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cmxc
Joined: 19 May 2008
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 Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:16 pm Post subject: Korea must keep proven approach to education |
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Are you fucking kidding me?
Korea must keep proven approach to education
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/09/181_164316.html
'Remarkably, the traditional Korean approach to education was formative in the workforce and management that has created such creative and innovative products and services. It is performance orientation that leads to creativity after all.'
'Based on our study, Korea is best advised to continue its current proven approach to education and as such secure its future economic and political success, prosperity, and crucially, preserve its culture in light of globalized immigrant movement.'
I don't believe I have ever read a greater piece of bulllshit about the Korean education system. |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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| The Korean education could use a bit of shaking up, but it's not all bad. It does produce a high level of literacy and numeracy, but at the expense of individual liberty. Much like their workplace practices, efficiency is an issue that should be addressed. High school students have too many useless subjects to study - while it would be better to focus on a select few. Perhaps this would mean students wouldn't need to cram so many hours of ineffective studying into one day. |
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Cave Dweller
Joined: 17 Aug 2014
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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People here are only functional because the education system puts the onus on parents to foot the bill twice: public through taxes and the private system through a parents pocketbook.
Grade 1 kids are only in the classroom for 3 hours or so a day and even older kids go for much less time than I ever did. There is so much wasted time as well. A morals class for people who know nothing about morals. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:14 pm Post subject: Re: Korea must keep proven approach to education |
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| cmxc wrote: |
'Remarkably, the traditional Korean approach to education was formative in the workforce and management that has created such creative and innovative products and services. It is performance orientation that leads to creativity after all.'
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"Remarkably"? funny choice of words.
Also, most of the products and services were "borrowed" from other places that did them first. Notably, USA and Japan. Much of the "innovation" here has either been borrowed, bought, or stolen.
This strategy has been beneficial for them, but calling it "innovative" is deceptive. But that seems to be the narrative they are going for. It makes sense it would be spun / reframed that way though.
As for the education system, what exactly is the "traditional" Korean approach to it? Seems the system is in flux with conservatives and liberals battling on the approach. They are coddling the students more and more and you've got to wonder how far they've gone from their traditional ways. |
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tob55
Joined: 29 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| I read the article and as someone with more than 36 years of public, private and university experience as a trained educator, I have to question which pair of rose-colored glasses these guys were looking through when they wrote this article. If they are basing their information on currently enrolled students at university, then they might have a claim, but without seeing any hard facts, figures or statistics I would say they are simply writing what Korean readers want to see. Nothing in my 10 years of experience here as an educator would even suggest that Korean learners excel much in anything that is purported in the article. Nice try to be Korea Nice, but it is far from what the real picture of Korean education is like. IMHO |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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The traditional Korean approach would be only the rich get educated. And among the poor, only the sons get to go to school.
As for the modern version of Korean educations, as I said many times, Korean schools aren't good, but they aren't bad. The biggest problem are over zealous parents that compare their Min-su to the smartest kid in the school Hyeon-su. So it's just a competition of who spends more money on hagwons to product the 'supposed' smarter kid.
This competition phenomenon is largely a Seoul/Gyeonggi thing. Although it does get competitive in the 'country'-side, but it ain't crazy like in Seoul. Kids in the rural areas are cool with becoming bakers, bus-drivers, car gps installers, and mechanics. And they do get okay pay, from what some of my former students have told me. But some of those jobs are a big no-no for a huge number of Seoul kids. They rather play LoL at home until that 'amazing' job comes a knockin'. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 1:26 am Post subject: |
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Creativity? Show me some, please.
Maybe they mean this. There is a fairly new eating/shopping area in Pangyo named Avenue France. It includes no French restaurants or stores (maybe one small shop, maybe).
That's innovation in the field of multi-culturalism, France without the France. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 1:29 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| As for the education system, what exactly is the "traditional" Korean approach to it? Seems the system is in flux with conservatives and liberals battling on the approach. |
This. With such an open market out there and parents looking at the latest things from inside Korea, from the US, from Europe, from wherever, Korea's education these days seems not so much a system as it is an anarchic bazaar. |
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 2:06 am Post subject: |
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| atwood wrote: |
Creativity? Show me some, please.
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“I say: Wait ten years. No country combines innovation and quality like South Korea. Samsung illustrates quality but the innovation is less clear. Here are examples.
“1. Food preparation. In Seoul, a friend took me to an American-style buffet. Nothing could be worse, I thought. But I was blown away by original treatments of familiar things. One was an octopus salad. It was truly chewy and crunchy, in contrast to most restaurant salads. Whoever designed it understood underlying principles — they weren’t just mindlessly copying. The fruit on offer included burnt sugar grapefruit — small pieces of grapefruit with a little bit of added sugar, then torched. The burnt sugar adds complexity. A simple small cheap attractive practical dish — not grilled grapefruit with too much brown sugar.
“2. Cafes. Seoul is bursting with little cafes that are pleasant places to spend a few hours. They are well-decorated (many individually-decorated), serve interesting food and drink, and make Starbucks look cold, hard and stodgy. You can easily spend $6 on dinner and $6 on a drink afterwards but the $6 drink seems worth it. One Korean explained the profusion of beautiful useful cafes on competition (“Koreans are very competitive”). Another Korean said it was the TV series Sex in the City (“The characters spent a lot of time in cafes”). There are two Korean cafes near where I live in Beijing.
“3. Bakery. Korean bakeries have what Americans expect in a bakery, such as bread and croissants, but also have many more products, both baked goods and other food, than American bakeries. There are many Korean bakeries in Beijing.
“4. Airport. Incheon Airport was voted the best airport in the world for 7 years; in the most recent two years, it was voted second best. I’m not sure this reflects innovation that future airport architects will want to study; new airports have a huge advantage for which I cannot adjust. But Incheon has free wifi that works; Beijing International Airport has free wifi that doesn’t work.
“5. Door lock. Nice houses and apartments in Seoul have a kind of digital door lock I haven’t seen anywhere else. Via Google I found this — which, lo and behold, comes from South Korea. These locks are better in several ways than other electronic door locks. For example, the keys are lit. My guess is that new houses and apartments in America don’t have these locks because Americans don’t even know they exist. Apparently a South Korean company (Milre) figured out that substantial improvement was possible. There isn’t even an English Wikipedia entry for Milre, yet it will have more effect on your life than, oh, 99.999% of the current entries.
“6. Pop music. Gangnam style, obviously; K-Pop, slightly less obviously, if you don’t live in Asia. Gangnam style = K-Pop plus humor.”
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/04/13/burnt-sugar-grapefruit-give-thanks-for-south-korea/ |
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rok_the-boat
Joined: 24 Jan 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| Korea is doing very well compared to 90% of the rest of the world and education is one of its key points, even though far from ideal. What actually scares me, as a foreigner, is that if Korea decided to sort its education properly they would literally rule the world. The problem with change, however, is that they would probably end up with a worse system as those bureaucratic types tasked with changing it would likely have the vision of moles. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:12 am Post subject: |
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| Kepler wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
Creativity? Show me some, please.
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“I say: Wait ten years. No country combines innovation and quality like South Korea. Samsung illustrates quality but the innovation is less clear. Here are examples.
“1. Food preparation. In Seoul, a friend took me to an American-style buffet. Nothing could be worse, I thought. But I was blown away by original treatments of familiar things. One was an octopus salad. It was truly chewy and crunchy, in contrast to most restaurant salads. Whoever designed it understood underlying principles — they weren’t just mindlessly copying. The fruit on offer included burnt sugar grapefruit — small pieces of grapefruit with a little bit of added sugar, then torched. The burnt sugar adds complexity. A simple small cheap attractive practical dish — not grilled grapefruit with too much brown sugar.
“2. Cafes. Seoul is bursting with little cafes that are pleasant places to spend a few hours. They are well-decorated (many individually-decorated), serve interesting food and drink, and make Starbucks look cold, hard and stodgy. You can easily spend $6 on dinner and $6 on a drink afterwards but the $6 drink seems worth it. One Korean explained the profusion of beautiful useful cafes on competition (“Koreans are very competitive”). Another Korean said it was the TV series Sex in the City (“The characters spent a lot of time in cafes”). There are two Korean cafes near where I live in Beijing.
“3. Bakery. Korean bakeries have what Americans expect in a bakery, such as bread and croissants, but also have many more products, both baked goods and other food, than American bakeries. There are many Korean bakeries in Beijing.
“4. Airport. Incheon Airport was voted the best airport in the world for 7 years; in the most recent two years, it was voted second best. I’m not sure this reflects innovation that future airport architects will want to study; new airports have a huge advantage for which I cannot adjust. But Incheon has free wifi that works; Beijing International Airport has free wifi that doesn’t work.
“5. Door lock. Nice houses and apartments in Seoul have a kind of digital door lock I haven’t seen anywhere else. Via Google I found this — which, lo and behold, comes from South Korea. These locks are better in several ways than other electronic door locks. For example, the keys are lit. My guess is that new houses and apartments in America don’t have these locks because Americans don’t even know they exist. Apparently a South Korean company (Milre) figured out that substantial improvement was possible. There isn’t even an English Wikipedia entry for Milre, yet it will have more effect on your life than, oh, 99.999% of the current entries.
“6. Pop music. Gangnam style, obviously; K-Pop, slightly less obviously, if you don’t live in Asia. Gangnam style = K-Pop plus humor.”
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/04/13/burnt-sugar-grapefruit-give-thanks-for-south-korea/ |
At first I thought you were being satirical. And maybe you are.
People have been putting sugar on grapefruit for a long, long time. Nothing Ashley's is doing is new, except in Korea.
The electronic locks are kind of neat but I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread that you do. It's a security thing first and then convenience in Korea. But an American kid can handle hanging onto a key while that's a lot of responsibility for a Korean one.
K-pop--thanks for an extra laugh or two.
You seem to be a bit confused about what exactly a baked good is. For example, bread is baked. BTW, I don't think ruining good dough is innovation.
As for creativity, it's the cronut from New York!  |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:19 am Post subject: |
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| But an American kid can handle hanging onto a key while that's a lot of responsibility for a Korean one. |
Oh for effs sakes. Kids everywhere lose keys. Seriously you're delusional if you think American kids don't lose keys and Korean kids couldn't hold onto them for 48 hours. |
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crescent
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: yes.
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Kepler wrote: |
“I say: Wait ten years. No country combines innovation and quality like South Korea. Samsung illustrates quality but the innovation is less clear. Here are examples.
“1. Food preparation. In Seoul, a friend took me to an American-style buffet. Nothing could be worse, I thought. But I was blown away by original treatments of familiar things. One was an octopus salad. It was truly chewy and crunchy, in contrast to most restaurant salads. Whoever designed it understood underlying principles — they weren’t just mindlessly copying. The fruit on offer included burnt sugar grapefruit — small pieces of grapefruit with a little bit of added sugar, then torched. The burnt sugar adds complexity. A simple small cheap attractive practical dish — not grilled grapefruit with too much brown sugar.
“2. Cafes. Seoul is bursting with little cafes that are pleasant places to spend a few hours. They are well-decorated (many individually-decorated), serve interesting food and drink, and make Starbucks look cold, hard and stodgy. You can easily spend $6 on dinner and $6 on a drink afterwards but the $6 drink seems worth it. One Korean explained the profusion of beautiful useful cafes on competition (“Koreans are very competitive”). Another Korean said it was the TV series Sex in the City (“The characters spent a lot of time in cafes”). There are two Korean cafes near where I live in Beijing.
“3. Bakery. Korean bakeries have what Americans expect in a bakery, such as bread and croissants, but also have many more products, both baked goods and other food, than American bakeries. There are many Korean bakeries in Beijing.
“4. Airport. Incheon Airport was voted the best airport in the world for 7 years; in the most recent two years, it was voted second best. I’m not sure this reflects innovation that future airport architects will want to study; new airports have a huge advantage for which I cannot adjust. But Incheon has free wifi that works; Beijing International Airport has free wifi that doesn’t work.
“5. Door lock. Nice houses and apartments in Seoul have a kind of digital door lock I haven’t seen anywhere else. Via Google I found this — which, lo and behold, comes from South Korea. These locks are better in several ways than other electronic door locks. For example, the keys are lit. My guess is that new houses and apartments in America don’t have these locks because Americans don’t even know they exist. Apparently a South Korean company (Milre) figured out that substantial improvement was possible. There isn’t even an English Wikipedia entry for Milre, yet it will have more effect on your life than, oh, 99.999% of the current entries.
“6. Pop music. Gangnam style, obviously; K-Pop, slightly less obviously, if you don’t live in Asia. Gangnam style = K-Pop plus humor.”
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/04/13/burnt-sugar-grapefruit-give-thanks-for-south-korea/ |
LOL!
Most (if not all) of the stuff in your list either originated in other countries such as Japan, or were brought about by Koreans who studied abroad, or by foreign nationals in Korea. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:50 am Post subject: |
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| Kepler wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
Creativity? Show me some, please.
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“I say: Wait ten years. No country combines innovation and quality like South Korea.
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Huh? The general strategy has been... copy products and branding styles and sell cheaper goods at a cheaper price than the foreign competitors. That doesn't fit with the words innovation OR quality.
| Quote: |
“1. Food preparation. In Seoul, a friend took me to an American-style buffet. Nothing could be worse, I thought. But I was blown away by original treatments of familiar things. One was an octopus salad. It was truly chewy and crunchy, in contrast to most restaurant salads. Whoever designed it understood underlying principles — they weren’t just mindlessly copying. The fruit on offer included burnt sugar grapefruit — small pieces of grapefruit with a little bit of added sugar, then torched. The burnt sugar adds complexity. A simple small cheap attractive practical dish — not grilled grapefruit with too much brown sugar.
“2. Cafes. Seoul is bursting with little cafes that are pleasant places to spend a few hours. They are well-decorated (many individually-decorated), serve interesting food and drink, and make Starbucks look cold, hard and stodgy. You can easily spend $6 on dinner and $6 on a drink afterwards but the $6 drink seems worth it. One Korean explained the profusion of beautiful useful cafes on competition (“Koreans are very competitive”). Another Korean said it was the TV series Sex in the City (“The characters spent a lot of time in cafes”). There are two Korean cafes near where I live in Beijing.
“3. Bakery. Korean bakeries have what Americans expect in a bakery, such as bread and croissants, but also have many more products, both baked goods and other food, than American bakeries. There are many Korean bakeries in Beijing.
“4. Airport. Incheon Airport was voted the best airport in the world for 7 years; in the most recent two years, it was voted second best. I’m not sure this reflects innovation that future airport architects will want to study; new airports have a huge advantage for which I cannot adjust. But Incheon has free wifi that works; Beijing International Airport has free wifi that doesn’t work.
“5. Door lock. Nice houses and apartments in Seoul have a kind of digital door lock I haven’t seen anywhere else. Via Google I found this — which, lo and behold, comes from South Korea. These locks are better in several ways than other electronic door locks. For example, the keys are lit. My guess is that new houses and apartments in America don’t have these locks because Americans don’t even know they exist. Apparently a South Korean company (Milre) figured out that substantial improvement was possible. There isn’t even an English Wikipedia entry for Milre, yet it will have more effect on your life than, oh, 99.999% of the current entries.
“6. Pop music. Gangnam style, obviously; K-Pop, slightly less obviously, if you don’t live in Asia. Gangnam style = K-Pop plus humor.”
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/04/13/burnt-sugar-grapefruit-give-thanks-for-south-korea/ |
1. Other than Korean food, they often don't do a great job at food preparation. For fusion/western food, with a few exceptions, it's often lackluster overpriced crap. Although there are some decent fusions to be had here, many of them are fairly bad or even complete fails. Throwing corn or plasticky cheese on a "fusion" is not innovation. Plus, they often buy the cheapest ingredients and then butcher the recipes but with questionable results. Most of the "innovation" are copies gone bad. And yes, I'm including pricey Seoul restaurants in this.
2. Cafes. Most of the cafe ideas/themes are borrowed from elsewhere (Japan, Europe, USA) and are filled with lackluster, overpriced western food / coffee.
3. Bakeries? No way. A few decent surprises but a ton of fails as well, ultra-processed cheap ingredients, with rarely any real butter or cream in any of them. Not innovative as most are lackluster copies of bakery goods already invented.
4. Apparently the airport won some awards. It's fine but doesn't seem all that different compared to others. Is there something particularly innovative about it? The upstairs dining area has a couple of nice ponds and an interactive image collage thingy, but those amount to window dressing, not so much an innovative airport design.
5. Electronic door-locks with light up keypads? Those have been around for a long time. Doubtful that was invented in Korea, although they do like to put them on house doors for some extra bling effect.
6. K-pop. A miss-mash of western genres and sounds-like versions of western pop hits, changed just enough to avoid legal action (although that's happened too). Very much copied, right down to the videos and outfits. |
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