Faith Academy

Sarah Ma (OC)

1. history of your school and its effects on the mission

Faith Academy was founded in 1957 by the Missionaries serving in the area. The missionary families with school aged children were increasing in number and there was no adequate educational options at the time. If something was not done, many of the missionary families would be forced to return to their home countries for the sake of their children. The initial student body was nearly all American missionary children whose parents worked in Asia. There were about 47 students and of those nearly one quarter lived in the school dormitory. The school grew rapidly over the next few years and quickly outgrew the school compound in the Manila area. A new campus was purchased and in the early 60’s the school moved out of Manila to the suburbs where the campus exists today. The boarding program grew with the school and at its height had close to two hundred students in boarding. The overall enrollment reached a maximum of 725 in the 1990s. There have been many reports from parents of Faith Academy students who declare if it were not for Faith Academy they would have left the field. From the beginning the school desired to partner with the missionary families to provide an excellent academic environment and support the mission work in Asia by caring for the children of missionaries. In 1982 Faith Academy established a second campus with a K -8 school in Mindanao. Over the years this school has grown and this past year it became a K – 12 school. The current enrollment stands at 580 on the Manila campus and 125 on the Mindanao campus, for a total of 705 students. The boarding population has decreased steadily over the years until the program today sustains close to 65 students total.

2. basic statistics; population of total students, Korean students, faculties and Korean faculties with position

Enrollment: total for both campuses: 705 ; Korean: 255 = 36%

1)Korean faculties: Christine Baik - Library Catalogue Specialist; 

2)Choi, Soon Rye – PE Assistant; 

3) Choi, Woon Yong – After school Korean School program assistant / PE Assistant; 

4) Hong, Sara – High School Spanish; 

5) Hwang, Kyeong Mee – High School Korean History; 

6) Jang, Hee Young – Food Services Assistant; 

7) Jang, Jay – Food Services Director; 

8) Kim, Sook Ja – Korean After School Program Coordinator; 

9) Kim, Yeon Hwa – Korean Studies Coordinator / Korean Civics; 

10) Kwak, Myoung Ae – Nurse; Lee, 

11) Gary (Lee, Hoon)  – Korean Elementary Support / Afterschool Program Assistant; 

12) Lee, John – Boarding Home Parent; 

13) Lee, Esther – Boarding Home Parent; 

14) Park, Hye Ran – Korean Language Arts; 

15) Shin, Hae Won – HS/MS/ES Orchestra; 

16) Song, Ji-Ae – ES ELL Teacher; 

17) Song, Seong Ho – Korean Studies Assistant; 

Total Faculty/Staff: 144  

17 Korean Staff = 12% of the staff

Faith Academy offers something unique in MK education with a Korean Track for our Korean students. This track provides classes in Korean Civics, History, Culture and Language. We also give the boarding students the option of choosing either to live in one of our International dorms or in our Korean Dorm. The Korean dorm provides an atmosphere where the students can relax and just be themselves. The dorm parents are Korean. Korean is the main language spoken in the dormitory and Korean food is served for all meals.

3. your experiences which are facing the difficulties as well as memorable events while fostering Korean MKs 

Memorable:

* I have found Korean students to be polite, hard working, fun and enthusiastic. They have a passion for the Lord and a willingness to serve Him. I have had many good conversations with Korean students over the years.

* Korean parents are dedicated and committed to helping their kids succeed in their education.

* It is our connection with a Korean American church which has challenged us as an institution to seek ways to be a blessing to the nations. To stop merely focusing on our own needs, but to look out at the needs of those around the Asia area. This was a timely and much needed challenge. This same church funded the building of our school aquatics facilities and our newly inaugurated 927 seat auditorium.

* Working with Mr. Young Hwang Kim from our Korean Studies Department. He was and is a good cultural bridge builder. Working with Jason and Sara Ma, excellent cultural bridge builders and very good friends.

* Getting to know Korean students at our annual High School retreat held during the first couple weeks of school- talking cultural awareness, discussing areas of mutual interest, etc. Talking about ways to foster understanding and unity among the cultures at Faith Academy.

* meeting Rev Joseph Kim in Korea and getting to see CCA in action. Then getting to have Rev Kim come to be our speaker for the High School retreat and seeing how he connected with the Korean and the non-Korean students

* meeting Dr Josephine Kim (Harvard Professor) at the recent ACSI Administrator conference. What a powerful speaker who so well understands the life our Korean kids are living. She provided such helpful insights into the mindset and thinking of our students. I hope she will be able to come to Faith Academy some day and present a seminar for our parents and families.

Difficulties:

* determining appropriate testing / screening of non-native speakers for entrance to Faith Academy – want to support all MKs however we are limited with our ESL/ELL numbers  due to the limited staff, thus we must limit the number we allow in each year.

* determining true missionary status from all applicants who make application. There are some who claim to be missionaries for the ELL assistance offered to students (none offered to non-MKs) and greater possibility of acceptance. All documents in Korean, complicates the process

* dealing with issues of native language – should our campus be an “English speaking” campus where other languages are not allowed to be used. What would this do to the development of the “mother tongue”? Non-Korean speaking students feeling left out when the majority of the group speak Korean and they cannot join in the conversation. 

* discussions about the % of Koreans on campus and whether or not this number should be limited. Many Korean families want the number to be limited so that we do not “compromise the English rich learning environment” this conflicts with our desire as a school to offer educational support to all MKs (as long as they can pass the entrance exams) 

* cultural split happening on campus – need to find a way to bring the cultures together.

* how can we get more Korean teachers in the main stream classrooms for role modeling for the students

* the express desire in the Korean community to prepare students to return to Korea after graduating from Faith Academy – this is difficult and requires more ELL help than we can get and more Korean teachers to teach Korean subject matter and Language. We have relatively low numbers in our Korean tract (Korean Civics, History, Culture and Language) should we require these classes for all students of Korean descent?

4. your ideas "how to prepare Korean MKs in order to adjust well to the educational environment of International Schools

Because the primary desire of many if not most families is to learn in an English environment students must be well grounded in English before coming to the school in order to progress and reach their potential.  Along with this it is critical for the student to maintain their mother tongue as an active and viable language. In order to do this the student must become fully bi-lingual. This takes strong support from home and families. Working through these issues prior to coming to the school would really help.

Have the school the student is going to attend assign a pen-pal prior to coming to the school so that they can correspond and get to know one another before the student ever comes to the school. In this way when they come, they hopefully have a built in friend.

A greater understanding of what the International school setting is like, expectations of students, involvements outside of class, values in the particular learning community – ie a strong fine arts community with an emphasis on drama or a sports oriented community, etc. It will really help the student to enculturate themselves if they have an awareness of this ahead of time. Since most International schools are more western in style and approach, it is key to the success of the adjustment of the students for the parents to support their child in fitting in by participating in some of these potentially non-academic activities.

An understanding and awareness on the part of the parents that, depending upon the length of time spent in an International school setting, there is a great likelihood that the student(s) will be greatly influenced to become more western in thinking and actions. This can be very difficult for parents/families to accept and deal with. However it would be next to impossible for a student to spend any significant amount of time in such an institution/environment and not be affected. Having an understanding and time to intentionally process this concept is critical for a smooth transition.

5. your future direction for educating children of your fellow Missionaries

My main objectives for Faith Academy in preparing our students for moving out into the world after graduation are twofold: 1. That we offer the best program possible to academically equip each student to extend themselves to accomplish whatever it is that the Lord leads them to do. 2. In addition we desire to spiritually build into the lives of all of our students so that they leave Faith Academy with a solid foundation that won’t be shaken by the onslaughts of the enemy they will face from the world as they leave this “safe environment”.

I would love to see Faith Academy greatly expand the amount of ELL support we offer and as a consequence be able to take on more students who need such support. It would be great if we did not have to turn any MK students away, this means providing for all non-native English speakers that we possibly can. I can also see us building a second Korean Dorm to enable more students to make that choice. 

I would like to see us continue to build up our Fine Arts program so that we offer a full strings program as well as a strong band option with a high level choir and excellent drama choice. I would like for this to be a strong option for our students to be able to avail themselves of if they so choose.

I see us one day soon (Lord willing) offering Mandarin as a foreign language as this is the most up and coming language for a huge portion of our planet’s population.

6. your recommendations and suggestions to the Korean Church Leaders for the education of Korean MKs all over the world

• Ensure that missionary families have the support level they need before they are commissioned to go out on the field. The funding for education of their MKs must be a priority or this will eventually force them to leave the field. I have had to have many unpleasant conversations with parents struggling with support levels which jeopardizes the education of their children and sometimes forces them to return to their home country to seek further funding. 

• Help to educate/prepare the parents and families for the International culture they will experience in these schools (see ideas listed in #4)

• Help families with their “home assignment” time in Korea, to plan and prepare for the education of their children during the year. Assist them in discovering ways to connect with a schooling system that will enable their children to re-enter to the schools on their field assignment.

• Think of creative ways to help missionary families fund schooling beyond High School. This is one of the areas that will prematurely remove families from the field if they cannot figure out how to make this work.