Korean Job Discussion Forums

[On the other hand]

[TECO]

[TECO]

It starts when they are very young.
None of them want to be the 'nail' that sticks out.

All of their education is 'top-down' and about control. Creativity isn't encouraged from the get go with North East Asians.

Education in North East Asia is all about having children conform.

Local teachers and bureaucrats have no idea on what learner-centred classrooms are and those that do don't really buy into student focused classes.

It's hurting them, for sure.

[the_beaver]

[SuperHero]

Too often, teachers extinguish a student's spark I just read this and thought it would fit nicely into this thread.

[HamuHamu]

Again..not wanting to read ALL 17 pages of this post, so perhaps it's been said.

The last few posts have swung away from the "critical thinking" and moved towards the "creativity" side.

I have to teach a special 2 hour art class 3x a week for my school. Kids are 6 - 8 years old. They paint, draw, colour, make - whatever we are doing that day, I encourage them first to close their eyes and picture what they want to see, and then do the activity. Sure there's some copying, but I try.

Most kids come back to class the next time telling me their mom threw their painting/drawing/craft in the garbage. "Why?" I ask. "Because she said it's not beautiful." EVERY DAY I have 5 or 6 kids telling me this. Some mothers have even pulled their kids from the class saying that their child is not capable of drawing pretty things. Some mothers have insisted that I do it FOR them, and send it home with the child's name on it.

I think that is where some of the lack of creativity comes from - if it's not perfect, you can't do it.

Where I came from, there were ugly stick figures of "Mom and Dad and Me" on the refridgerator for Mom to show everyone. Here, it seems to be that mothers are embarrassed to show off the childish creativity that comes with beign 7.

[bucheon bum]

wow, i remember when this bad boy started over a year ago. still going at it, amazing.

[Paddycakes]

It's probably been said earlier in this thread, but let's get one thing straight:

Generally speaking, North American schools are not the "Critical Thinkers Paradise" to speak.

The tendency in North American state schools is very much toward spoon feeding, and the sort of personality traits that the schools tend to reward (ie., conformity, submission to authority, punctuality) are very much the same ones found in Korean schools. I work in one so I know.

So let's not kid ourselves here.

If North American schools were serious about teaching people to think for themselves, giving them the skills to act on their environment and not be acted on, then they'd teach philisophy and ensure that students master the art of reasoning, and how to spot errors in other people arguments (including those of the teacher).

This won't happen anytime soon though, because most teachers have never taken a philosophy course in their life, and because most teachers tend to be of the middle class small C conservative variety who see little need to rock the boat in anything other than a "lets blame it on funding cuts and popular culture sort of way".

Then there is also the big picture stuff. Namely, society wants (perhaps even requires) the majority of the population to be worker ants who tow the line.

Perhaps at the end of the day all the "Cookie-cutting" schools do really is socially responsible?

Could you imagine if the whole of society consisted of people like "On the Other Hand"?

[OiGirl]

[bucheon bum]

[eamo]

Another anecdote about Korean attitudes to creative thinking....

One very good, low-intermediate, 13 year old handed me in his weekly 200 word essay. It was perfect English. He had obivously copied from a book. I asked him and he said, yes. He had copied.

Now, previously, I had given the class a few rules about their essay writing assignments. No. 1 golden rule was DON'T COPY!!!! I explained copying from a book doesn't really help them learn writing skills.

So, I asked the student to do another essay. This time original please.

Next day, don't you just know it, his Mum comes to see me. She explained that her son felt his English wasn't good enough to write well for 200 words so she advised him to copy from a book!!!! Then it would be perfect. Then he would please his teacher.

I understood the 13 year old and his motives for copying but I dispaired when I saw that his Mum didn't see anything wrong with copying if the result is a happy teacher.

I think the point is that Koreans seem not to place a high importance on originality. Why struggle to create something second-rate when you can take a short-cut and produce a perfect finished article?

It's a basic inability to recognise that making mistakes is an acceptable part of learning and a fundemental part of the creative process.

[captain kirk]

'..making mistakes is an acceptable part of learning and a fundamental part of the creative process'.
Absolutely, Eamo! I remember someone talking about Korean men and how they want it, and they want it now. How they grow up being pampered, since they will be the breadwinner. Coddled and pampered, doted on. And, from what I can tell, Korean people are alert to the art of presenting the best face, foot forward, and appearance. The look of status and having made it, and the look of being in control, unharried. The look of someone who doesn't make mistakes and knows what he's doing, where he's going. In adverts there's often the young, handsome, Korean man chin-up and looking off into the clouds. Confident, looking at his future with assurance in the now.
There's a pause in the air, whenever anyone makes a mistake. Or is shown to have something that doesn't work right. Or if it is shown that they are deficient or stretching the truth somewhere. It's like there's a big 'oops' and they feel conspicuous. It's a 'fumble pause'. I don't recall meeting up with anything like it back home.
Hockey is played on the ice. Life here seems to be played 'under the ice'. There's the smooth surface overtop and no-body breaks out of the ice.
Hot in ways here, too.