Tuesday, February 9, 2010
12:30 AM | 
Posted by
FUSION
Hello, World!
Did you ever think how different the education is among several different ethnic groups? And how all these different learning methods affect individual ways of thinking? Read my story for a while and your point of view about education will change.
I will discuss about the different educational problems in different ethnic groups, especially Hispanic, American, and Korean, and how its long-term process or strategy of education affects their own individual economic status and culture.
Being my first post, this is just my background thinking; it is an introduction. I am able to discuss this introduction because after finishing my second year of elementary school in Korea, I went to Guatemala and lived there for more than 10 years. And I am currently studying at USC. I have been observing these three different cultures and educations for a long time. I think this is the perfect time to share my opinions and points of view with you.
There are many problems and issues that affect individual educational processes for Hispanic people. First, because of low-income, harsh environment, and family problems, discrepancies still exist in American public schools, especially Hispanic/Latinos. Also, not only in the US, but also in Central and South America, there is a big percentage of Hispanic students who are dropping off from high school or even people who never attend high school. Let me give you a real life example from my experience in Guatemala. A good friend of mine called Roberto (this is a fake name) dropped from our school because his father was murdered by a group of gangs. His father was first kidnapped and they called relatives of his father requesting unimaginable amount of money (I think it was 2 million dollars). During the process of making the money, the gangs stopped contacting; and after several weeks later, his father was found dead. After the incident, he told me that he would be working with his uncle and would no longer be in school. I am probably sure that you are somehow scared now, but from now on, I will just go through general concepts not to scare you anymore. Second, because there are a lot of private schools and few public high schools in Central America compared to the whole population of teenagers, those who suffer from poverty find it very hard to attend a normal high school to receive proper education. Finally, because receiving early income from early years is very important for survival for Hispanic populations in Central America, they tend to graduate earlier or drop off earlier from school; therefore, all public high schools in Central America do not have the 12th grade at all.
Of course there are also educational problems in Korea. But this time, it is not surrounding issues like low-income or harsh environment. Because everyone must receive education in school by government law, students do not need to pay the school fee. Everyone must always wear their uniform so people are not distinguishable between rich and poor. Nevertheless, the biggest problem is the gap between rich and poor. Generally, people who attended private high school tend to be the ones who go to elite private Universities and get hired in the biggest companies with amazing starting salaries. This is also the main reason why other “normal students” who attend public schools study 20 hours a day for the University Entrance Exam known as “Su-nung Shi-hum” (say “soo-nung she-hum”). In order to excel over other students in any public or private schools and to be accepted into elite Universities, they attend not only schools but also several academies for their extra study guides. Different from America, where everyone deserves an opportunity, in Korea, students must be in the top lists to be successful, that is why Korea has a high rate of suicide among students.
Now, let me give you a brief insight of some educational problems in the US. First, among the biggest problems is that education in general is very expensive and government does not have enough to support all educational institutions in America. Additionally, public educational institutions tend to have lots of students with few teachers, resources, and supplies. This is also a problem in Korea where the ratio between a teacher and students is 1:100. Second, because of wrong moral standards and ethical behaviors students tend to cheat and fail to see this act as a major issue. According to one of the statistics in “Their Cheating Hearts” by William Raspberry, “80 percent had engaged in academic cheating and thought cheating was commonplace. Moreover, most saw cheating as a minor infraction” (Raspberry 1). I hope you got the knowledge about how educational problems in different countries affects individual ways of thinking and its long-term future success.
Profile
While searching for millions of blogs that relates to my topic: education, I found an angry blog that criticizes Korean education: Sorry, I was drunk by Fermentation. He was blogging since November 2009 and stopped blogging on December 14th.
My first impression about this guy was anger, but I ended up nodding my head several times, agreeing with his comments while reading his blogs. He was also very obsessed with his own opinion, trying to put down real facts and other peoples’ opinion, and putting his thoughts on top. It is an interesting way of expressing his thoughts (it does not mean that I like his thoughts) as complaining almost negatively about Korean issues such as christianity, surgery, and education. His point of view stands on critiquing issues and targets only on his negative thoughts. He is a Korean and writes everything from Korean games, movies, education, politics, sports, social issues and more, but mostly complaining about them. The most interesting thing is that even though his thoughts are negatively expressed, I mostly share the same thoughts and opinions with him.
Since I am writing about educational problems in different ethnical groups and comparing them to see why all these educational problems affect their entire economy, his thoughts and opinions offer great insight as to why students in many schools aren't really "learning."
“The issue of education in Korea is one of the biggest problems in the country, if not the biggest. In fact, I personally think it shouldn't even be called "education." Education to me means that one is gaining knowledge, learning how to critically analyze information, and knowing how to apply it in real social and professional situations. Or at the very least, it should help one grow as a person. The Korean school system does none of that.”
He gives his definition of education clearly, and I personally agree with him. He is right, and Korean education system must be reformed. Memorizing facts are good; however, these facts must be integrated into creativity and critical thinking in order for students to actually use and contribute it into the real world. Just Memorizing is not even an education.
I can see that his vocabulary usage and expression is very professional and academic. I was very impressed because despite the fact that he only attended some middle and high school in the US, his writing skills are highly matured. Fermentation targets the readers who are interested in complaining and throwing negative arguments about many issues that Korea has in general such as education, political behaviors, and social issues.
His arguments are very strong even though they are not necessarily true; therefore, people tend to follow his lead in making negative arguments and agreeing with him. But I will not be like that. I mostly share similar opinions with Fermentation, but I have other thoughts that contradict with him. For example, he talks about discipline where teachers were physically harming students to study:
“In Korea, an adult's idea of disciplining a child is to beat him/her like sociopathic child abuser.” But this fact was a long-time story. Nowadays, they are not allowed to do that. The behaviors of teachers are becoming more and more soft and easy with students and they try to follow the non-harsh discipline.
Since I am writing about negative concept, I would definitely follow Fermentation’s opinion and share my thoughts with him. However, this doesn’t mean that I will be always negative about my blog, I will try to throw some solutions about problems in education, and how people (teachers or educators) can solve this problem effectively and at the same time efficiently.
Voice Critique
Please allow me to critique ‘administration should be like the pit crew’ blog post by Vicki Davis. First of all, this blog looks boring. I was thinking why is he adding a picture of a pit crew in an education theme? Plus, the whole blog design is full of cluttering and is very difficult to navigate through or search for new things. HOWEVER! The reason I fell in love with this blog is because of his writing methods. He uses amazing stories and analogies to refer to how an educational organization must be improved: “The classroom should be like a well maintained car and administration should be like the pit crew.” It is a very creative thought to say that an educational organization as a racing team and pit crew. I can realize that he is giving a specific setting and imagery of how a classroom and administration must be. These few integration of words grabs the attention, and makes the audience imagine and think of the situation. Moreover, he shows actual pictures of a racing team with an explanation of how an organization must act similarly as this team. In other words, he makes his stories understandable with clear pictures and accessible very easily. Although he has some kind of formal writing, his pausing strategy and phrasing is well organized and if it is read out loud, the readers’ individual way of speaking method changes. It is like “magic.” In his voice, diction, rhythm, punctuation, and writing-but-speaking way of writing are the most effective tools that drag readers’ attention. First, his accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound are arranged in a slow and soft way generating a poetic diction.
“Paperwork to be written but never read.
Time in meetings that are meaningless."
Second, one of the cool things that I can see is that he has a “musical” rhythm going on with his initial sentences with separate paragraphs:
“To me, times are lean and mean… We must be efficient and lean.”
Additionally, he is frequently bolding words in black not only to drag important opinions and facts, but to create heavy sounds and tones on different parts of the sentences.
"This is a position that is piling lead weight in the trunk of the car..."
Third, he uses punctuations as a long-pause technique that gives the reader time to rest with a deep breath to show a disappointing expression:
“Every person is so necessary that they do the jobs of at least a person and a half. And yet, there are always those who are taking up space... at every school.”
Last but not least, and most importantly, he writes his blog as if he is talking to the reader. While reading his post, I felt as if I were actually in a coffee shop chatting with him drinking a cup of tea. He explains and speaks his opinion on how should an educational charity be asking questions, giving commands, and suggesting answers:
“If you're not helping the cause of education, you're hurting it… if you're asking teachers to do more with less, so can you…Take a hard look at the pit crew -- are they equipping and helping the classroom improve or siphoning off energy and weighing it down. Ask the teachers, they'll tell you, that is if you REALLY want to know.”
Using such accurate and creative analogy technique clearly engages the reader. He absolutely makes the audience excited to share other opinions comparing and contrasting with schools and racing team. After posting this blog, he was waiting for people to give additional information and thoughts to eventually have and actual conversations with them sharing ideas, and giving other suggestions.
I have to admit, he gave us a very creative analogy, just like other readers, I had to nod my head over and over. Instead of just saying seriously of what a school administration must improve on, he was actually having a conversation with the audience and sharing an interesting story to make audience excited. I will also have conversations through my blog keeping asking questions and telling my personal stories.
Finally, I have done my research on how other bloggers set their voice and persona. Now, it is my turn. This is just the beginning. Welcome to my world.
By: FUSION
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About Me
- FUSION
- I am a Korean, but grown up in Guatemala; therefore, I have seen important and sometimes harsh educational issues on various ethnical groups. I think it is very important for everyone to learn and think more about how different learning methods and problems affects society and economy as a whole.
EDU
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