Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Len8]

I have heard it said by fellow Koreans that Koreans study History and Social studies purely as they relate to Korea. The fact that Germany is in the middle of an elections or that it has made a form of restitution to the Jewish people for war time atrocities is totally irrelevant, because the issues aren't relevant to Korea and and it's need to see everything outside Korea purely in terms of it's or their relevace to Korea.

That atittudinal educational thing promotes an arrogance and a self inflated over importance of one's cultue.

[mehamrick]

And your just starting to scratch the surface... Welcome to Koera...

[RACETRAITOR]

Uh, this surprises you? Don't you think most countries are like that?

[wings]

I can't think of any country that doesn't centre their education around their own experiences. In Canada we focus on Canada, with a fair amount of information about Eurpoe since we feel it is relavant to us.
It's not just Korea.

[Mix1]

Surprise. All cultures probably do this. Korea may be more extreme, I don't really know all the details.
But, as an American, I think our history texts also, and certainly our media, constantly help form our opinions of ourselves, and reinforce certain mindsets ... for better or worse. Of course, we aren't as homogenous as Korea, so hopefully we get more diversity of opinion mixed in with our informational diet, although that is also up for debate.

[Scotticus]

Agreed with everyone but the OP. Every country has self-centered history in their schools. Korea may be admittedly worse than many, but it's hardly the worst around.

[seoulsucker]

I don't know about you guys, but I had to take an international social studies class every year in high school. Of course, it was all put in reference to American history and culture, but at least I had significant exposure to other countries, cultures, and political ideologies.

Having worked in elementary, middle, and high schools here I can tell you that's not the case here in Korea. Stuff here is seems to be uber-ethnocentric.

[Homer]

[darkhorse_NZ]

NZ is another country that does the same thing, it happens in education and it happens in the media too. If one NZer dies amongst 200,000 Asians in a natural disaster, who do you think the news will cover?

I think it's natural throughout the world to focus on what affects you and your backyard. Please don't turn this into a "damn Korea-centric Koreans" thing, because that attitude is common as muck.

[pkang0202]

From my own personal experience is the US, we lumped China, Japan, and India into 2 weeks. Meanwhile, we spent about 6-7 months on Western Europe. Eastern Europe got like 15 minutes. Africa was pretty much "Mercantilism and slave trade".

I was told the main reason we focused so much on Western Europe was because US history relates directly to Western European history.

Koreans students learn about history as it relates to them. That means a heavy dose of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history.

The average Korean knows about as much about Western History that the Average Westerner knows about East Asian History. How many random people on the street in your home country can tell you who Tokugawa is? Kublai Khan (NOT Genghis Khan)? Can they say anything about the Han Dynasty in China? Do they even know who Emperor Hirohito was?

The average Korean knows as much about East Asian history that the average westerner knows about Western History.

Is that the fault of the school system? I don't think so. There's a REASON for history majors in undergrad, graduate, and doctorate programs. There's just way too much to try and digest that you have to focus on the parts of history that are relevant to you.

[YoshaMazov]

A history of Asia, according to US history books:

200 BC: Chinese build a big wall.
13th Century: Genghis Khan takes over a lot of Asia.
1941: Japan attacks US
1945: US defeats Japan and liberates China. Shortly thereafter China becomes Communist. China bad.
1953: US defeats North Korea and China.
1963-1973: US has a small role in Vietnam, but nothing that big. Eventually US loses interest and goes home. But it's really not important, so we should all forget about it.
1975-1979: A handful of people are killed in Cambodia.
1980-present: Economic prosperity comes to all non-communist Asian nations.

All history books are ethnocentric. There's hardly a whisper about Asia in any US history book before WWII. Even less about Africa, unless it's under the context of European colonialism (and even then it doesn't link current unrest in Africa to colonialism). The only reason we hear about Mesopotamia and The Egyptian Empire is because there was no civilization in Europe at the time. Before the Pilgrims, the books focus almost exclusively on European History. Obviously not an ideal curriculum, but it's relatively constant among countries and not unique to America or Korea.

[jimmiethefish]

There was a moment in class last week when I felt like banging my head against a brick wall.The students had been discussing global warming. There was a general consensus that something was wrong, about the causes and what we should do about it. One group's response however, was that it would be best to do nothing so the rest of the world died and left Korea alone. And this from 13 year olds?

[K-in-C]

[Scotticus]

[darkhorse_NZ]