A rooftop room, and a mother he had not known was there

The film Wanduk shows why a social worker is needed, by following the growth of a boy from a poor household and a multicultural family. The original novel won the 2007 Changbi prize for youth literature and later appeared in a high-school Korean textbook. Wanduk lives with his father and uncle in a rooftop room. Dong-ju, his homeroom teacher, is rough in speech and, unlike that manner, helps have him listed as a recipient of basic livelihood support. With Dong-ju's help, Wanduk meets a Vietnamese mother whose existence he had not known, and begins to open his heart. Dong-ju also helps him turn a talent for fighting into a kickboxing path.

Youth problems are the result of a person, a family, a school, and a community acting on one another, which is why a professional school-social-work intervention is needed. Dong-ju, in this reading, already does several of those jobs.

Linker, facilitator, mediator, advocate

The account maps the teacher's moves onto a school social worker's roles. As a linker of community resources, Dong-ju has Wanduk listed for basic livelihood support. As a facilitator, he sees a strength and encourages Wanduk to change on his own. As a mediator, he works through a family problem from the middle, so that Wanduk's hard feelings toward his family ease. As an advocate, he stands on Wanduk's side and guards his interests and rights. Wanduk comes to have a goal, and Dong-ju becomes a valued guide. A wider list in it also includes clinical and educational counseling, links among home, school, and community, a part in policy, and, inside the school system, facilitator, consultant, collaborator, educator, mediator, advocate, and manager. As a linker, the worker also tells residents about the school's educational aims and carries the community's needs back to the school, and helps students from poor or one-parent households reach local services.

The qualities the account wants in a social worker are practical: consideration, social skill, honesty, problem-solving, negotiation, and persuasion, together with respect for persons, a sense of mission for social justice, and a spirit of service. The work itself is to help people in social or personal difficulty, to gather and analyze material, and to offer alternatives; the exact role splits according to the field. Youth is a time of rapid change and of forming an identity, so deviation comes easily. A guidance-teacher and professional-counselor system has been introduced, but it has been criticized for a lack of expertise, and teachers often lack the time and the specialized knowledge to do a social worker's job. The account wants a wider recognition of school social work inside education, and more related training. That is the source's argument, read off a rooftop room and a kickboxing gym.

Sources

1. the film Wanduk (완득이), the roles of a school social worker, and the qualities such a practitioner should have. The original novel won the 2007 Changbi prize for youth literature.

Last updated: 14 November 2026