Top Five Things I’ve learned while Teaching in Korea: Disillusions
With all of my idealistic and self-development thoughts I try to teach the kids not only the material for my classes, but also the life-long goals they can learn. Essentially, I don’t want them to make the mistakes I made. It reminds me of the quote “Experience is the best teacher.” There are what I have realized in the last three years in Korea the following:
1) Creativity is taken out of them - I’ve read several surveys on the internet about how creativity dies a gradual and painful death in elementary school. There is an excellent TED speech by Sir Ken Robinson titled Schools kill Creativity and I whole-heartedly agree with him. The presentation is a quick overview about creativity and education. Korean students creativity seems to be accelerated through the use of cram schools beginning in elementary school. I’ve seen fourth graders getting off of academy buses at one am in the morning near my apartment complex. Its really a sad thing and I’m coming to grips that I can’t help the masses, but maybe
one or two at a time.
2) Thus, Korean Students Lack Creativity - Its annoying and painful to read the same essays about Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, and the like. No offense to those great people, but these kids need to learn about a diverse array of people. However, the paradigm of math, language, and science are the best have been blown way out of proportion here. I’ve been trying to teach my kids to write, think, and read creatively and critically, however this is easier said than done. As for the best way: give them a framework, thorough instructions, and repeat it to them multiple times. After that take baby steps to teach them about creativity. Most of the time I still can’t get through them. The ones that are creative end up being ostracized and considered as a loners. It’s a total catch-22.
3) Its hard to motivate Korean students - I’ve used all kinds of techniques to try to motivate students: from trying to studying the underlying principles of motivation (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) to using money/bribing in my classes. Unfortunately, the quickest and most effective way is fear. For example, punishing physically (old school Korean system), humiliation, or the phone call to parents (which doesn’t work if the parents are apathetic). My idealistic and teaching via love and passion doesn’t seem to work well, especially if they don’t care about the subject (English, Critical Reading, and Writing). I’ve come to the conclusion my method of teaching is not ready and that I’ll have to conform or leave. I chose leaving. That’s where the whole entrepreneurial thing comes in.
4) Structure short term goals that correlate with long term goals - My new technique for the time being while I have to continue to be a teacher is this. Create these short term goals that hopefully add up to greater longer term growth.
5) Peer pressure is very effective - Koreans like to be homogenous. Anyone who has been to Korea or knows “Korean-Koreans” know this. They don’t like standing out of the pack and if they do they are again ostracized. Knowing this you can use it in your classes to encourage or manipulate them to be better.
As I write about this I find that I need to teach myself these things and its just not the Koreans, I hope I’m not the only one who needs this information. I hope this concoction of thoughts inspires and gives some useful ideas.
Peace be with you,
~Hoo
Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/mafuyou/
Piracy in Korea
Piracy is rampant here in Korea. It’s really quite annoying, it’s one of those things where I have to decide if I want to follow Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. The situation here in Korea is very similar in several ways. I’ve always struggled with legitimacy of products. It’s like any other sin I suppose; it’s always been a battle. I’ve figured out how to get around specific laws, so I would still be doing certain things legally. I think what the point is the heart behind it.
I’ve gotten in several arguments that have never led anywhere positive in dealing with issues of piracy. Even the Christians that I have become acquainted with throughout the ages have the following reactions. Now, this isn’t me being on a soap box preaching at my fellow friends, I would just rather that you see the facts that I’ve learned thus far and make your own informed decision.
A) Ignorance - That’s okay, I’m sure I may be breaking plenty of laws that I don’t know of regardless everyday, but shouldn’t one “repent” after realizing it’s against the law? Jay walking, speeding, several things can fall under this category.
B) Denial / Justification - I’ve done this before, making excuses like, the artist/entertainers are making too much money anyway it’s really not hurting anyone. This may be true, but nevertheless it’s still wrong, I think. Even I am doubtful, but Jesus does say “give to Caesar what is Caesar, ” but I wonder would Jesus have said that to Hitler? I’m not trying to sound like an arrogant jerk, but part of me is genuinely curious about this situation.
C) Don’t care - This is where I find a lot of people under and doing so we have given the victory flag to Satan. Big corporations win, Satan gets people to steal so he wins, some artists make money, etc…
D) Righteousness - doing the right thing, it’s the hardest thing to do, sure so a DVD costs infinitely more than a pirated copy, but can you stand before your friends and God himself and tell him you did everything you can to genuinely LOVE one another, including paying people the “amount they deserve and ask for?”
I don’t know I find myself struggling with piracy again for some reason. I hate struggling with the same sins over and over. Some may say this is a heart issue and if “doesn’t violate my conscience” it’s okay. Well, I could go off on a total random tangent on this one, but I’d rather not and stay as positively focused as possible. I don’t know the international rules and laws here in Korea, but I do know that Microsoft and most movie companies dislike the fact there are “bootlegged” otherwise known as illegal copies of their products running rampant here in K-Town. It’s one of those things that the government will most likely have difficulty regulating, so in doing so is it okay for us to do it? If I could get away stealing pennies a day, would I do it? Good question, what about couple of dollars, tens of dollars, a million dollars? Is money or entertainment that important that we would want to violate our conscience in order for short term pleasure of some kind?
I don’t know, like I said before I’m not here to preach, perhaps to gentle encourage and disciple, but definitely not outright rebuke, because even I am a sinner and I screw up all the time. There is a special time for rebuking; I don’t think this is one of those times. Anyway, I’m tired, I guess I need to slap myself a few times and try to live as righteously as possible without becoming a Pharisee.
31 Flavors…
Well you guessed it there is Baskin Robins over here and it seems to be fairly popular. Drew Barrymore is advertising for them it seems. I guess this post will be a hybrid post, journal / traveling post.
My favorite ice cream flavor here in “Corea” is green tea, surprisingly green ice cream tastes good, who would have thought? It is has been an interesting experience thus far in the area of culinary cuisine. I’ve been keeping mental notes of various restaurants I think people will enjoy when they come visit me or the country, sometime in the future. So as for restaurants you have your corporate American chains such as, TGIF, Outback Steakhouse, Pho Hoa, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Bennigans, Popeye’s, KFC, Starbucks, and that’s all I can remember at the moment. There are also several “hole in the wall” restaurants run by the residents of wherever you live. These are the places I’m sure many people in Boulder would like.
It seems restaurants that are more “preppy” have several congregations of women in circles with a few couples to go along, whereas the men like to congregate generally after work at these outdoor grill type places. It’s the Korean equivalent of a hibachi I guess. Basically there is a grill for every four people generally built into the table. Those of you back in Denver if you ever check out the Seoul Restaurant in Aurora or Shila, know what I mean, both of course are Korean. People here love to drink, smoke, and thanks to the small amount of land, there is trash everywhere, just like any other metropolitan city. Of course I’m not saying there is trash literally everywhere, but I hope you get what I mean. So my friend Fred says that walking down the street is “31 Flavors of smells,” which is true, whether good or bad.
The prices aren’t too bad; the chains have similar prices to the states, minus ice cream. Ice cream is very affordable. I love ice cream. I don’t know what it is about it, but it’s very tasty, I wonder what ice cream in Heaven tastes like, assuming there is ice cream in Heaven. They also have some unusual flavors of ice cream such as Tomato. I don’t like the taste of it, really…
Some other brief points I would like to mention is that I have always have full bars on my cell phone. It’s weird I have cell reception EVERYWHERE I go in Seoul, it’s excellent, and it’s always full coverage, even 5 levels underground on the subways and parking lots. Text messaging is very popular here and unfortunately hardly anyone uses voice messages. The phone number system is unusual as well, each company or subsidiary has their own area code, for example my company I use right now is called KTF, which is a subsidiary of KT Telecom. KTF uses the area code 010, and KT which is used for land lines is area code 02. As the company becomes popular the phone numbers start growing, for example my phone number is 8 digits long, so there are 11 digits totally. It’s weird memorizing numbers this way and it has taken me a while to learn this new system.
The same thing goes with names, I’m not use to Korean names, and so memorizing them in a completely new language has also been a difficulty. I’ll be uploading photos of pictures I have taken the past couple of weeks pretty soon. I’ll have separate comments for them so that you can learn people’s names with me, and mostly so I can remember.
Anyway I hope that was somewhat useful, I’ll talk to you all later. It’s almost October!?!?! Time flies doesn’t it. Let me be the first to say Happy Halloween, because they don’t celebrate it here. I know it’s a month early.
Flickr
