It was 2023, the year that pandemic-related restrictions finally lifted, when Dr. Nara Jeong, New Canaan mom to two girls, began looking for a Korean language school for her kids.
Dr. Nara Jeong, principal of the New Canaan Korean School. Credit: Michael Dinan
Her younger daughter was having “some difficulty with speaking in both languages, English and Korean,” Jeong recalled on a recent afternoon.
Yet the closest Korean language schools were about 40 minutes away—in Scarsdale, N.Y. and New Haven, she recalled, and were operated under the auspices of churches. Jeong enrolled her kids in the latter school but “it was still too far for me, with my kids’ schedules getting busier on the weekends, especially with sports.”
After talking to the former principal of a Korean school in Hartford, Neong and some of her friends within New Canaan’s small Korean population —including fellow parents at the United Methodist Preschool—decided to launch their own.
“They really want their kids to learn Korean,” she said.
The New Canaan Korean School on Feb. 22 held “Seollal,” a Lunar New Year celebration, at New Canaan Library. Students performed a Korean fan dance and mask dance, and they also sang the traditional Korean song “Arirang.” Contributed
In late-2023, the New Canaan Korean School earned nonprofit status and launched its first “spring semester”—a three-hour school that runs weekly for 14 Sundays—in 2024.
“We signed up 30 kids the first year,” Jeong recalled.
What began as a modest-sized program run out of the United Methodist Church has grown to include nearly 50 students—with just under half from New Canaan families, the rest from neighboring and nearby towns—ranging from pre-K to high school. Operating out of a larger space in New Canaan Country School, the New Canaan Korean School is now registered with the Overseas Koreans Agency (a government body), and has added teen and adult classes for its current session, and while teaching the language remains a priority for parents and the school—many Korean-born parents speak only English at home, Jeong said—the curriculum also opens up students to learning about Korean culture in an inclusive way.
During a typical three-hour class, two hours is spent on reading, writing and speaking Korean, while the third hour is about Korean history and life, she said.
After the Feb. 22 performances, the New Canaan Korean School invited attendees to activity tables, including traditional Korean games, traditional musical instruments, and food. The school also served tteokguk (Korean rice cake soup), which is traditionally eaten during the Lunar New Year. Contributed
“They are learning about their roots so they can feel, ‘Oh, this is fun, this is lovely—I love this letter [calligraphy], this culture, this food, these clothes,’ ” Jeong said. “So they can feel proud of our culture. In this town, there are not many Asians, so these kids may be struggling in middle school or high school, thinking, ‘Who am I? Why do I look different?’ There are identity issues. Now they will know, ‘It’s not just me. There are many families that look like us.’ And they start to understand and feel proud.”
In the current semester, the school is getting a visit and performance from the Korean Traditional Music and Dance Center of New York, teaching how to make Kimchi, celebrating the Lunar New Year with Mandoo (dumpling) making and putting on cultural classes such as in K-pop songs, Korean art and history.
Running the school is a large group effort coordinated by Jeong, backed by a number of highly qualified instructors.
“There are not many Koreans who can fluently speak Korean and who are actually available for teaching,” Jeong said.
“Most of them are moms,” she said. “They’re here [at the school] anyway to bring their kids and they’re actually quite good, with academic degrees. I didn’t know that they have doctoral degrees, they have degrees in business or English literature. So academically they’re wonderful, amazing—and now they are housewives. It’s a very low amount of money to be paid, but they are willing to do that. Now, every semester it’s my challenge to find more teachers because whenever they have a conflict or a weekend away with their kids, or for sports or whatever, then they can’t come and I have to find other teachers.”
Asked about her vision for the New Canaan Korean School, Jeong said its parents drive programming.
“Most of all, they want their kids to speak Korean more,” she said. “Many parents are immigrants who are unable to teach speaking Korean but they understand how important it is to learn Korean and English together. So even if the moms can’t speak Korean well, they want their kids to speak more. In the long-term, I want them to engage more. And another long-term goal is that I want the school to continue after me—it’s a lot for me as principal, since I’m also a mom of two.”