Park Hyun

Signs that maybe American-style education is lacking something...

After writing about the serious problems Korea's facing, I ran into this, and wondered if America can really crow about its educational successes:

Check that out. The segment of Americans who are totally ignorant of biology actually grew over the last 26 years, and never receded, except for a single insignificant 1-point drop in 2007. Now consider what consequences these figure would have if they were for illiteracy rather than biology.

I'm not a science nerd. I had to struggle to get through genetics class in college. But the arguments for evolution are so overwhelming, and the arguments for divine creation so pathetic, that in any other country this level of support would be seen as indicative of a serious propaganda effort by the government, akin to North's Koreans' ignorance of the U.S. moon landings.

Americans are right to point out that Asian education systems should, and don't, teach critical thinking. However, they might want to ask why American schools seem to bad at teaching it themselves.

PREEMPTIVE NOTE: Many opponents of evolution believe that it is they who are the critical thinkers, taking on the "scientific establishment." In rebuttal, I have only to point out that critical thinking entails using logic and facts.

A hot plate has no future

My brother-in-law is a recent college graduate with a degree from a high-ranking school in South Korea. He speaks excellent German and decent English. He found a job relatively soon out of college, making him one of the lucky ones, working for a major bank in Seoul.

He works roughly 15 hours a day, not counting his commute. Even though he has nothing to do for several hours before he leaves, he is not allowed to leave early. His bosses are also cruel: new employees, himself included, were forced to remain in a standing/squatting position for hours once, as a form of hazing. He must endure. The only option is unemployment, or emigration. The latter is increasingly attractive.

"This country has no future," is a common refrain in Korea these days. I hear it all the time, particularly from the older generation, but increasingly from younger Koreans, as well. It's a pretty startling thing to say, if taken literally. But what's particularly odd is who it's coming from: these were the people, remember, who endured over 40 years of Japanese colonialism. Are things really so bad now that circumstances pose a greater threat to the future than Ito Hirobumi did?

Korea's problems are more about the country punching below its weight than indicative of total weakness. South Korea should be doing very well, and it still could. The problem is not what the country has or where it is, but how its people use what they have, and they have been using it very poorly.

Everyone agrees that things now are bad. The economy is stagnant, while inflation is off the hook. Korea's trading power has been eclipsed by Chinese firms on the low end and blocked by a resurgent Japan on the high end. Jobs are hard to come by, and those that exist are increasingly tough to put up with: new employees can expect to undergo physical hazing rituals. The population has endorsed anti-American madness sponsored and exploited by deeply irresponsible and dishonest civic groups. The media doesn't know how to deal with any issues unrelated to anti-American or anti-Japanese feeling .The next president of the United States will likely be a Democrat, uninterested in keeping US troops in the country and angered by the uneven balance of trade.

Add to that a sense of helplessness against the system: there is no Korean version of the PTA or school boards to change an education system that is so bad, families split up so that mothers and children can go live abroad for schooling. University presidents who strive to bring their colleges up in the rankings find themselves replaced by angry professors. Shareholders'-rights groups are stymied by judges who let guilty heads of corporations go free in light of their "economic service to their country." The police seem unwilling and incapable of deterring, or even investigating, crimes as serious as mass rape. Meanwhile, every year thicker clouds of yellow dust descend on the country, blanketing it in toxic sand.

Each on its own is a serious problem, but cumulatively they draw a very ugly picture for the future. What will poor little South Korea do once the U.S. has gone, a frighteningly nationalistic China is making the rules, the skies are orange, and the population, plagued by problems of its own making, is so haywire and paranoid that it is effectively leaderless? If everyone who is sick of how things are in Korea can just emigrate, who will bother staying to fight for change?

Pessimists take note: Korea's problems are solvable, and many are improving at this moment. The despair might be all for nothing. Even a short list shows the potential for progress:

• The introduction of a jury system, making for fairer trials
• The passage of laws making it easier to run private schools
• Electoral victories by pro-American, anti-protectionist politicians (though with questionable records, and partially negated by later by-elections)
• The resumption of imports of American beef, significantly bringing down food costs
• Political disengagement from North Korea, though not total, at least has greatly reduced the amount by which the South props up its own worst enemy

Then consider the opportunities Korea has for growth and diplomacy:

• South Korea has huge geographical, linguistic and cultural advantages in the Chinese market
• Rising interest in Korean food and culture in the U.S. provides real opportunities; one jjimjjilbang in New York City is now so popular it nearly doubled its prices in only a few months
• Despite their poor business practices, Korean companies have risen to domination in several high-tech fields
• Korea's infrastructure is one of the best in Asia
• Greater fiscal control by a new U.S. administration would raise the dollar, boosting Korean exports
• Korea's population remains one of the best educated in Asia, if not the world

This begs the question: why is Korea so bad at taking advantage of its strong points? Why can't it use its population's brains, talent and energy more effectively? The answer is largely ideological - Korea's anti-Americanism and Japan-hatred drive it insane.

All the major anti-American and anti-Japanese movements over the last decade or so have been preceded by situations that forced the country to look at China or North Korea negatively. Each time, South Koreans appeared confused, hesitant, and frightened, and each time, they responded by latching on to much smaller issues involving the U.S. or Japan, blowing them out of proportion, and using them for the sake of domestic politics.

The 2002 West Sea battle; the riot of Chinese students in Seoul; the shooting of a South Korean tourist by North Koreans. Each was followed by major protests over insignificant issues involving the U.S. or Japan. Each blow-up over a non-issue became opportunities for exploitation by domestic politicians. None resulted in serious repercussions from Americans or Japanese.

But most importantly, each diverted crucial time and attention away from the serious quality-of-life issues that affect most Koreans. Keep in mind that even after the country's largest political protest since 1919, over the safety of food, there have been no calls for increased regulation of the domestic market, akin to the FDA.

It's hard to imagine a Korea where people stay focused on local issues, ignore Japan, feel grateful toward America, fear China and take a hard line against their northern compatriots. In short, it's hard to imagine a peninsular version of Singapore, Dubai or Denmark, where the governments focus on building consensus and improving quality of life. This creates a cycle of malaise, rage, distraction, and more malaise.

Koreans like to say that they have quick tempers; the phrase in Korean is naembi gumsung (hot plate). The more they say that about themselves, the more they believe it about themselves. It becomes a condition for Korean-ness.That Korea, at least, surely doesn't have a future.

A tiny flaw in the arguments against dog-meat...

...nobody wants to save small, yapping, spoiled mutts. I can only assume to there are a lot of people like myself, who can't look at small dogs (or their owners) without feeling something close to contempt.

Next time, these protesters might want to put something with a little more dignity forward; for instance, a jindo might be more effective.

Big essay on Korea and national insanity

I'll have a big essay up soon on whether Korea's form of national insanity will doom it. Doom-sayers abound when it comes to Korea; there's definitely a touch of luck in the way its madness has so far left relatively unharmed.

Then again, history is replete with forms of national insanity that took decades to bear full destruction fruition. Check back tomorrow.

The Drug Sub

Like the Love Boat, but full of cocaine. Which is also probably like the Love Boat:

The Mexican navy says it has seized nearly six tonnes of cocaine found inside a 10m-long (31ft) makeshift submarine in the Pacific Ocean.

Details here.

A stirring call for solutions to the problems of 8 years ago

David Brooks has done it again: a smart, interesting opinion piece that rests on a point so obviously cockamamy its only excuse can be partisan bias.

We’re entering an era of epic legislation. There are at least five large problems that will compel the federal government to act in gigantic ways over the next few years.....

You may think, therefore, that this situation is ripe for Democratic dominance. The Democrats are the natural party of federal vigor. Voters prefer Democratic approaches to issues like health care and education by as much as 25 percentage points.

Yet, historically, periods of great governmental change have often been periods of conservative rule. It’s as if voters understand that they need big changes, but they want those changes planned and enacted by leaders who will restrain the pace of change and prevent radical excess.

You know, that really explains why half the voters in America might decide to side with a candidate of obvious mental derths but who promised "compassionate conservatism" over a much more capable, experienced Democratic candidate.

As far as I can tell, all five of his big problems - health care, energy, education, financial reform and infrastructure improvement - were big issues eight years ago. Even bigger issues 4 years ago, too, one would assume. So after eight years of disastrous Republican rule, Brooks advocates the radical step of a third term of Republican rule.

As Brooks should know, fool me once - shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.

The hee-larious world of Barack Obama

All the news chatter seems to be about how humorless Obama is. After all, he didn't like the New York Times cover depicting him as a terrorist! What a wuss. So, just to look at two responses:

The Economist: "...he really should lighten up a bit. Otherwise he's deprived himself of an effective way to deflect minor annoyances."

The NYT: When Mr. Stewart on “The Daily Show” recently tried to joke about Mr. Obama changing his position on campaign financing, for instance, he met with such obvious resistance from the audience, he said, “You know, you’re allowed to laugh at him.” Mr. Stewart said in a telephone interview on Monday, “People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them.”

Given the press and comedian take on the last few Democratic candidates, I'd say the audience reaction is appropriate. Remember Al Gore, who so foolishly claimed he "invented" the Internet?

Punch line aside, he actually didn't.

But he did something pretty damn close.

So it's no wonder that Democrats are tired of their candidates being mocked so the media can appear to be "fair." There's nothing fair about a C-student Yale legacy who doesn't know crap about the world being put on an even ridicule footing with a policy wonk. If it makes us appear humorless, so be it. I love a good joke, but the laughs in 2000 are still costing us a lot eight years on.

Suicide against the Achievatron

I just finished reading David Brooks' "On Paradise Drive," his lesser-known follow-up to "Bobos in Paradise," and was struck by his description of education in America:

There exists in this country a massive organic apparatus for the production of children, a mighty Achievatron. Nobody planned it. There is no central control deck. But all the anxious parents, child psychologists, teachers, tutors, coaches, counselors, therapists, family-centered activist groups, and social critics organically cohere into an omnipresent network of encouragement, improvement, advice, talent maximization, and capacity fulfillment.... Worse than being run through the assembly line is not being run through it.

Indeed.

The problem here is that while all those high-school counselors are urging you ever onward on the Achievatron, some students can't help noticing that they're not actually learning many things relevant to the real world. As Bill Gates, noted college drop-out, put it:

Using words such as "ashamed" and "appalled" to describe his reaction to the failure rates for students, Microsoft's co-founder called America's high schools broken, flawed and underfunded, and said the system itself is obsolete..... Gates said that he wants to emphasize the "three R's — rigor, relevance and relationships." By that, he means stronger curricula (rigor), better preparation for work and higher education (relevance), and a school structure where students have more support from teachers and counselors (relationships).

Now, as it happens, the most valuable workplace skill I could have learned in school was how to use Excel, a program Gates owns. But the single most common thing I heard from adults when I was in high school was that nothing I would learn in it would have anything to do with what I did for a living. I can't remember how many times adults told me they had totally forgotten calculus or trigonometry because they never once used it in "real life." Nor how many times I was reminded on TV, in movies and in English class that most successful people are morons, assholes and incompetent (it's called the Peter Principle).

Kids can sense the disconnect, and the perceptive but not wise ones will want to rebel. If you could go back in time and ask the 16-year-old me why he refused to turn in his math homework, even though he had already done 90 percent of it and even though he was failing math, that me would not be able to explain coherently the madness of pretending to learn what authority figures were pretending was relevent, so one could obtain a soulless job that people would pretend was success. But I would have felt it, keenly.

In fact, I cheated the Achievatron. Every lazy student will claim his or her true genius will allow for great test scores, negating bad grades, though it rarely works out that way. It worked that way for me, though, and I used those scores to get into a decent liberal arts college, where I spent more energy on my relationship with my girlfriend than I did on classes or internships. Yet I landed a newspaper job within three months of graduation. Had I continued in my field and applied myself to real reporting, I could have gone far, in true American fashion.

For a long time now, people have criticized schools for reacting to rebellious students by medicating them rather than listening to them. Having taught classes of high-schoolers often myself, I know how appealingly simple that solution sounds. And in order for any real reform to work, schools would have to radically change, more along the Nova model than back to the days when my parents were graded on their Latin.

If I hadn't had the opportunities that I did, though - if I hadn't happened to live within commuting distance to one of the most important and ground-breaking alternative schools in America, if I hadn't been given the chance to study at a welcoming but rigorous Quaker college, if I hadn't been interested in a foreign country like Korea that happens to be in desperate need of English speakers - reacting as I did to the Achievatron would have been suicide. I wonder how many students like myself are committing education suicide as I write this, just to spite the Achievatron's insistence that we all don our tassel loafers to walk down the golf fairway of success.

America's insistence that all students can achieve success if they work hard, learn a diverse array of skills, focus on their future and play by the rules is wonderful. Its cognitive dissonance on the value of what we learn and why, though, is terrifying. Without real change in how and what we teach in schools, the temptation to leap off the Achievatron, giving our teachers and school counselors the middle finger as we plunge gleefully into failure, will keep buzzing around in the heads of perceptive but naive kids.

The art of dry-erase

I started drawing on white boards a couple years ago, when I took a summer job teaching test-prep for the Princeton Review in Korea. During the practice tests, I had four hours of nothing to do but watch kids fill in bubbles, so I picked up a dry-erase marker and started drawing stuff on the board. Did it distract the students? Hell yeah.

Did I care? Hell no.

As time went on, I experimented more techniques, such as rubbing, printing, smearing and blending the marker ink. One of these days, I'll buy myself a dry erase board just so I can see how far I can take this, though part of the joy has been the mandala-like ephemeral quality to the process: in the end, it always gets erased.

The above piece is not really something to show off, as it didn't require a lot of technique and was my first attempt in a long, long while. As I do more, I'll put them up on the web.

That New Yorker cover...

People are screaming about the New Yorker cover - you know, the one with Muslim Barack and Black-Power Michelle Obama doing the "terrorist fist jab" while an American flag burns in the Oval Office fireplace (does the Oval Office even have a fireplace?).

(image taken from the Economist's Democracy in America blog)

Apparently, the thinking is that while liberals are smart enough to get the joke, non-New Yorker readers will not recognize parody, and the right-wing will use it as an excuse to continue calling Obama a muslim-terrorist-black-power-Usama-loving-freak.

Let them.

Limbaugh himself consistently makes shit up to throw at liberals, which is an effective tactic used since the days of A. Mitchell Palmer. The problem with liberals is that they take this shit seriously rather than staying focused on the Game Plan.

When Grant first tangled with Lee in the Battle of the Wilderness, aides kept running up to him, shouting that "Bobby Lee's" doing this or doing that. Grant finally got sick of it and shouted for them to stop thinking about what Bobby Lee was doing to them and to start thinking about what they were going to do to Bobby Lee.

Let's stop thinking about what talk-radio is doing to America and start thinking about what America can do to talk radio.