Jo Mi Rye teaches at the Pyongyang College of Electric Engineering. She is now in her sixties and commands respect and admiration of her colleagues and students.

Jo spent her childhood at a remote mountainous village in Kangwon Province. One day, when she was 10, she found that her deskmate called Yong Ok moved to the capital city of Pyongyang with her parents.

She said to her father when he came back home late at night from work: “Dad, let us move to Pyongyang like Yong Ok’s family. You are a famous Hero of the Republic, aren’t you?"

She threw a tantrum giving the thumbs-up sign to her father.

“That’s right. I am a Hero of the Republic. A Hero is a man who should always work harder than others for the country,” her father said stroking her head.

She was not old enough to understand his remarks.

Jo finished the middle school course and graduated from Phyongsong University of Education. When she returned home, her father told her that if she only receives benefits from the country but fails to repay it, she would become an ingrate, adding that wherever she is and whatever she does, she should strive to become a devoted worker for society and community.

Soon after she became a teacher as she wished.

On the night of the date when she started her career, she wrote in her diary as follows:

“My father became a Hero of the Republic at the age of 22 during the Fatherland Liberation War. Now he is gray-haired, but he still works unassumingly for the prosperity of the country as he has done ever since the end of the war. Like him, I will devote all my life to the education of the rising generations.”

With this in mind, she made strenuous efforts to acquire the qualifications and personality of an educator required by the times.

There were times of hardship in her life. While in work, she had to look after her sick parents-in-law and raise two children attending primary school. The burden was so terrible that she once thought of quitting her job. But she got a grip on herself with a sense of being an offspring of a Hero who had shed his blood and sweat for the country, and true to the duty and conscience as an educator. She reproached herself for the thought and exerted herself further, in the course of which she earned her admiration of her colleagues and the title of a model teacher and doctor’s degree.

Jo was awarded a high level of state commendation in recognition of her devotion to the educational work. She was honoured to attend the 14th National Conference of Teachers and have a photo taken with the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un .

She always asks her children to live with dignity so that they can be proud of themselves before their country, Hero grandfather and younger generations.

Ko Chol Hwa