Eddie Kang was MyEdSpace's first US-based teacher, joining us in 2025 to head up our math courses. This is his story.
Growing up, Eddie's first language wasn't English — Eddie's parents emigrated from Korea to the US in their mid-20s — so, naturally he found himself gravitating to subjects like music and math, where his parents were able to help more and fluency in English was less of a barrier to understanding.
Musically, Eddie took up the piano and violin — which he still plays casually — but it was math where he really excelled.
From a young age, each morning before breakfast Eddie would complete questions in a math workbook, handing them to his mom to mark and then correcting his answers before eating. By the time he arrived in first grade Eddie's knowledge had outstripped that of his classmates and his teacher felt the need to suggest creating more advanced lessons just for him. By high school, that gap between his math ability and that of his peers had grown enough for Eddie to be sought out by upperclassmen looking for help.
As he helped the older students with their math assignments, Eddie realized he had a natural aptitude — and enjoyment of — explaining difficult mathematical concepts in ways which previously confused students could grasp and understand.
The more Eddie found himself working on math problems, the more he found he was enjoying — and was curious about — math, leading him to deciding to major in Pure Mathematics at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), having first scored a perfect SAT Math score.
Eddie's parents' move from Korea was in-part inspired by Eddie's dad wanting to pursue a PhD in Economics, which led to a career in accounting, where he built his own successful firm. While he never said it outright, as a math major, Eddie felt a hope from his dad that he would inherit the business. However, Eddie's love of sharing knowledge had given him the teaching bug. With his son's enjoyment clear to see, Eddie's dad accepted that Eddie was set on a different career path.
When you hear Eddie talk about teaching, it's clear why his dad saw a career path in education, rather than accounting, coming.
“The feeling of helping somebody really stuck with me. This idea that you had positively impacted someone's life is rewarding. No, actually it's more than that. I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything, there's nothing like it.”
From UCLA, Eddie qualified as a teacher and began an almost decade-long spell teaching in classrooms all over Los Angeles, where he developed a teaching style which has led to glowing reviews.
Looking back, Eddie credits his style in-part with having been lucky enough to learn from a series of great teachers, from whom he's taken a variety of tips and tricks, culminating in a method of teaching he describes as “firm but fun”. Watching an hour's lesson you see what he means as Eddie focuses on simple explanations of complex equations and theories, but mixes them with lighter moments and anecdotes that recharge energy and concentration levels.
For Eddie, there's one student review that stands out, and it came out of his very first week in the classroom. Having just arrived at a school in Compton, known for its high turnover of teaching staff, Eddie was posed a question by a student which stopped him in his tracks; “why should we listen to you when you ain't even going to be here in a couple of weeks?”
“I remember that interaction really clearly. You could see the hurt and trauma in the kids, that this young man was articulating. This was my first week of teaching, and I really had no idea what I was doing, but in that moment I knew that I had to persevere and build that trust,” remembers Eddie. “At graduation at the end of that year, this kid came back up to me with his whole family and we had a photo taken together. I will never forget that.”
Eddie could see he was having a positive impact on the lives of these kids, but — stuck in the classroom — it was limited to 30, maybe 40 people at a time. He realized that was constraining the impact he could have and it drove him to find ways to increase his reach and reduce the amount of “non-teaching” and admin work classroom-based teachers are forced to do.
One possible inspiration came from the homeland of his parents, where online teaching — known as Hagwons — gives children additional education outside school. Eddie thought there was nothing similar in the US, until he discovered MyEdSpace — a platform which would give Eddie the opportunity to break out of his LA bubble and help students across the entire United States with math. “I was like, wow, this is pretty cool,” he laughs.
Along with thousands of other teachers, Eddie applied to lead our math courses, with his impressive academic record, qualifications and aptitude for teaching standing out and leading to his appointment.
However, with that increase in student volume, Eddie is keen to stress that the relationship building and collaboration that happens in a classroom has to be prioritized. “I've noticed that students really enjoy this online platform more than being in the classroom,” he begins. “I think that's partly to do with the digital world in which children grow up in now, but it's also the community aspect of learning with MyEdSpace.” It's an experience that Eddie perhaps recognizes the feelings he took from helping his fellow students, and growing in confidence as a result, from all those years ago.
“In a MyEdSpace lesson, anyone can ask a question at any time, and get an answer on the spot. You see students helping each other and sharing their own knowledge and that's great.”