30 days of not rejecting any requests

     I brought this out after I felt pleasure doing a favor for my fiends. They requested me to buy some doughnuts in the way I came back to school. I did as they requested they appreciated and their facial expressions showed their happiness.
     Here's how this program will run. First, I would like to select a high school student whose name is notorious for selfishness. As he program starts, he is not allowed to reject any requests from people around him. If he does reject one, he will have to do service work for an hour per one rejection. Someone might request him things that he cannot or should not. For example, he may be asked to give money out or to showthe exam paper to others. These kinds of requests will be advised by the programmer that the person will be able to reject those requests.
     The person will be very unhappy to do every single favor he gets for the first days. He might reject series of requests that he might have to go to service at maybe an orphanage for several hours in weekends. His apparent and the only feeling would be anger. Being furious, he would not be able to notify any difference in his emotions.
     As days go, he will start to perceive his condition as natural or as his duties. It might be just giving up and following the rule. Whatever the reason might be, he would stop his expression of anger. He will calmly accept the requests. As he has changed to a person who do favors for others, the people around him would start requesting more things that include requests that can only be made between intimate relationships such as 'please evaluate my essay' not just 'can I borrow your eraser'. As he does those kinds of favors he will start feeling good of doing favors.
     After 30 days, he would have discovered the pleasure of doing favor. However, this is totally based on my predictions and indeed the result would be different from what I expected. 

Public Education killing Creativity? What are parents doing?

     I had been studying the US history just before I watched Sir Ken Robinson's TED speech and the video did inspire me to throw out the textbook.

     I was always curious why Korean residents in the US accomplish more especially in the areas of arts and sports. To name some of those people, there are Hines Ward who received the honor of MVP in Super Bowl 2006, a golf genius Michelle Wie and a world-famous violinist Sarah Chang. Moreover, stories that say a family went to US for better academic education for the children and there, they found a special gift and developed it further, are quite common. Since I had never experienced the education system in the United States and never thought about the reason why, I simply concluded that American education system is just superior.

     However, after I watched the two videos, I realized that American education system is not as admirable as I thought before. The speaker was criticizing it for the same reasons that Korean system also possesses. I would say there is a difference in the level of badness. Public education in Korea started during the Japanese colonial time. Japanese rulers wanted to grow students in a way that they will live in submission without revolts. The teachers at school forced students to wear uniforms that look like a military uniform, to keep hair as short as possible and teachers had always carried a gun or knife during classes. Still now, most highschool students are not allowed to have a hair style they want and many teachers and most teachers in Korea allowed to impose physical punishment to students. Also, student groups reaching 40 are filled in a small classroom unable to leave the room during the school hours.

     I do not want to deny the fact that our public education. As a student who had experienced the public education for 9 years, it is bad for majority of students. First, it is too much restricted. Young aged children and juvenile should stay seated for straight 6 to 8 hours a day without meaningful breaks. What is even worse is that most students do not consider the classes valuable. They rather sleep or do some other works such as homeworks from private institutions.

     However, the current public education system is the finest way in which everyone can receive certain amount of education. The primary goal of public education is to provide everyone enough amount of education to live as a democratic citizen in the society. The aspects of public schools such as restriction on hair style or physical punishment can be criticized. However, I believe it should not be criticized for its incapability of giving students chances to find their own interest or develop creativity. There is no certain way or method to develop creativity. If there were one, public schools would have already adopted it. Moreover, the quality of lectures may vary according to students' preparation or intelligence because the lectures are settled on the average students based on the basic principle.

     I believe the creativity part of education is based on the parents' role. Recently, issue of an elementary school student president election came up in conversation between people in Korea. One of the candidates won the election after he had pledged to provide a fishbowl to every single class with several kinds of fish with his own money. This event if not epitomize, gives an example of parents who are too eager in their children that they unintentionally teach the principle that only the result is important and the process does not matter if the result is good. Public education cannot care every single students as parents can because of lack of human power since governments cannot hire billions of teachers. In contrast, parents can take time to watch their children and find out what they want, like and excel.

     However, what many parents only care about is their children's scores and entrance to good schools in a more broader way. This overheated passion of parents is the actual cause of students' lack of creativity. If parents want their children to be a unique and valuable person, they will have to consider the other way around.

Revolts of students in America / How about in Korea?

Michael Moore became famous in Korea for his documentary ‘Sicko’ about the American health care system because the president of Korea was trying to change the present health care system of Korea to be similar to that of the United States. Michael Moore’s bitter criticism on the American health care system made Korean people to oppose to change in present system and finally foiled the president’s attempt involuntarily.

However, High School Newspaper is not about Michael Moore or his documentaries. It is about us, the teenagers. Michael Moore is just giving the teenagers the opportunity to make their messages heard by more public. In the article, Michael Moore is expressing his amazement and deep impression he received from the students’ revolt in Wisconsin.

I mentioned about a book last time and as Mr.Garrioch said in his comment, I also thought this book is even more relevant to this issue than last one. This book is called ‘The 880 thousand won generation’. The author of this book used this term for the first time in an effort to define the 20s and teenagers in Korea. The term was created from a calculation of the average amount of income the teenagers will receive after they graduate from college. Therefore, a worker who had finished a high level of education from a college will earn only about 800 dollars a month. According to the book, this phenomenon occurred because the former generation of people flourished too much. The people of father generation in Korea did not have to worry about looking for a job because if they had attended a college and received a certificate, they could pick any company they want to work at by themselves. In contrast, although the teenagers study a lot more than the past and even when they get into a university they spend a chunk of time to qualify for a job. When I occasionally go back home from school and visit library on a Sunday, I see a lot of college students studying for TOEIC which is required by most firms in Korea. Students in Korea come to library on weekends to study for an exam not to read books! What a non-sense situation happening in Korea. Similarly, high school students cram and memorize for 3 years of their high school lives just for the national college entrance exam.

At the back cover of the book, there was a short passage recommending the book, written by a columnist. In the passage, he said “While Korean students are hostile to others including other students or adult, they do not possess critical opinion toward Korean society. In contrast, students in European countries are benevolent toward people around them, and at the same time can express their thoughts about the society they belong to critically”. I did really agree to his point and I thought this is the major difference between Korean students and other students in countries that possess better education system in Korea.

In my opinion, normal Korean students are stupid. I, a KMLA student, am stupid too. The difference is that I wasted a bit more time during middle school years and my parents invested more money on me. Most importantly, I will not become a part of ‘the 880 thousand won generation’. The prestigious name of this school already guarantees the minimum amount of dignity for all the students in this school. However, the classmates and friends I had in the past, surely more than half of them will end up being part of ‘the 880 thousand won generation’. Thinking in this way, I was literally sad and afraid because a person cannot pursue a moderate life with this kind of small money. Surely they are not smart, and when they realize they are part of ‘the 880 thousand won generation’ they will just comfort themselves by reproaching themselves not cramming enough earlier like me for example. However, this isn’t just right! The system is wrong not that the students did not try hard. Looking at the Michael Moore’s amazement in high school students’ revolt, I envied US education system. Education systems in more advanced countries do not make students memorize and line them up by scores. Rather, they encourage students to think and to have their own opinion of them. Whenever there is a change in administration or government, a new president has suggested a new education policy, but every single time, people were disappointed.

We should not expect the government or elite upper class to change our circumstance. Naturally, they do not want any change in the current system because it functions as they exactly want; manufacturing dull workers who will not complain about the inequitable society.

I am not sure who should or will lead the revolt in Korea. I am not sure whether I, who are very lucky to escape from the dread situation in Korea, am willing to take part in the change because I have high chance of becoming an elite or upperclass later in future. I think I need more time to think on. However, one sure thing is that there should be a change in Korea in education or economy whatever.