Paul Lee
English 101 Reflective Essay #2
(Essay #3 of quarter)
Professor Buddy Roberts
2/8/1994 (Revised 2/21/94, 3/1/94)

        The Teacher Who Taught Me “Do the Right Thing”


Throughout my education from grammar school to graduate school in the university, I had many teachers who influenced me in various ways. Now I would like to tell you about one of them. Yesan was the rustic country in South Korea where I was born and grew up until I finished my middle school. The Chinese Literature and Ethics teacher in my middle school was Mr. Byung Moon Lim, who taught us and deeply planted the “do the right thing” spirit into my mind from my early boyhood.

        Mr. Lim always started our Ethics class by checking his assignments, a daily “do the right thing” chart that we have to write down about what we did a good thing. This class activity was a tradition of his teaching. Before we took his class, we had already heard from our seniors who told us of their experiences, no matter how positive or negative, they said. Some students liked filling out the chart as well as doing the right things. But others did not like it at all.

        As Mr. Lim directed at the first class meeting, I filled out the chart very easily the first few days: “Helped my dad for planting trees,” “Took care of my younger sisters while mom is not home,” “For my mom, polished copper spoons with a cloth,” “Fed our dog,” and so on. I can tell you now that one day I felt it gradually became hard to fill out the daily chart, because my life was so simple as an immature country boy. I could not do good things every day differently from the little boy’s narrow experiences, so I tried hard to do the “right things” before I wrote them down. But while I was struggling with doing good things to fill out the columns of the chart for that day, the next, and another month, I realized and found myself that I came to do a good thing every day at least.

      When I finished the junior year at Dai Heung Middle School, I had a notebook filled with many “good things.” I had done the chart anyhow, feeling great achievement through the difficulties in writing them.

      After I moved to Seoul to attend Whi Moon High School in 1964 at the age of 17, I often remembered Mr. Lim’s hard and creative way of lesson through the “do the good thing” chart. I always thought about Mr. Lim’s moral standard and tried to follow his guidance in my early life.

      I notice that his lesson kept me secure in this world of good and bad choices. Whenever I am in trouble mastering my school work, military service, and immigrant life in America, Mr. Lim’s unique teaching methods have been like a barometer to measure whether I have chosen the right places, decisions, and have done the right things throughout my life.

      While writing this essay, I still remember Mr. Lim’s chart and also write the good things what I do in that chart drawn in my mind. 

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