SEOUL \u2013 More than 80 dancers move through a series of shifting formations in a dance challenge video set to Taeyang\u2019s latest song, Live Fast Die Slow. They step briskly across the floor, roll their shoulders to the beat and break into bursts of headbanging. As the group closes into a circle, one dancer drops to the floor for a headspin.<\/p>\n
The video has drawn more than 420,000 views in two weeks. Taeyang himself liked the clip and shared it on social media.<\/p>\n
It sounds like a professional dance crew. In fact, they are elementary school teachers who dance to K-pop with their students in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The dancers are members of Doodoomchit School, a K-pop dance education collective that officially launched in 2025 with teachers from Gyeonggi province.<\/p>\n
Since then, it has grown into a nationwide network of 176 teachers experimenting with ways to use K-pop dance in the classroom to encourage participation, confidence and communication among students. They also go by their full official name, the K-pop Dance Education Research Association for Teachers.<\/p>\n
The model has drawn so much attention that the Gyeonggi-do Office of Education plans to introduce it abroad as part of its international exchange initiatives. Later in 2026, members of the group are set to travel to New Zealand to share their approach to K-pop-based education.<\/p>\n
At a time when depictions of South Korean schools often focus on violence, conflict and strained teacher-student relationships, as seen in the recent Netflix hit series Teach You A Lesson, these teachers are trying to teach a different lesson \u2013 through dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always loved dancing. It made me happy, and I thought that one day, when I became a teacher, my students and I could share that joy through dance,\u201d said Lee Hyun-gil, Doodoomchit School founder and a teacher at Bucheon Elementary School, in an interview with The Korea Herald.<\/p>\n
Now in his 20th year in the classroom, 42-year-old Lee has been weaving dance into his lessons since his first post in 2007, teaching students K-pop choreography and preparing talent-show performances for school trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat mattered most was seeing how the students changed,\u201d Lee said. \u201cChildren who rarely spoke in class began opening up. They felt more comfortable talking to me and participating in lessons. I realised that sharing something I love could make students happy too, and that dance could be a powerful educational tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conviction led him to upload a dance challenge video with his students to YouTube in 2022, hoping to give them a memorable graduation experience.<\/p>\n
The clip, set to Crush\u2019s Rush Hour, has since drawn more than 8 million views.<\/p>\n
Many commenters saw more than a dance video. They saw students having fun, a teacher sharing his passion and a classroom filled with happiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people had been longing to see a classroom like that. There were some videos of students dancing, but hardly any of teachers and students dancing together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response from fellow teachers was equally encouraging. It convinced Lee that his colleagues were searching for the same thing: new ways to connect with students through something they genuinely loved.<\/p>\n
Among those inspired was Jeong Ji-yong, 29, a teacher at Hwahong Elementary School in Suwon, who was already familiar with Lee\u2019s videos and joined Doodoomchit School without hesitation. He now runs a dance club at his school and recently won an award with his students at a student-teacher performance competition.<\/p>\n
Bae Jio, 27, a teacher at Sanpyung Elementary School in Anseong, said she loved dancing as a student but had largely stopped after becoming a teacher.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I heard about the group, I thought, finally, I can bring that side of myself back. But what interested me wasn\u2019t simply dancing. It was figuring out how dance could be used educationally in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lee Soo-yeon, 28, the group provided the confidence to try something she had long hesitated to reveal. Lee is a teacher at Jungdong Elementary School in Bucheon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy students had no idea I liked dancing. I wasn\u2019t sure how they would react, and I worried that it might undermine my authority as a teacher. Meeting other teachers who shared the same concerns gave me courage.\u201d<\/p>\n
How, then, does K-pop dance become education?<\/p>\n
The teachers described K-pop as a shared language \u2013 a way to connect with students.<\/p>\n
\u201cK-pop is one of the easiest ways to motivate students. As soon as they hear familiar music, they\u2019re ready to participate,\u201d said Lee Hyun-gil.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps break down the barriers. When we share something we love, communication becomes more natural, and students see teachers as people they can talk to openly, ask questions freely, and feel comfortable with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce my students found out that I danced, they started seeing me differently,\u201d added Jeong. \u201cThey realised we shared some of the same interests. I was no longer just the adult at the front of the classroom correcting them. I was someone they could connect with.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a curriculum standpoint, the approach is not as unconventional as it might seem. Korea\u2019s elementary school physical education curriculum already includes units on movement and expressive activity, which Doodoomchit School teachers use to encourage creativity, collaboration and self-expression.<\/p>\n
This does not necessarily mean teaching exact choreography. Sometimes it simply involves moving to music, playing with rhythm and expressing ideas through the body. The emphasis is less on dance itself than on the learning process it enables.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal isn\u2019t to teach students exact choreography,\u201d Bae said. \u201cWhat\u2019s important is that they enjoy expressing themselves through movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee Soo-yeon, who was initially hesitant to bring dance into her classroom, started with simple movements rather than full choreography.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I felt most was how much the students enjoyed it,\u201d she said. \u201cThey became more comfortable with me, we communicated more, and there was a lot more laughter in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not every student is required to dance. Those who prefer not to perform take on other roles, including filming, lighting, stage design or directing. Others help with choreography and formations.<\/p>\n
The goal, teachers say, is participation rather than performance. Students learn how to express ideas through movement, collaborate with classmates and create something together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking together on choreography and performances often helps ease tensions and encourages cooperation in ways that traditional classroom activities sometimes cannot,\u201d added Lee Hyun-gil.<\/p>\n
Again and again, the teachers returned to one word more than any other \u2013 not K-pop, not dance, but happiness.<\/p>\n
For the teachers, dance is a vehicle for sharing something they love with their students. Seeing students laugh, grow and succeed becomes a source of energy that returns to the teacher.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeachers need to be happy for students to be happy,\u201d Bae said. \u201cWhen I come to school excited about what I\u2019m doing, I smile more. I become kinder, more enthusiastic. I think students feel that too. When teachers and students genuinely like and connect with each other, it becomes one of the most powerful assets in elementary education.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI totally agree,\u201d said Jeong, who arrives at school more than an hour early to run dance activities for students. \u201cIt\u2019s extra work. But I do it because it\u2019s fun, and it makes me happy. The real reward comes in those moments when students succeed in something together.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Jeong and others, the goal is simple: to become the kind of teacher students remember.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be the teacher they look back on and say, \u2018That year was a happy one because of the teacher.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019When teachers move, things change.\u2019 This is our slogan,\u201d said Lee. \u201cThe movement here doesn\u2019t only refer to dancing. It is the willingness to reach out, communicate and share one\u2019s passions with students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doodoomchit School\u2019s long-term goal is for its methods to no longer feel exceptional at all, but to become part of the ordinary toolkit of any classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re simply trying to share our happiness with students,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd through that process, we\u2019re seeing them change. That, in itself, we consider to be meaningful education.\u201d THE\u00a0KOREA HERALD\/ASIA NEWS NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL \u2013 More than 80 dancers move through a series of shifting formations in a dance challenge video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-780011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}