Culture of Discourse: Student Silence

Image from Suggested Keywords

The JoongAng Daily recently announced that "Korean classrooms in Korea lack discussion" (September 14, 2015), offering an example:

Oh Soo-young, who attended the University of California, Berkeley, in 2013 as an exchange student, was posed a question by the professor in the first class she attended.

The teacher - who had memorized all the students' names - then continued to ask questions during the lecture. Whenever the students disagreed with one another, the presentation would shift into a debate.

"At first, I hesitated because I was worried about giving the wrong answer," the 24-year-old said. "But I got used to the debates after a while."

After finishing a semester abroad, her classes back in Korea were a marked turnaround from those in the United States. The professors simply read their written lectures, from beginning to end, off an overhead projector screen. And seldom did they pose questions to the class. When they did, they were mostly rhetorical.

I've been talking about this problem for years now - though, for the record, many Koreans have, too, so I'm not alone. I've incorporated discussion into all my classes over my years in Korea, but getting Korean students to talk is like pulling teeth! I should acknowledge, though, that Koreans are getting better as they slowly stop worrying about "giving the wrong answer."

But they were still worrying about that nearly ten years ago, when I taught a bit at Yonsei's Underwood International College. I had several non-Korean students who were happy to discuss, but one bright Korean student would hardly speak. I couldn't seem to encourage him, and he remained silent most of the time. About a year ago, I had dinner with a couple of the non-Korean students, and I asked them why the Korean student wouldn't speak. One of the two - an American - replied, "Because he couldn't predict what you would say next."

I hadn't thought of that, but I think the American man was spot on.

Yi Kwang-su on South Korean Education?

South Korean Students
Art by Andy Rementer

Se-Woong Koo, writing "An Assault Upon Our Children: South Korea's Education System Hurts Students" (NYT, August 1, 2014), argues pretty much what her title asserts:

After my older brother fell ill from the stress of being a student in South Korea, my mother decided to move me from our home in Seoul to Vancouver for high school to spare me the intense pressure to succeed. She did not want me to suffer like my brother, who had a chest pain that doctors could not diagnose and an allergy so severe he needed to have shots at home . . . . Thirteen years later, in 2008, I taught advanced English grammar to 11-year-olds at an expensive cram school in the wealthy Seoul neighborhood of Gangnam . . . . When I asked a class if they were happy in this environment, one girl hesitantly raised her hand to tell me that she would only be happy if her mother was gone because all her mother knew was how to nag about her academic performance.

This is not a new phenomenon in Korea:

There is a historical explanation for South Korea's education fervor. During the Choson Dynasty (1392-1910), having children pass the civil service examination administered by the royal court was seen as a sure conduit to social and material success for the entire family. As the late Professor Edward Wagner at Harvard noted, even then a form of private education persisted, with candidates taking years of lessons to prepare for the exam and wealthier families splurging on special tutors.

The much maligned Yi Kwang-su identified the problem:

Decrying the state of young people's existence in Korea, Yi Kwang-su, an early reformist intellectual, wrote in a 1918 essay, "On Child-Centrism," "As long as parents live, children have no freedom and are treated like slaves or livestock not unlike subjects of a feudal lord."

Parents attitudes of the Joseon Era (i.e., "Choson Dynasty") have lingered on, as Koo has shown, though I actually think the attitudes are shifting, especially among students, who are more and more choosing their own path.

But I'm glad to encounter Yi Kwang-su's name mentioned in a positive sense these days . . .

Leading Korean Mathematician Advises: Read Novels, Watch Movies

Hwang Jun-muk
Korea Herald

The prominent Korean mathematician Hwang Jun-muk -- interviewed by Oh Kyu-wook -- offers some unusual advice in "Mathematicians must be storytellers" (Korea Herald, August 28, 2013):

A good mathematician requires not only techniques but also creativity . . . . [Hwang Jun-muk] perhaps inherited his creative side from his parents. His father is traditional Korean music composer and "gayageum" master Hwang Byung-ki and his mother is one of the country's leading authors, Han Mal-sook.

"Thanks to my parents, I read a lot of books at home in my childhood. That may help me now when I present my ideas to others."

"I had a chance to talk to high school students, and I told them read novels as well as watch movies a lot to practice and improve their skills to present their ideas well in a simple and interesting way . . . . [This is] important to be a good mathematician," he added.

Why such advice?

The ability to tell stories is needed among mathematicians in Korea where the subject is still deemed boring and learned by rote, said the nation's top academic in the field.

Korean students are among the top performers in international mathematics contests, but they lag far behind in terms of interest and passion, which may account for the relatively modest performances by professional Korean researchers in the world . . . . "When I prepare for a presentation, I think hard to put my ideas into a good, interesting story. If you put all mathematical proofs just in order and present it to your audience, it will be extremely boring . . . . Korean mathematicians have good techniques and knowledge and made progress in research, but they are still not good at making a story (in comparison to Western powerhouses for advanced mathematics)."

Mathematics taught through stories! That's an unexpected reply to my query! Here's the crux of the problem:

A key stumbling block is the current educational curriculum, which has traditionally emphasized only problem-solving techniques. Also, many Korean mathematicians do not learn how to present their ideas.

In short, Hwang says that the Korean pedagogical system does not encourage creativity and the inspiration that comes with good teaching, and that means, even for mathematicians, telling stories. Is he right? Well, he surely knows more about this than I do.

But I wish the article had given an example of a story Hwang might use to teach mathematics . . .

US Textbooks Trigger Curiosity?

Cho Wan-kyu
Google Images

The JoongAng Daily yesterday published an interview by Lee Gwang-jae with retired Seoul National University professor and administrator Cho Wan-kyu, titled, "Veteran educator seeks ways to fix nation's schools" (July 6, 2013), and Professor Cho had some words of praise for America's educational system, in contrast to Korea's system:

The [Korean] school teachers should always offer curiosity-driven courses, allowing their [students'] imagination to run wild. For example, science teachers should not just explain natural phenomena plainly. They can ask students, 'Why does the sun rise in the east? Or why do the vast majority of flowers bloom in spring, not winter? Or what's the difference between apricot blossoms and cherry blossoms?'

They should not put their answers in the text book. Instead, they should let students think about them for a moment. If we look at textbooks in the U.S., they are designed to trigger curiosity and provoke thoughts.

Well, that's what I always say, so I'm grateful to hear it confirmed by a Korean educator! Actually, though, my wife tells me that Korean textbooks for our kids are much improved these days, but that too many old-fashioned teachers don't make effective use of these books.

Things, however, are changing here in Korea, though I think that these changes are happening more rapidly in private education centers, which are starting to offer courses on critical reading, open discussion, and discursive writing, among other things.

Anyway, read the article . . .

David Brooks on Learning Styles: Western vs. East Asian

David Brooks

NYT

David Brooks has an interesting NYT article published, "The Learning Virtues" (February 28, 2013), on the different attitudes toward learning between Western students and East Asian students, based on the research of Professor Jin Li:

Jin Li grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution . . . . [but] wound up marrying an American, moved to the States and became a teacher . . . . She has spent her career, first at Harvard and now at Brown, trying to understand how Asians and Westerners think about learning.

The simplest way to summarize her findings is that Westerners tend to define learning cognitively while Asians tend to define it morally. Westerners tend to see learning as something people do in order to understand and master the external world. Asians tend to see learning as an arduous process they undertake in order to cultivate virtues inside the self.

Consequently, Westerners and Asians talk in different terms about learning, as in this comparison of Americans and Chinese:

When Li asked Americans to randomly talk about learning they used words like: thinking, school, brain, discovery, understand and information. Chinese, on the other hand, tended to use phrases common in their culture: learn assiduously, study as if thirsting or hungering, be diligent in one's learning.

Conceptions of the student also differ:

In the Western understanding, students come to school with levels of innate intelligence and curiosity. Teachers try to further arouse that curiosity in specific subjects. There's a lot of active learning -- going on field trips, building things. There's great emphasis on questioning authority, critical inquiry and sharing ideas in classroom discussion.

In the Chinese understanding, there's less emphasis on innate curiosity or even on specific subject matter. Instead, the learning process itself is the crucial thing. The idea is to perfect the learning virtues in order to become, ultimately, a sage, which is equally a moral and intellectual state. These virtues include: sincerity (an authentic commitment to the task) as well as diligence, perseverance, concentration and respect for teachers.

These differences are said to have practical consequences:

Li argues that Westerners emphasize the Aha moment of sudden insight, while Chinese are more likely to emphasize the arduous accumulation of understanding. American high school students tease nerds, while there is no such concept in the Chinese vocabulary. Western schools want students to be proud of their achievements, while the Chinese emphasize that humility enables self-examination. Western students often work harder after you praise them, while Asian students sometimes work harder after you criticize them.

These are intriguing observations, but I wonder how well these really correspond to reality. Plagiarism is so widespread in Korean universities that I have to question the effectiveness of a moral conception of learning. Moral failings are easy to fall into, for one can be successful anyway, sometimes more so, but with conceptual failings comes failure in one's career. Cognitive failure corrects itself; moral failure requires an external critic.

Incidentally, I had my daughter read the article, and her response was to agree that there is a difference in the way that Koreans and Americans talk about learning, that the former do speak about the process in moral terms, but that Korean students don't actually take the moral talk seriously, so it has no practical significance on how they study, and that the one big aim is to score high on the nationwide university entrance exam.

I would add that while the cognitive approach might not be talked about in moral terms, an ethic is implicit, but this is an issue that itself deserves a blog post . . .

A new young novelist . . .

Fictionalized Memoir

Amazon

The director of the department in which I teach at Ewha Womans University asked me a few weeks ago if I could proofread something her eleven-year-old daughter had written. I first assumed an essay, but upon hearing that it was creative, I figured a short story. Turns out, it was more like a novel! Nearly 200 pages in published form! Moreover, it was well-written. Here is a passage about midway through the book in which the main character and her friends relax after exams by watching a children's movie at Young Hoon School, where they are students. The passage begins with one of the friends, Shin-me, reminding the others that their English teacher, Miss Austen, had promised to let them watch the movie:

"Oh, Miss Austen told us that we could watch a movie during the last block today, since we finished our tests."

"What did she say we're watching?" I asked. "I hope it's not anything scary. Last time when we watched one of the Goosebumps series I couldn't sleep at all that night."

"This one, unfortunately, will be pretty creepy, Soo. We're watching Coraline -- you know, the one with the spider witch who kills children by plucking their eyes out of their sockets and sewing button eyes."

"Oh, that movie. You know, when I watched Coraline, I was seven, and I pulled out all the buttons from my clothes and buried them in the park near my house." I laughed as I fingered the buttons on my cardigan. "But you have to admit, the movie is really creepy for a children's movie."

"I suppose it is scary for a seven-year-old," Shin-me said grinning. "Anyway, it's going to start soon. Let's go quickly before the others take all the chips -- the teacher said she bought them for us."

I sat next to Shin-me and Jaemi, with Yu Yeon and Seok-Joon sitting in front of us. The movie started with the unforgettable scene of a witch who was stitching a cursed doll and removing its button eyes. The background music seemed more eerie than the scenes, although the scenes were plenty creepy.

Coraline, with her short blue hair and muddy yellow raincoat, had moved into a new house. She had been exploring it when she found a small door -- oh, wait, before that, she had received a doll that was supposedly from a boy named Whiney. The doll gave me the creeps because of the button eyes. The doll kept on disappearing, moving by itself, a spy for the witch. Coraline found a small door and went inside at night, when she noticed a group of mice heading in that direction. She found herself in the same house, only with different parents.

When Coraline saw her fake mother, the witch, the camera zoomed to her button eyes, which made everyone gasp quietly. The witch kept on making Coraline want to come back by using treats and other things that she had always wanted. Later, when Coraline wanted to go back to her real world, the witch grew angry, refusing to let her leave, and Coraline finally discovered that she was actually a horrifying witch.

The story went on like that with gruesome scenes that made us shiver. Occasionally, Yu Yeon would let out a squeal, while the rest of us shushed her. Yu Yeon wasn't scared easily, but she often overreacted.

Anyway, Coraline realizes that the witch had been keeping watch on her through the doll's blue button eyes. She then happens to meet three ghosts, the spirits of earlier victims, and becomes determined to battle the witch to save her parents, whom the witch had also managed to trap.

"The witch is really hideous," Shin-me said under her breath during the movie.

When the witch came out with her dangly legs, horrible face, and creepy buttons, Miss Austen said, jokingly of course, "Aren't you glad that your mother isn't . . . crazy like that?" Miss Austen had a great sense of humor and knew exactly what would make us laugh.

I heard Seok-Joon snort.

Coraline fought the witch with Whiney's cat, which scratched out the witch's button eyes. I thought she looked much better without the buttons. Later, even when Coraline frees her parents and takes them back to the real world, the witch's hand, which Coraline cut off by closing the magical door, follows her and fights her even to the very end. Then Whiney comes to the rescue and crushes the wriggly hand with a rock.

"What if there was that kind of hand always following you around?" I said to Shin-me. "Always trying to pull your eyes out of your sockets to sew buttons there." (Soo Young Yun, Sixth Grade Stories from Young Hoon, pages 104-106)

As I said, quite well-written . . . and entirely unexpected from a sixth-grader whose first language is Korean! The book went on sale a couple of weeks ago and has sold 30 copies already, by word of mouth, I reckon. By the way, the movie described by Soo Young Yun is a real film, one based on a scary children's book of the same title by the fantasy-horror writer Neil Gaiman. I've not seen the film, but the book is frightening enough.

But today's post isn't about Coraline. It's on Sixth Grade Stories from Young Hoon, and it must be the novel's first review, so let me say that I think the book would appeal to children from the fifth grade and up, as well as to couples with kids, and to anyone who was once upon a time a sixth-grader and is curious about how Korean schoolkids experience elementary school. I should note, however, that the school described in the book -- which is composed of fictionalized stories from Soo's real school -- is rather unusual, offering half the classes in Korean, the other half in English, a pedagogical experience unlike what most readers will have undergone, and certainly different from my own.

But readers will find much to identify with.

Fulbrighter Stephanie Kim: Internationalization of Korean Universities

Stephanie Kim

UCLA Graduate School of Education

Because I was once a Fulbright Scholar (1989/90), I receive invitations to Fulbrighter presentations here in Seoul, but I'd never attended one until this past Friday, when I went to hear UCLA doctoral candidate Stephanie Kim speak about Korean attempts to raise university rankings on the global scale, a topic promised in the description sent to me a couple of weeks ago:

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis and of a continuing neoliberal [i.e., classical liberal economics] trend in higher education reform that emphasizes deregulation, competition, and marketization, the Korean government has attempted to minimize the country's educational trade deficit by pursuing measures that discourage students from studying abroad while encouraging foreign students to come study in South Korea. In effect, this policy shift underscores the need to raise educational and research standards at Korean universities and to create campuses with more international settings so as to better accommodate foreign students. One consequence is the emergence of international colleges housed within Korean universities that adopt a Western liberal arts model and are conducted entirely in English.

Stephanie's Fulbright research provides an anthropological analysis of an international college that examines how various university stakeholders navigate their professional activities in the context of the university. It takes the integration of liberal arts education in South Korea as a point of entry to discuss the social, economic, and political debates surrounding university internationalization. Her presentation ultimately argues that the emergence of international colleges reflects a unique model of university internationalization that embodies the Korean attitude towards globalization.

There wasn't much anthropological analysis in the presentation -- not what I think of as anthropology, anyway -- so I'm assuming Ms. Kim saves that for the thesis itself, but the data and her argument were interesting to reflect upon, especially for a man such as myself who has taught so long in Korea, first in 1995/6 and then from 1999 through 2012, and who has ever attempted to "navigate . . . professional activities in the context of the university" systems where I've taught, with varying success among seven universities (portmanteau for "unique adversities") as I've trod the faultline between academic cultures East and West. Ms. Kim's succinct summary of "the Korean attitude towards globalization" in "university internationalization" clearly articulated the point that each international program set up in Korean universities to train students in critical thinking (often taught by foreign professors) has mostly been sealed off in a 'bubble' from the rest of the university, the intention being to prevent critical thinking from being turned upon the larger university system or the even larger Korean society, where hierarchy and Confucian ethics hold sway.

As example, Ms. Kim related an anecdote about one of the first graduates of Yonsei's Underwood International College (UIC), a woman who was interviewed by a national newspaper here in Korea and was asked about the UIC program. She answered the various questions honestly, using the critical skills in which she had been trained at the UIC, so she had both positive and negative things to say. Later, the dean of UIC called her personally and told her that before she gave any further interviews, she should first check with the UIC administration about what to say.

That kind of demand would almost certainly not happen in a Western university, else the administrative official would be laughed out of office! But it's the sort of reaction still to be expected here in Korea . . .

Rob York on Homeschooling: Interview with the Gypsy Scholar

Sa-Rah and I

Photo by Rob York

(Image from Korea Herald)

Rob York, a reporter for the Korea Herald, interviewed me a couple of weeks ago for an article on schooling one's children at home, and it appeared yesterday in print, "Homeschooling in Korea: Two sides to consider" (June 8, 2011), albeit not in interview format.

Rob, by the way, grew up on a dairy farm in Tennessee, and I've had a bit of experience with dairy cattle myself, having helped one of my best friends back in the Ozarks with the milking on his family's dairy farm about once every couple of weeks for nearly four years, so Rob and I had some experiences in common.

Moreover, he has a personal interest in the issue of homeschooling, for he and his Korean wife have a small child and will eventually face the same issue of how to educate someone who's not a full Korean. My wife and I had taken Sa-Rah out of the Korean educational system once she reached middle school because we weren't entirely satisfied, and we had placed her in an online school that had satisfied us fairly well academically, but Sa-Rah has grown dissatisfied with online schooling because she feels isolated and . . . but I'll let Rob tell the story:

For expatriates with children to raise, living in Korea brings new educational concerns.

If they can find somewhere for their children to live, sending them to their native countries is an option. If they can afford it, the parents may try an international school. And if they feel their child is sufficiently acclimated to Korea, they may go with the public school system.

Some parents, though, try something much closer to home.

That's Rob's introduction, which is followed by the first part of his article, a section dealing with a successful case of homeschooling in Korea, but I'll skip ahead to the second part, which deals with Sa-Rah's case, though I'll have to add some clarifying details in brackets, as you'll see:

Horace Jeffery Hodges, who teaches at Ewha Womans University in Seoul and is best-known in Korea for the Gypsy Scholar blog, has been homeschooling his 14-year-old daughter, Sa-Rah Ahyoga Hwang, for three years [in an online school].

"[As for our two children,] I've been homeschooling them both in English and various things since they were tiny, but both also went to Korean elementary schools from the beginning," said Hodges, who married Hwang Sun-Ae in 1995.

"When Sa-Rah reached middle school, we decided to stop her Korean education because some of the teachers used corporal punishment, not just for infractions of the rules but for giving the incorrect answers to questions of contents."

Furthermore, Hodges wasn't happy with the lack of discussion in class and said students were able to ask few questions. So, since then Sa-Rah has been studying online through the Keystone School based in the U.S. As Hodges is a native of Arkansas, both children have dual citizenship, making it [easily] possible for him to take them out of public schooling here.

The plan had been to continue her education this way, and then begin homeschooling her little brother, 11-year-old En-Uk Sequoya Hwang when he reached middle school. However, recently their plans changed, and they intend to put Sa-Rah back into public school when she reaches the ninth grade. It's not that there weren't benefits to homeschooling -- Hodges said that Sa-Rah's research and writing skills blossomed -- but during that time she became less outgoing.

Like the Gey van Pittius family [in the first part of this article], they had worked to counteract this at least partly through churchgoing -- the family attends an international congregation -- as well as social activities and making use of her former social connections.

Still, Sa-Rah sounds ready to return to socializing the way most children her age do.

"I miss my friends and social activities we had at school," Sa-Rah said, adding that there are also academic benefits. "I like to compete, that kind of makes me want to study."

Though she is half-Korean and speaks the language, Sa-Rah does not look like her peers in the Korean public school system. Still, aside from the occasional cultural faux pas -- such as misunderstandings resulting from her looking her teachers in the eye when they talk -- she has no horror stories akin to Petro's experience [of racism].

"I did get a lot of attention, but I didn't feel anything bad," she said.

Sa-Rah's homeschooling experience [online] has required more effort [in some respects] from her parents, particularly her mother, as Hodges had already been tutoring her at home [from the time that she was little].

"I no longer have to teach every course using a textbook. I can now check her [online] work and guide her with advice, teach her how to do research and related things. That's more interesting for me, so it's easier, [even though my responsibilities are greater,]" he said.

"For my wife, it is also [generally] easier [for Sa-Rah to do her schooling online], I think, but [it] causes a bit more worry since the [American] school system is different, leaving my wife uncertain of how best to assist her[, though Sun-Ae puts in a lot of effort, of course]."

As for the expense [of online homeschooling], Hodges said that while it costs more than public education, it is less expensive than an international school in Korea. Exactly how much depends on how involved one can be with their child's education.

"If one has lots of time, [then one can homeschool the children by onself and avoid the online schools entirely, and] the expense is minor [in that case,] but [also] time-consuming since one has to teach everything," he said. "But an online school can cost a good deal, e.g., at least a couple thousand [American] dollars per year."

Despite moving on, Hodges can see an upside to homeschooling: "The benefits derive from the research-based coursework that the online school offers," he said. "The teachers stress creativity and independent thinking. I'm not yet sure[, however,] if memorization is stressed enough."

So, when she returns to her education outside the home, Hodges will continue to help her with reading, learning to research and writing essays. He also plans to continue tutoring his son in the humanities while keeping him in public school and planning for their futures.

"I'll have to maybe administer the practice tests for the PSAT," he said. "Although Korean schools seem to be good at teaching test-taking."

That's all from us. The first part of the article, on the experiences of the Gey van Pittius family, is in some ways more interesting due to the conflict that one of the daughters experienced . . . but you can go to the link to find out about that.

Incidentally, I hadn't known when the article was going to appear in print yesterday, so you can perhaps imagine my surprise at seeing the above photograph, large and clear, jump out at me when I turned to the Expat Living section of the Korea Herald as I was riding the subway to Ewha Womans University yesterday morning. Startled at seeing myself so prominently featured in a 'major' newspaper, I glanced about nervously, wondering if the other passengers had seen the paper and recognized me.

I certainly hope not, or I'll have to start being more courteous as I use the subway system. No more pushing and shoving to get on and off trains, no more grabbing seats ahead of other riders, no more ignoring people who try to engage me in a broken-English conversation.

Ah, the downside of celebrity . . .

More Foreign Professors Coming to Korea?

Professor Jong-wook Lee

President of Sogang University

World Class University

(Image from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

David McNeill, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 27, 2011), offers a pertinent title for an interesting article: "South Korea Brings in Foreign Professors by the Thousands, but Is It Ready for Them?"

And are they ready for it?

For those of us already teaching in Korea, this is not exactly new news, but here goes:

Most observers expect the South Korean figure [for the percentage of foreign faculty] to grow sharply in the coming decade as the country's universities climb out of an academic ghetto that has kept them largely isolated from the global job market.

Probably true that the percent will rise . . . but sharply? I wonder. But there is the promise. For example:

Sogang, a private liberal-arts college set up by Jesuits from Wisconsin, is at the vanguard of this burgeoning internationalization. It plans to recruit 60 new foreign professors over the next four years, as it strives to push English-language teaching from 20 percent of its classes to 50 percent.

I keep hearing that Korean universities intend to do these things, and Sogang University can probably be taken seriously (based on my experience of the place), but the announced goal at Korean universities often exceeds the reality attained. I acknowledge the real changes, however, from the 'old days' in Korea:

Foreign professors in South Korea were once little more than exotic symbols of an aspiring globalization. Most were contract teachers who returned home after a few years, leaving little lasting mark on the higher-education system.

I reckon that's what I've often been. I even left once -- after a 1995/96 academic year at Daegu's Kyungbook National University -- for a postdoc in Australia and another in Israel, only to return in late 1999 to pursue my 'career' here in Korea . . . but leaving little lasting mark, I suppose. Might my fortunes change? Somebody's will:

But as the [South Korean] economy matures, colleges increasingly see foreign faculty and language programs as shortcuts to modernization, and the government is supporting them with millions of dollars in financing. The changes come as economists and other experts warn that South Korea risks falling behind its competitors unless it joins the world and overcomes a deficit in creative thinking and innovation.

That's quite a burden to put on newly-arrived foreign professors -- expecting them to teach creative thinking to Korean university students who are generally very passive in class after years of rote learning and in-the-box problem solving. And let's not forget the need for inculcating critical thinking among students, never an easy thing to do, and harder in a hierarchical social system like Korea's. I would hope that these professors receive an orientation from foreign faculty who've already taught in Korea for several years. New foreign faculty also need to know that if they are too rigorous in their grading and too intent on weeding out plagiarism, they'll receive low evaluations from students, which will be interpreted as evidence of poor teaching. I recall a student once complaining in an evaluation comment that I had been "too concerned about catching plagiarism," for instance. I had to chuckle, but some administrators might side with that student. Administrations do want to make sure that they're getting their money's worth, however, and there's a lot of money being invested in this proposed upgrade of Korea's university system:

The government's World Class University Project, which received 825 billion won ($752-million) last year, has fueled the process, pushing colleges to hire "outstanding foreign scholars." Seoul National University alone invited 59 foreign professors last year. Foreign hires are now a key criterion for government financial support, say experts.

Hey! I'm an "outstanding foreign scholar" -- just check out my blog! But maybe I don't really want one of those high-level posts:

The cost of recruiting from abroad has also come under fire in the South Korean news media. With salaries often pegged to the dollar, universities must find 80 million won (about $71,000) a year for a foreign hire, nearly twice the annual salary for a Korean professor at a public university.

European and American transplants often deal, however, with more profound problems than resentful Korean colleagues and uncomprehending parents. Some experience deep culture shock as they try to acclimatize to life in a still overwhelmingly homogenous and hierarchical academic culture.

That shock can even be 'electrocuting':

Many universities are coy about revealing how long foreign professors stay, but an Education Ministry survey of 288 foreign academics last year found it averaged just four months. Last fall a foreigner hired as a full professor at Seoul National packed his bags after just a month, "citing difficulties adapting," according to the university.

An average of merely four months! I'd never have guessed that. I wonder why they didn't feel at home. Perhaps they found that some promises that had been made were not being kept? Foreign faculty often complain of this. Or they find out that 'tenure' might not mean the same thing in Korea for foreigners as for Koreans. A Korean university where I once taught reinterpreted its rules to exclude tenure for foreign faculty, so those of us with what we'd been told was tenure discovered that we no longer had tenure. But four months is way too short for that sort of problem to arise, so other reasons must account for this very brief average stay. Perhaps a lot of foreign faculty were 'run out of town' for the moral hazard that they posed? There's a degree of distrust, and even fearfulness, among Koreans about the motives of some foreign faculty coming to Korea:

One indication of South Korea's lingering fears about an influx of foreigners can be found at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, where $100-million in government money has been spent developing robot English teachers. Prototypes of the robot are operated remotely from the Philippines, keeping the "moral problems" associated with non-Koreans at arm's length, says Mun Sang Kim, director of the institute's Advanced Robotics Research Center.

"There are some problems and some accidents in hiring native speakers at the schools right now," he says. "For example, the immigration system in Korea is not good enough to examine whether the foreign visitors are clean or not, or they did some crime," he adds. "That's the reason why the government thinks about such robot systems. They don't have any such social problems, they don't do the drugs."

Yes, one doesn't want any immoral "accidents" among the foreign faculty. Mr. Mun Sang Kim means "incidents," of course. To be serious for a moment, I don't think that one can lump the various 'teachers' into one group. There are the teachers at small-scale academies who need only a four-year university degree, teachers at schools who likely need a master's degree, instructors at universities who also need a master's, and professors at universities who need a doctorate. Academies would have the highest percentage of teachers prone to the aforementioned 'accidents' since too many of these academies will hire any featherless biped claiming to have a college degree. But schools and universities are more discriminating about whom they accept and will therefore be likely to hire fewer moral reprobates.

The article thus mixes some apples and oranges in its report by not distinguishing clearly enough among types of educational institutions and kinds of faculty, but the report will surely draw more foreign scholars' attention toward Korea and likely result in a greater number of applicants to these World Class University posts.

More competition . . .

One word, one meaning?

Choi Seung-ho (최승호)

A Blizzard of Meaning?

(Image from eglos.com)

One of my favorite columnists in the Korea Herald, Dr. Kim Seong-kon, has written an amusing critique of unimaginative exams, "Hitchcock, Chaplin and Korean exams" (December 22, 2010) -- including a couple of 'exams' that Hitchcock and Chaplin failed in interpreting their own work --- but he particularly dislikes the Korean SAT. Dr. Kim is an English professor at SNU (Seoul National University), and one of his literary essays was included in the Korean SAT Preparation Book, but he found the question posed so wrongheaded as to leave him appalled. I'll leave that one for you read about on your own and decide for yourself if you are similarly appalled. Instead, I'd like to focus on an example that I personally find more appalling:

[The] Poet Choi Seung-ho . . . often complains about the Korean equivalent of the SAT test, which contains questions on his poems such as "Blizzard Warning."

"Even I fail to find the right answer," he muttered. "In poetry, image is like flesh, rhythm is blood and meaning is like bones. But the exam forces students to find the bones only."

Indeed, our testing policy, as well as our education system forces our students to forget the warm flesh and blood, and search for the dried bones of a dead man instead. It is common sense that you cannot possibly find one answer when it comes to poetic meaning. In fact, you cannot simply find one meaning for each stanza and line of a poem. Unfortunately, however, the Korean SAT test leads students to believe there is only one correct meaning in a poetic word or stanza, which is definitely a serious fallacy.

Not quite the poetic fallacy, of course, but pathetically fallacious, nonetheless. One word, one meaning works well in logic but not in poetry, which thrives on wordplay and polyvalent signification. Even prose often plays with words, as in Professor Kim's use of "bones" to refer both to "dead man" and to "meaning."

Now, I don't know Choi's poem "Blizzard Warning," but I'd bet my bottom dollar that the word "Blizzard" has more than one meaning in the poem, perhaps much as my poem "Water Witching" is not just about dowsing but uses the expression "water witching" to refer both to dowsing and to something else that might also require a bit of magic.

Read it on your own if interested . . . and also Professor Kim's article.

Carl Honoré: Request on 'Gaming' and Creativity in South Korea

(Image from Homepage)

Last February, the well-known journalist and award-winning author Mr. Carl Honoré contacted me about education in Korea, for he was thinking of doing some research on excellence in education, particularly on creative thinking, and was curious about South Korea's high standing in the PISA ranking. My words of caution about the Korean educational system may have had some influence, for he's now contacted me concerning a different approach to his research on creative thinking. I'll let him to the 'talking':

Hi Jeffery,

Hope you are well -- and that you remember our earlier exchange about my book on problem-solving and the Slow Fix.

I am wondering if you might have some suggestions or contacts for something I'm looking into. Below is the email that I have just sent to the Haja Centre asking for assistance. It should give you a clear idea of what I'm looking for: ie. the best way to spend time with gamers and gaming experts in South Korea.

Many, many thanks!!

Carl

Being no gamer, I -- of course -- had no suggestions . . . and fewer contacts. I had never even heard of the Haja Center! But I can alway post a blog entry, so here is Mr. Honoré's email to the Haja Center, explaining himself, his research, and what he needs:

I am an award-winning journalist and international bestselling author. My first book, In Praise of Slowness, examines the modern compulsion to hurry and chronicles a global trend toward putting on the brakes. My second book, Under Pressure, explores the good, the bad and the ugly of modern childrearing. The books have been translated into more than 30 languages (including Korean!) and landed on bestseller lists in many countries. In Praise of Slowness was recently the inaugural choice for the Huffington Post's new book club.

You can read more about me here.

My next book will examine how we might solve the big problems of today. To that end, I am profiling people and projects from around the world that are bringing fresh thinking to the art of problem solving. I have already spent time with a former mayor of Bogotá who pioneered a bus system that is now a model for cities around the world; the governor and inmates of an amazingly liberal prison in Norway; an entrepreneur who is reinventing politics in post-meltdown Iceland.

I also want to investigate what we can learn about solving problems from the people who spend an astonishing amount of time doing so for fun: ie. gamers.

Given the South Korea is the world capital of gaming, and that the Haja Centre does a lot of work with young people, I'm wondering if you might have some suggestions on the best way to tackle this. I will be visiting your country to give a keynote speech at the World Leisure Congress in Chuncheon City on August 29th and wish do some interview and research on the same trip.

1. Is there a gaming competition on in South Korea in late August/early September?

2. Is there a national body that speaks for gamers?

3. Are there regular tournaments or events where gamers come together?

4. Is there a physical space (club, cafe, etc) where top and/or avid gamers
gather?

5. Has anyone done any research on the effects of gaming on South Koreans' ability to solve problems or perform other mental tasks?

6. Is there a guru of gaming in South Korea?

7. Is there a leading academic expert on all things gaming in South Korea?

If you have any questions about me or my book, do please let me know.

On a more general note, I am a very scrupulous interviewer and writer. If something is shared off the record, it remains off the record. I always acknowledge my sources. I will run all quotes past the interviewees before publication. In other words, no one will open up my new book a year or two from now and get a nasty shock. Promise . . .

Many thanks for hearing me out. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Very best wishes from sunny (yes, it happens) London,

Carl

Well, Mr. Honoré sounds quite professional to me. I'd like to help but know nothing about gaming . . . so I turn to my readers, and anyone who chances upon this blog entry.

Does anyone have answers or advice for Mr. Honoré on gaming and creativity in South Korea? If so, contact him at this address:

carl@inpraiseofslow.com

Messages can also be posted as comments here since Mr. Honoré will undoubtedly check this blog entry since I informed him that I would post his request.

Stanley Fish: Good Teaching and Student Evaluations

Stanley Fish, Teacher

and Lecturer

November 19, 2008

(Image from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law)

I don't claim to be the best of teachers, but I always strive to do my best to teach students how to think, and I suppose that Stanley Fish does as well . . . if not better.

Nevertheless, Professor Fish doubts that students themselves are consistently the best judge of good teaching since much of what is learned doesn't immediately come to fruition, an observation upon which he elaborates in a recent article that a friend called to my attention, "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (June 21, 2010), written for Fish's "Opinionator" column in The New York Times:

A number of responses to my column about the education I received at Classical High (a public school in Providence, RI) rehearsed a story of late-flowering gratitude after an earlier period of frustration and resentment. "I had a high school (or a college) experience like yours," the poster typically said, "and I hated it and complained all the time about the homework, the demands and the discipline; but now I am so pleased that I stayed the course and acquired skills that have served me well throughout my entire life."

Now suppose those who wrote in to me had been asked when they were young if they were satisfied with the instruction they were receiving? Were they getting their money's worth? Would they recommend the renewal of their teachers' contracts? I suspect the answers would have been "no," "no" and "no," and if their answers had been taken seriously and the curriculum they felt oppressed by had been altered accordingly, they would not have had the rich intellectual lives they now happily report, or acquired some of the skills that have stood them in good stead all these years.

Why does Fish think that students would be so blind to the fact that they are getting a good education from teachers whom they may even resent:

Students tend to like everything neatly laid out; they want to know exactly where they are; they don't welcome the introduction of multiple perspectives, especially when no master perspective reconciles them; they want the answers.

But sometimes (although not always) effective teaching involves the deliberate inducing of confusion, the withholding of clarity, the refusal to provide answers; sometimes a class or an entire semester is spent being taken down various garden paths leading to dead ends that require inquiry to begin all over again, with the same discombobulating result; sometimes your expectations have been systematically disappointed. And sometimes that disappointment, while extremely annoying at the moment, is the sign that you've just been the beneficiary of a great course, although you may not realize it for decades.

Needless to say, that kind of teaching is unlikely to receive high marks on a questionnaire that rewards the linear delivery of information and penalizes a pedagogy that probes, discomforts and fails to provide closure.

In short, says Fish, concerning student evaluations of teachers:

"Deferred judgment" or "judgment in the fullness of time" seems to be appropriate to the evaluation of teaching.

And that is why student evaluations (against which I have inveighed since I first saw them in the '60s) are all wrong as a way of assessing teaching performance: they measure present satisfaction in relation to a set of expectations that may have little to do with the deep efficacy of learning.

I have some mixed feelings on this point, for student evaluations can serve a useful purpose if reliably interpreted and properly balanced against other things, but I believe that I'm otherwise largely in agreement with what Fish lays out. As I remarked to the friend who sent me the column:

I'll have to think about Fish's arguments, though I've long held to some variant of them . . . without entirely dismissing student evaluations.

At Korea University, some students hated me for giving failing grades on plagiarized papers. One student, however, later . . . [was quoted in] an article [published in KU's student magazine, Granite Tower (March 27, 2007),] about the experience [of being caught plagiarizing] and receiving an "F":

At first, I really did hate him. I thought he was weird and odd. But now that I think about it, that professor was doing what was only right. College is a place that requires official documentation of a person's ideas and research. It is also a place that teaches academic attainments that can sometimes be abstract. It's a shame that the techniques to express the abstract knowledge are not offered at such a place.

Later in the interview, the student added:

Honestly, I don't think that other professors take the time to look over reports that we hand in compared to the professor who gave me the F.

I suspect that at the time, this student at KU gave me a poor evaluation, but within a semester or two, the student's views had already shifted . . . albeit too late to do me any good (as Fish would note).

I would hope that other students have had similar experiences of re-evaluating my teaching as time goes by, but that sort of thing will never show up on student evaluations handed in at the end of a semester when student are reacting to what they believe they've learned -- as Fish has made clear in his "Opinionator" column.

I would add that in the article for Korea University's student magazine, Granite Tower, the student who later praised my teaching was in error about one thing:

We were never given a specific definition or exact regulation of plagiarizing by the professor nor by the school.

This is incorrect. I always define plagiarism for my students, and very clearly, so I can only infer that the student must not have paid close enough attention to my warnings about plagiarism until she received a failing grade on the first draft of her essay.

But I'm sure that she understood by the time that she was working on the second draft.

Culture of Discussion: Education in South Korea?

South Korea on the Map

Global Education?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday, I posted an entry on critical thinking and promised to return to a discussion of the article by Peter Facione on "Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts," but not today.

I want to follow up on an excursus through Korean education because an older post of mine on this topic received a comment by the writer Carl Honoré:

Stumbled across your blog while doing some research for a book I'm writing about problem-solving (see my bio below). Not a how-to manual, more a cultural critique of our obsession with the quick fix.

One of the things I'm investigating is how problem-solving is taught in schools. I'm particularly interested in South Korea, given that it came top in the world in that category in the last PISA round. I am also taking a hard look at the Finnish system, which seems very different in spirit from the Korean one yet produces similarly glowing results.

Anyway, I'm writing because I'd love to chat to you about how you see Korean education and perhaps to get some ideas of whom to approach for interviews. I'm based in London UK but will be in South Korea to give a talk in late August/early September. Would love to use the trip to do some research for my next book.

Thank you very much in advance for any help you can supply. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

I'd heard of Mr. Honoré because of his book In Praise of Slow. I haven't read it, but it has come to my attention as part of the slow-living debate. If he does indeed visit Korea, I'll be happy to talk to him, but I'll try to find people with more expertise than I have for him to interview.

Anyway, Mr. Honoré notes the not-insignificant fact that South Korea ranks at the top, along with Finland, among nations tested for problem-solving. A couple of years ago when I was teaching at Kyung Hee University, one of my students wrote on this high ranking and compared the Korean and Finnish school systems, arguing that the Finnish system was far superior and that the Korean system was very inefficient in helping Korea reach its high ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). I agreed with my student, and I see from an article, "Students rely on hagwon more than public schools" (February 19, 2010), by Kim Mi-ju and Park Su-ryon in a recent edition of the JoongAng Daily that the public school system in Korea is probably not the reason for Korea's high ranking, as indicated by the remarks of one student interviewed:

A student surnamed Song, who goes to high school in Gangnam, a famed private education district in southern Seoul, is in the top 5 percent of his school and is typical of many of those surveyed. He said he rarely raises his hand to ask questions of his public school teacher.

"I got a sense that schoolteachers don't like their classes being interrupted and I walk on eggshells," Song said, adding that it’s also difficult to ask teachers questions after class.

Aside from lecturing, public school teachers are busy with administrative chores, making it hard to get their attention. Students said they are barred from entering the teacher's office in the midterm and final exam periods to prevent them from seeing exam questions.

Song said that's why he turns to his hagwon teachers.

"In my hagwon I have been told to feel free to ask questions at any time," Song, 18, said. "Hagwon teachers prepare supplemental study materials tailored to my study level and I feel more comfortable at a hagwon than at public schools because hagwon teachers approach me first and give me encouragement."

The freedom to ask questions, as we've noted, is fundamental to a culture of discussion, but Korea's public school system actively discourages questions and focuses upon rote learning, whereas the private academies (hagwons) encourage questions from students and apparently teach problem-solving.

Relevant to this issue, my wife yesterday mentioned the case of a Korean girl who lived for a time in China and attended an international school where she was encouraged to ask questions, and she loved learning, but when her family returned to Korea and enrolled her in a Korean public school, her teachers told her to stop asking questions during class.

Our own daughter experienced this when she was in the seventh grade last year, which is partly why we withdrew her from the Korean school system and turned instead to an online American school. Our daughter was discouraged from asking questions during class. Even worse, she witnessed students receiving corporal punishment for getting wrong answers (sometimes even getting kicked, though this was apparently for misbehavior). That seems to me to be a very good method for discouraging students from active learning and of warning them not to take intellectual risks.

I'd like to know more about the Finnish system, and perhaps if I do have a chance to speak with Carl Honoré next August or September, I'll ask him some questions. Meanwhile, our daughter is relieved not to be in a Korean school anymore and happy with her experience at The Keystone School.

Min Young Hahn: "Lack of Individuality"

Things have changed?

(Image from Jinyoung's Korea)

About one week ago, I finished teaching a summer course at Ewha Womans University for the EPO. In that course, we focused on education in Korea, and most of the students had generally negative things to say about the Korean education system for middle and high schools. I was quite interested in the students' papers, so I asked if any would like to have their remarks posted to my blog. I had wanted to write an entry of my own using quotes from the various papers, but that turns out to be impossible. The only student to send her paper was Min Young Hahn, who wrote a paper titled "Lack of Individuality," so I'm pasting it below in its entirety:

I changed my school two times, once middle school and then high school. In first case, the reason why I transferred was for a better curriculum. I attended a very good private primary school, so my parents and I could not be satisfied with public school. The next transfer, in high school, was to get fairer teachers as well as a better curriculum. Through these experiences, I learned that near Seoul, you can have an improved curriculum with more honest and more competent teachers. In spite of the better education, however, overall Korean education seems wrong to me. Having a better school is not enough for a good education if it is not based on individuality.

First of all, getting the best grades is everything at school, but grades should not be the goal of students at all. The real goal should be the learning that helps students to open their eyes toward society. When I was in middle school, I was one of the worst-graded students, so teachers ignored me and had bias against me. Most of them did not try to teach me anymore. The attitude caused me to repeat a vicious circle: I got bad grades again and again. Even when I became one of the highest-graded students in high school, I had to study for my grades, not for my knowledge. If I went to ask teachers things out of curiosity, they said, "just memorize." Even if you get good marks, it does not mean you know much, it means you memorize well. And according to your marks, you'll be regarded well or badly.

Secondly, school teaches students to obey. I learned it from the inspection of students' uniforms and haircuts at the front gate of school. Sometimes it did not fit my character. I agree that sometimes, obedience is important to keep order in school, but it must not trespass on my personal rights. Particularly, I had to cut my hair in compliance with the standards of school despite my body being mine. While I was being inspected in front of the gate, I could not stop thinking "Why on earth do they want to decide the length of my haircut?" The reason may be that the school had decided to dominate students thoroughly regardless of their individuality. Hair became a symbol of personal freedom to me. Having to be examined from somebody itself was disagreeable, too. School should distinguish between obedience necessary for order and obedience that infringes on students' rights.

In addition, wrongful conformity is the worst violation of individuality. On the surface, school looks peaceful, and students cooperate well. Because they come to a situation to spend their whole year with the same friends in a small classroom, they try to make conversation with other students so as not to be isolated. As a result, they follow general trends passively. Therefore, it is not cooperation, but lack of individuality and wrong conformity. I was a gregarious student. At least I believed I was. However, I realized that I was nothing more than adapting myself to conformity regardless of myself. The blinding effect of this hypocrisy disgusted me and wore down my self-respect also. Conformity without one's own individuality is harmful compared to real cooperation.

In conclusion, although Korean education appears to be advanced, it still lacks respect for individuality. Because of the extremely oppressive education, I misunderstood the concept of freedom. I yearned for freedom so much that as soon as I graduated from high school, I did things without restriction or duty. This resulted from pursuits radically reversed to my former education, for it was full of restriction. I wandered to find my individuality for a long time. If I had had an education based on individuality, I could have saved some time.

Several other students wrote similar essays on Korean schools, so I'm inclined to think that a problem of excessive restriction does exist. For this and other reasons, my wife and I are thus going to homeschool our kids. Sa-Rah will begin homeschooling in January 2010, and En-Uk in January 2011. Later, they will probably go to American universities.

Incidentally -- though this is not the fault of Korean education -- in searching for pictures of Korean school uniforms, I encountered some deceptively labeled sites that I'd have preferred not to see, for there seems to be a fetish about such uniforms, but I finally found a safe site with the image provided above.