Seeing the children fidget in their seats, Tom felt sorry for them and realized he should not have taken the meeting.
Even accepting Peter Son, his friend Renee Cha’s only child, had required shuffling the classrooms to keep the roster at ten per class.
There was no way Tom couldn’t accept Peter, whose mother was not just a close college friend but also owned the building.
If it hadn’t been for Renee, Tom and Clara wouldn’t have been able to start Eagle.
Peter was already in the next room, talking with Sean Teacher, waiting for the assessment to begin.
Clara touched her left ear and looked at Tom, a signal that he should hasten the consultation since this meeting didn’t count and there was much left to do today.
Tom glanced at Mido, and the little girl said nothing. Clara grew concerned.
Tom was born in Hawaii, then his father’s work in the military had taken them to Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Missouri.
There were advantages to moving around, but having done so much of it himself, Tom knew what it was like.
For a kid, relocating every few years had been a series of setting up tents, taking them down, then putting them up again, with no one ever asking how he felt about it, or warning him about what would happen.
Not everyone was built for such a life. An itinerant childhood had perhaps made his older sister and him hardy, but the instability had been difficult on their younger sister and mother, who had not done as well.
His father was a good man, but he had demanded order and sacrifice and expected his family to act as if nothing had happened even though the world had shifted with each new home.
“How are you finding it here? It’s not easy, is it?” Tom asked. “How many places have you lived?”
“They were born in New Jersey, and they’ve lived in Paramus, Seoul, Sydney, and now we are back.” Helen smiled.
Clara raised her eyebrows.
“My goodness,” Tom said, and studied the children’s faces.
He had worked with children for a long time.
After getting his doctorate, he’d taught social studies at public and private schools.
He worked in admissions at three schools, including Harvard-Westlake and Phillips Andover.
In Los Angeles, he was set up on a blind date with Clara, an international student who was studying at USC, and they fell in love.
She followed him from Los Angeles to Andover, but she wanted to live in Seoul to be with her family, and he wanted to try something new.
“It must have been difficult for you, too,” Clara said to Helen.
Helen shook her head. It had been harder for the children to leave each time, learn the rules of a new teacher and a new sports team and the codes of each schoolyard, then leave again when the company said to go.
However, she was grateful that they could always be together. And that the children were healthy.
Tom and Clara observed that Mido had hardly made a sound.
Clara smiled. “Mido?”
Helen leaned in. “She’s shy.”
The boys stared meaningfully at their sister, feeling protective yet recognizing that this interview mattered. Earlier that week, Helen had prepared them for this. They wore their Sunday clothes.
“It’s okay to be shy,” Tom said, and smiled at her.
Mido held her breath. They were watching her, and she swallowed.
“I’d like to study with Yun here. I know I have a lot to learn in Korea.” Mido took a breath. “I’m a hard worker. I promise to do all my Eagle hagwon homework. Yun told me there is a lot.”
Clara and Tom laughed, and Helen closed her eyes and exhaled almost silently. Both Bo and DH smiled, trying not to make a big deal of their sister’s comprehensive answer.
Helen handed Clara a folder, and she continued to speak in English, which felt strange, but it allowed her to be less formal and less aware of her status.
She was a supplicant, although she was the elder.
Helen believed in her children and didn’t want to sell them as if they were a pair of expensive shoes or an article of designer clothing.
“I brought their report cards from Sydney. They’ve done well. I don’t think their recent grades on quizzes and tests here reflect their abilities,” she said.
Clara stood and faced the children.
“We have assessments for all three of you. Come with me. I’ll let Dr. Song speak with your mother.” She smiled.
The children followed Clara to the next room.
Tom watched them walk out, and Clara closed the door softly behind her.
“Your children are great.”
Helen smiled, not knowing what else to say as his face grew sober.
“You see, the problem is that I have a waitlist for new students, and even if the assessments showed that they were an ideal fit for Eagle, I want you to know that it’s highly unlikely”—he corrected himself—“no, it’s actually impossible, for us to accept them even if something changed with our enrollment, because you’re not looking for one spot but three.
There are parents who have been waiting for more than two years for a space to open.
It’s really my fault for accepting this meeting, and I blame myself.
I would not want to mislead you. If you would rather that the children not take the assessment, I do understand—”