Sometimes I think what would happen in the world when I close my eyes. I wouldn’t know if all the visible things disappear in the moment I close my eyes and appear again as I open my eyes. I can’t be sure that the world would exist when my eyes are closed! Perhaps the world would stop in every second I blink my eyes.
I continue to think, and I conclude that I can’t be sure about the world even when my eyes are opened. Everything what I see might be only a false image. Maybe I am the only thing that exists in the world, and I am ‘programmed’ to sense the false images. Perhaps the world might be a Truman show. The circumstances around me might be artificially made up, and others might observe me living in the circumstances. (Min Gyu Kang) There is nothing I can be sure about in this world. Is this life real? What is real? Is the pen and paper I am writing on right now even real? You may be asking why, what the point is in this writing. There are times when I begin to ponder if the world where my eyes are open is a dream and the world of my dreams is actually reality. Every night when I am lying down on this possibly fake bed, I start to dream of those fake figures who are just smiling and waving their hands at me.
My whole life was based on my love of the four people in my dream. My father, my mother, my elder sister, and my elder brother. My love and adulation for them was all I needed for a happy life. But one day, they disappeared. Disappeared in a car crash that I was supposed to die as well. (Nam Do Cho)
I will never forget that day.
I actually don’t remember; don’t remember how did it actually happen, and how I escaped and all that. The only image I have is the car burning in flame and an image of my elder sister bleeding from her head to her ears. And that was it. Done. Gone. They were out of my life, like their turns on the stage are all over by then. Like they were not real from the start.
I was then sent to an orphanage; maybe I didn’t have a relative: that I could not remember. (Sol Kim)
I kept feeling that a pint of my memory was lost. Or maybe stolen by someone I had a strong intuition that someone has a memory of mine and I can find her to complete my life. For me, she was the one who I needed the most. But I’ve never imagined about falling love with her. Yes…… She is my love, and she has my lost memory. To get my memory, I have to kill her. What should I do to my darling? I am frustrated. Please help me God! Then, I heard the voice of God! (Seo Hee Kim)
I recently read a novella called ‘Shawshank Redemption’ written by Stephen King. The story was very successful. Millions of copies were sold, and the readers were greatly impressed by the story. It was made into a movie, and the movie became a masterpiece. However, the story is, in fact, only a story about a prison breaker who went into prison, lived for years, and then escaped, just like the other typical prison breakers. Then, how could the story be so successful? How could it impress the numerous readers and audiences? The reason is that the novel gave us important messages about institutionalization and hope in a beautiful way.
The first message of the story is about ‘institutionalization’. Even in a harsh condition like prison, as time passes by, the members adjust to the condition and feel comfortable to it. Then, they fear changes. Even though the changes guarantee freedom, justice, peace and all the decent virtues, the sweet changes terrifies the members who already adapted themselves to the cruel condition. The members are ‘institutionalized’. In the ‘Shawshank Redemption’, Brooks Hatlen, who had been the head librarian in the prison and had been respected from other prisoners, was paroled. However, he could not adjust to the radical changes. Since he was trained to be docile and suppressed for decades, freedom of the outside world was frustrating to him. Eventually, he did not last a year after the parole. As Red said in the story, they began to ‘feel the need to take a piss’ only when they were permitted to. As the members of the Shawshank were institutionalized, they lost all the desire for the fundamental rights. They were frustrated to get their own freedom back!
However, Andy Dufresene, the prison breaker, was not entirely institutionalized because he had hope. Hope was the virtue that could overcome the despair from institutionalization. Unlike other discouraged prisoners, Andy had hope. When he gazed at the pictures of the beautiful actresses, he had a hope of going through the picture and standing by the actresses. Even though he was sentenced to life imprisonment, he still dreamed of living in Zihuatanejo. Surrounded by the four walls, he hoped to have a little hotel and take the guests out charter fishing. His strong hopes let him consistently dig a hole for sixteen years and crawl 500 yards in the sewerage pipe, and eventually escape from the prison. His soul full of hope was too small to be confined in a small cell of prison. Moreover, his hope inspired the other prisoners to have hope, too. After parole, Red could avoid the institutionalized fear by reminding the value of hope which he learned from Andy. As the last five sentences of the story said, he hoped, he hoped, he hoped, he hoped, and he hoped. I have no doubt that Andy and Red met each other and made their dreams come true.
Institutionalization is not only in prison. Even though ones would feel that their present conditions are unjust and repressing, they would soon adapt themselves to the conditions. For example, a freshman would have first come to a school and would have become angry of the authoritarian and dogmatic attitudes of the seniors toward the freshmen. However, as time passes by, the student learns to submit and cringe to the arbitrary behaviors of the seniors. If a tolerant senior tells the student to treat him or her as a friend, the student feels uncomfortable. The student rejects any change from the authoritarian relationships between the freshmen and the seniors. Then, the student becomes a senior, and treats the freshmen in the same way. The student is institutionalized! As one would confront more irrationality and contradiction in the society, he or she would become institutionalized to all those irrationalities and become a docile member of the absurd society. Nobody is free from institutionalization.
What one needs to get rid of the influences of institutionalization is hope. As the novella ‘Shawshank Redemption’ says, hope is the only virtue that can overcome institutionalization. One should have hope for a rational and fair relationship between the freshmen and the seniors. One should have hope for a society without contradictions. Without hope, the irrationalities would never disappear, because the institutional ones fear changes. As Andy did, one should have hope. As Andy’s jailbreak suggests to the readers, a soul full of strong hope is the greatest of all: it can make anything come true. One should never lose hope.
Nowadays, smart phones are so popular among people. In my school, it is more difficult to find a student who does not use a smart phone than to find a student who uses one. I, also, use a smart phone. I am enjoying the numerous technological conveniences of the smart phone applications. The functions of the applications vary from educational ones to addictive games. Even though the addictive games can harm the students’ learning environment, I still believe that smart phones hugely improve the educational circumstances.
First, various types of highly convenient educational applications can be downloaded and used through smart phones. When a user feels technological inconveniences while studying, the user may go to the application store and download one that can eliminate the problems. For example, I learn Spanish in school, and I desperately needed a Spanish-English dictionary during the classes. However, I could not use a computer in the Spanish classes. Therefore, I simply downloaded the Spanish-English dictionary application and used it comfortably during classes. It is even more convenient than the computer dictionaries because the application provides a Spanish keyboard which includes alphabets that only exist in Spanish, such as á and ñ. In addition, my friends memorized Chinese characters in the bus, using a smart phone application. They simply touched and slid the screen with a finger to use the application. In a nutshell, the learning environment can be highly improved by using diverse types of educational smart phone applications efficiently.
Next, smart phones eliminate the constraint of time and place in learning. Due to the ubiquitous aspects of the smart phones, the users can learn whenever and wherever they want. For example, a student can check the assignment via e-mail in the smart phone. Then, he or she can collect information through ubiquitous Internet, and write a research paper with a document-editing application. Then, the student can mail the document with the e-mail. Smart phone users can check, write, and submit a research paper whenever and wherever they want with only a single palm-sized electronic device! Smart phones eliminate the temporal and spatial constraints, and hugely improve the learning environment.
Finally, the smart phone users can easily protect themselves from the functions of the smart phones that can harm the educational environment. Some people claim that the addictive games and lewd applications of the smart phones can damage the learning environment. However, the smart phone companies provide services that block access to the applications that are detrimental to education. If the users sign in the services, the user cannot download them. They are able to control themselves to avoid the harmful applications. Therefore, even though smart phones have functions can deteriorate the learning environment, they can be easily eliminated.
In conclusion, smart phones are convenient and ubiquitous in education, and the harmful functions can be blocked by simple services. Therefore, smart phones can highly improve the educational circumstances. As a smart phone user, I guarantee that smart phones can give you numerous benefits in an educational way if you use them healthily and efficiently. Smart phones provide you smart education whey you use them smart.
“It's hard to win, easy to lose We play a game we cannot choose As steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.”
Life is a game. Life itself is an RPG game with lots of characters and many mini game quests that give compensations when they are accomplished. The mini game quests include exams, college entrance, employment, marriage, earning money, nurturing sons and daughters, and successful retire.Therefore, I play numerous games in my life. Moreover, those quests usually require steady work, and they are so subtle that a small mistake can lead the quests to a total failure. Countless things around me are steady and subtle games. Nowadays, I am carrying on a mini game called ‘studying physics’, which is required to accomplish to start a new quest of a higher level called ‘being a physicist’.
I think that studying and playing an RPG game is same in their essences. When you study, you are given a question, or a task. Then, you should wander around the world of knowledge, as you walk around the world of an RPG game as a character. Next, you learn, and you become able to complete the task. After then, you are able to be promoted to the next level, and are given more complicated tasks. Moreover, as the lyrics of the song “Waiting” says, it is hard to win and easy to lose. To win, you should concentrate and work hard, but to lose, you may simply give up. However, since you should advance to the next level, you have no choice but to participate on the game. As a student who dreams to be a physicist, studying physics is difficult but inevitable. Particularly, studying physics is more similar to a game than studying other subjects to me, because I enjoy exploring the knowledge of physics as the game users enjoy exploring the marvelous worlds of an RPG game. Therefore, studying physics is a game.
The game of studying physics is ‘as steady as a rocking horse’. Physics is a very broad subject that covers from the most basic particles to the whole universe. Therefore, studying physics definitely needs a long-term work. In addition, when you study physics, you might encounter extremely long and complicated calculations. To follow the calculations, you should be painstaking and patient. I often get fed up reading through the calculations that sometimes extends to three full pages. I should be steadier in studying physics. Moreover, unfamiliar concepts and problems of physics need enough time of contemplation to be understood. Studying physics becomes meaningless if you hastily search the answer keys, relinquishing to think more. Long time of contemplation can only be successful by steadiness. For these reasons, studying physics is a steady work.
Studying physics is as subtle as a bruise. Physics does not allow the slightest mistake. A single calculation mistake can totally ruin the whole solution of a problem. A single misconception can destroy one’s entire system of understanding the physical phenomenon. Particularly, in modern physics, the concept of particles and waves starts to be confusing. Modern physics teaches us that particles have the natures of waves and waves have the natures of particles, although particles and waves are classified by their distinctive natures. In addition, according to the uncertainty principle, the displacement and momentum of a particle vary in the same initial conditions. These concepts of modern physics are so abstract and confusing that they generate numerous misconceptions in students’ brains. However, physics does not accept any of those misconceptions. One with misconceptions would not be able to explain any of the phenomenon in modern physics precisely. Therefore, studying physics is very subtle.
In conclusion, studying physics is an RPG game that is difficult but should be accomplished. Studying physics needs a steady and painstaking work. It is so subtle that no mistake or misconception is allowed. A long journey is left in my quest. It would take more than ten years, as I would study physics in college, master course, and doctor course. I hope I would accomplish the quest and be promoted to the next level.
The following sentence is one of the phrases in our school motto. ‘Let us not choose a career in thoughts of personal advance but choose a career in thoughts of talents and aptitudes.’ Then, the students should first find their talents and aptitudes, and in this point they need the help of the education system. The education should be able to help the students excavate their hidden talents and develop them. Then, is the current education system fully doing its job? I say, no. The current education system cannot encourage the infinite possibilities of the children.
The most essential reason the present education fails is that the education tries to build students’ lives in a way the adults would consider successful. Adults think that a successful one would study academic subjects, go to college, be a doctor or a lawyer or a professor, and earn lots of money! However, children never think this way. According to a survey held on few hundred 5-years-old to 12-years-old children in New York, the ten most popular occupations include fireman, policeman, author, pop star, athlete, doctor, astronaut, dancer, and Spiderman. I was surprised that Spiderman was included, since I never have imagined being a Spiderman as a job! The survey clearly shows that the dreams of the children are very original and diverse. In addition, they do not consider wealth as a significant element of happiness. However, as they get older, most of them start to dream like the adults. They give up their dreams of Spiderman and study hard to be doctors and lawyers and professors. They are inculcated to dream like adults through education! Then, they become adults, educate the children, and inculcate the same dream to the next generation.
Hierarchy of subjects is one of the examples of the inculcation to dream like adults. Hierarchy of subjects exists in the education everywhere today. Math and language are at the top, humanities are at the next, and art is at the bottom. Students are naturally inculcated that academic subjects are more important to be successful than art. Teaching that all legitimate trades are equally honorable in ethics class is no use at all.
Some would say that the ones who improved the society used to be academic rather than artistic, so academic subjects are more important than art to students. However, it is a very antiquated idea. The idea was true at the past. In fact, according to Ked Robinson, the current education was designed in the 19th century, when the industrial revolution started and the society had an economic urge to an intellectual model. Therefore, the paradigm of education hasn’t changed a lot since then. The current education wants a type of people who might have been successful in the 19th century! However, society has changed radically. The society needs diverse kinds of people, and gives fair respect and compensation to the artists, as they also contribute hugely to the society. Therefore, the hierarchy of subjects is meaningless. The education system should undergo evolution, as the society did.
Excess emphasis on going to college also verifies the inculcation to dream like adults. According to SBS news, 79% of people went to college in 2010 in Korea. It is the highest rate in OECD countries. College is, of course, a great institution to receive more specialized and profound education. However, many students are forced to go to college by the ‘adult-like dreams’, not knowing if they should go to college to develop their talents. Therefore, lots of people find what they are learning in college is meaningless. Some would continue to work on what they majored in, and would live an unhappy life, not showing brilliant results. Others might choose careers totally irrelevant to their majors, wasting the tremendous money and time they spent in college. For example, my father’s friend majored in computer engineering, but now he works as a luggage porter in Canada. Not because he failed to find a job in computer engineering, but because he discovered that luggage porter was a great career for him to have much spare time with his families. Forcing the children dogmatically to go to college would confine them from finding their aptitudes and talents. Moreover, it would dilute the children’s dreams, and would hinder them from contributing to the society and enjoying their lives in their best.
Therefore, a totally new form of education system is needed. Ked Robinson mentioned that the system should educate children in a personalized way instead of educating in batches, grouping the children by the ‘date of manufacture’. I also think that personalized education is the best way to develop the talents of the students. He also claimed that education should undergo revolution, not evolution. However, I feel that the education system should evolve in a long term, and eventually be a totally different system. A new challenge in education system should always be precisely and cautiously examined because experiments and gambling are never allowed in education. Therefore, a change in education should undergo a process of trial and error, until all the institutions adjust to the change. In addition, since the problems of the current education are closely related to the stereotypes and contradictions of the society, they cannot be solved in a short term. Revolution would only produce chaos.
To sum up, the current education system inculcates the adults’ antiquated thoughts about a successful life to the students, which attach importance to the academic subjects and occupations, college, and money. Hierarchy of subjects and the undue stress on college entrance prove the inculcation. Therefore, the education system should undergo a long-term evolution aimed at personalized education which can encourage the infinite capacities of the children.
School court is one of the events that represent the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy (KMLA). Television documentaries that introduce KMLA always show the school court. Many middle school students who want to enter KMLA watch the documentary and admire the school court. In fact, I also wanted to experience the school court when I first came to KMLA. However, as six months passed, school court is now a very familiar event to me, since I often violated the school regulations.
Every student who is accused of the school regulations should participate in the school court. The list of their names is uploaded in the school community website. If a student thinks that the accusation is inappropriate, the student writes a final defending speech, and submits it to the judicature council. Then, the council carries out a trial a day before the court, and decides whether to accept or reject the speech. When the defending speech is accepted, the council eliminates the penalty points. Recently, the student council adopted the student participation trial, so the trial involves the student juries, who are not related to the judicial committee.
The court starts on every Thursdays 7 p.m., in the auditorium or the gym. The judicature council sits in the front, and administrates the court with the Ministry of Justice. During the court procedures, teachers do not interfere at all. Only English is used in the court. Every accused student in the court is named by the council in sequence, and they come out in front of the court. The council reads out the regulation clause they violated. The one who did not submit the defending speech bows and goes back. When the one who submitted the defending speech comes out, the Ministry of Justice reads out the defending speech in front of all the students. Then, the student goes back. After all the students are named, the council announces the result of the trial. Then, the teacher who manages student guidance appears and cautions the students.
The fact that the school court is administrated only by the students is evaluated very highly. School court is the paradigm of the student autonomy. The student council members, who are also students and can most fully understand the situations of the accused students, judge the defending speech. Therefore, the school court and the defending speech is the most efficient way to eliminate improper and unfair penalty points. However, the council is never overly generous to the accused students. The council members always try to give impartial decisions, not regarding their private relationships with the accused students. In addition, the atmosphere of the court is generally quiet and grave, even though there are no teachers who keep eyes on the students. School court shows that students’ rights are preserved from the dogmatic decisions of teachers, and how sincerely the student council members keep their responsibility and integrity.
In addition, the school court is advancing. Judicature council is composed of the students who strongly desire a better court. As students, they know what the students generally want for the court, and what can be done to make advancements. They keep listening to the students’ ideas, communicate with the teachers about the new ideas, and bring the good ideas into practice. For example, the student participation trial started in the first semester of 2011. The court started to have five minutes of break before the admonishment of the teacher. The school court will continue to undergo advancements by the most progressive and clever students, and will eliminate the weaknesses of the court one by one.
However, the school court is not perfect. It has the internal weaknesses that the documentaries do not reveal. First, it is very difficult to find sound evidences of the defending speeches. The most popular evidence the students use in the defending speeches is the signature of the peers around them, particularly roommates. Persuading the roommates to sign for a lie is very easy. However, the judicature committee has no definite way to verify the authenticity of the defending speech. The members of the council often visit the houseparent and the student guidance teacher to ask about the genuineness of the speech, but they do not remember the specific situations. Therefore, some students fabricate the facts and circumvent the penalty points improperly. Integrity and honesty as a responsible member of the student autonomy is required to the students.
Second, distrust between the housefather and the students interferes the school court. Since some of the students whom the housefather accused escaped from getting penalty points, the housefather started to distrust the court and the students. He occasionally refused to accept the results of the trials. He scolded the student and exerted compulsory force to the judicature committee to give penalty points to the accused student. Therefore, some innocent students had unjust disadvantages. Moreover, the distrust is harming the essence of the student court, which is to let the students govern themselves. The teachers should improve their recognitions on the school court, and abandon their stereotypes and stubbornness. In addition, the students should be conscientious and law-abiding to recover the trust from the teachers.
In fact, many of the students feel very annoying to spend two hours of self-study time in the court, especially when there are so many assignments and quizzes left. However, they mostly agree that student government is the best way to keep their rights from the improper imposition of penalty points. They agree at the essence of the idea of the student autonomy, and that student court is one of the events that most clearly bring the idea into practice. KMLA should keep the tradition of the school court, and continue to make advancements to be closer to the ideal of the student autonomy judicature system.
When I was in the fourth grade of the elementary school, I had a chance to listen to an essay-writing lecture in my hakwon. I learned the basic organization and logic of an essay. I wrote an essay almost every day and practiced to adapt the basic structure to my essays. At first, writing an essay was very difficult and took extremely long time, but as I learned more and wrote more, essay writing became easier. Afterwards, I wrote more complicated essays and creative writings for additional six years, and I could establish my writing style. This essay would be a great chance to reflect my style, strengths, and weaknesses in my writing, and my characteristics and goal as a writer.
In an academic writing, I have a very straightforward and concise style of writing. I try to go straight to my main points in an organized structure. I set a few paragraphs and arrange my details in an appropriate paragraph. Within the paragraph, I dispose the points, examples, and explanations in a logical order. Therefore I make my writing clear and easily comprehensible. In addition, my sentences are very concise. I do not like to put lots of flowery words to make my description gorgeous. Those florid words might be able to give the readers impression that I am an elaborate writer, but they won't bring out sincere sympathy from the readers. Moreover, I do not write long sentences with lots of phrases and commas because they make me complicated. I believe that the readers would be complicated, too. Therefore, I try to be clear and simple in my essay.
In a creative writing, I like to take an objective point of view in describing the actions and feelings of the characters. I feel that objective point of view makes the writing look elegant. I especially like to explain the surprising twist of the story in a disinterested tone, as if the twist was all natural and predictable. In addition, I try a lot to describe the emotions and thoughts of the characters as elaborately as possible. I think that a creative story is all about the feelings and thoughts of the characters. The events in the story are caused by how the characters with certain personality feel in certain situation. Therefore, minute depictions about the emotions and thoughts make the story more interesting, logical, and detailed. I particularly enjoy writing horror stories and portraying the horror the characters feel.
My biggest weakness as a writer is that I do not know vocabularies enough. I often find difficulty in selecting proper vocabularies, especially simple daily dialogue vocabularies. In fact, vocabulary books such as 'WordSmart' teach me a lot of complicated and academic words, but I didn't have a chance to encounter the dialogue vocabularies because I have never been abroad. Moreover, I do not know the slight differences of the meanings of the words that show same result in English-Korean dictionaries. Therefore, I often choose awkward vocabularies that do not fit in the flow of the context. I should read lots of books and study 'WordSmart' eagerly to broaden my vocabularies and overcome my weakness.
My goal as a writer is to lead the readers to have the emotions and thoughts that I intended to bring out. In other words, I want to move readers' minds by my writing. For example, I want to persuade the readers and make them think the same way as I think when I write an article about political and social issues. I expect from my readers to be horrified and think about the cruelty of human nature when I write a horror story.
One of my writings I am very proud of is the term paper about the student government in KMLA. I introduced the roles of the student government, the examples and counter-examples of the successful student government, the problems, student governments in other schools, and possible solutions to the problems. Particularly, I introduced the concept of the honor committee, how it is held in other schools, and the necessity to adapt the committee to KMLA. I think I organized the writing logically and clearly. In addition, I pointed out the problems acutely, and brought out novel solutions. In fact, Mr. Johnson liked my term paper very much, and introduced my paper on his blog. He often talks with me about ways to practice the solutions I addressed. We are interested about the idea of honor committee, and we are planning to make a movement to revive the honor committee in KMLA. You can read the writing in the following link: http://horraywwkd.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/student-government-of-korean-minjok-leadership-academy/.
I want our class to be a great opportunity to read books, discuss about them, and memorize more vocabularies. I think these activities would help me to overcome my weaknesses and accomplish my goal as a writer. Moreover, I hope I would be able to write various types of writings, including creative writings such as horror stories. I am expecting to be a better writer who can move readers' minds through this class.
