This Week At Wick

This Week At Wick is a student-hosted podcast from the upper school at Chadwick International in Korea, and every episode is tied to a particular week on the school calendar. The hosts shorten the name to TWOW. Sun Kim is the constant. In one episode Sun hosts alone after technical trouble and jokes that it feels like the early days. Otherwise the second chair rotates among fellow students: Jimin, Eugene, and Sparsh, who usually works behind the scenes as a sound technician before stepping in as co-host. Casual Talks comes early in an episode, and it is exactly what the name says. In one, a winter break list of an econ internal assessment, SAT prep, a MUN conference and a GP textbook sits next to a single item on the other host's agenda: submitting college applications. Others turn to a reflection on DP1, excitement about Frozen 2, or the claim that Korea is about 77 percent winter. Tiredness is out in the open, down to one host asking the editor to keep a long pause in as evidence. Past the banter, the show works as a noticeboard. Outdoor education gets steady attention: grade 10 students heading out to kayak or hike, a student kept home by a torn wrist ligament, and a grade 12 trip that went to Australia last year, crocodile stories included. A guest explains that the grade 12 program is being rethought to offer that same experience within Korea, building a sense of place closer to home. Band night, college visits, Hangul Day and birthday shout-outs fill in the rest of the calendar. Younger students get real airtime. Shelby, a ninth grader, introduces Stay Attuned, a series of interviews with freshmen that grew out of her own adjustment to longer class periods, design blocks and a later lunch. Another grade 9 segment asks freshmen which clubs they chose and why. Middle schoolers from an environmental group describe a plastics infographic, a petition to cut plastics in the school convenience stores and pencil cases made from scraps, and the hosts are openly impressed. Books get their own segment too. Mark Lee, calling himself the library radio man, introduces The Da Vinci Code in Lit Picks, and another student pitches the Legend trilogy to people who think of themselves as non-readers. Some episodes were recorded in the library on a mobile setup, with an extra microphone left out and an open invitation for students to sit in. The show also recruits on air, asking for producers, segment hosts, sound technicians and social media managers. An editor's note at the halfway point of season two announces big changes for after winter break and promises to keep everyone informed. What comes through is a school talking to itself, casually and a little sleepily, about the week ahead.