Courage, perseverance, and tenacity (Reading Journal #1)

Courage, perseverance, and tenacity 

111056 10b3 박정민

092511

Reading Journal #1

"A man of ability and the desire to accomplish something can do anything"- Donald Kircher

Whenever people said that they can accomplish anything if they try hard enough to do so, I told myself that they were making a false belief to relieve themselves. But, for now I feel that it was a mere justification for me because I was too lazy to try something with all my passion and effort. Nowadays, like all other high school students in my age, I realize it is necessary to set up a goal and keep going for that.

             What’s a goal? Getting into my dream college? Working somewhere that has a stable pay? No, I don’t think so. Goal, in my definition, is something that is not that much far in the future. It should be something that is probable for me to accomplish in near future. In that sense, Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption had a contrasting goal to me. It was interesting how he kept saying that he had a hope and he was going to get out of Shawshank though Red had never really responded positively. My weak self would have never thought of setting up a goal like escaping the prison by breaking the wall for 20 years.

             Yes, for 20 years. That is even longer than the time I have lived since I was born. Perhaps that’s why I do not sympathize with what Andy has done. I cannot even imagine how long 20 years would be; 16 years has been long enough for me to change my belief several times. It is almost unbelievable how a man could endure for 20 years and be the same for such a long time. While reading the story, I wondered whether Andy had planned all that at once or it just turned to work out that way. I personally would want to believe the latter, since it would mean there is a god like thingy that helps you if you really want to accomplish something. Maybe I am still too young to be strong enough to imagine myself trying with that much effort.

             Although I am a little far from being as passionate as Andy in doing my best for an accomplishment, I do have an experience that I succeeded by trying really hard. I am still not sure whether I did something that worth as much as to get the amount of reward I had earned, or was it just a mere luck? About a year and half ago from now, I was almost desperate for getting into KMLA, not because it was such a good high school that would be an easy path for me to attend a good college in the future but because it seemed to be least in following the Korean education system, which I abhorred. It felt like I was going into a hell, if I had to go to a normal Korean high school. At that time, I studied as hard as if it was the last choice for me. Regarding the effort I had put, I was successful in accomplishing that little, actually rather huge, goal in my life.

             Frankly, I am not really sure about what my next goal should be at this moment. One thing I am sure for now is that I had a good chance for thinking sincerely about my goal and how hard I need to try after reading the book “Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption.” To be a little bit more sincere, I would have to say personally did not like the book itself; it is part of the reason why I did not really write about it. Despite my preference of this story, it was meaningful in a way that I actually tried to self-criticize myself. I will always remember how I could succeed by running for my goal and to try to do the same for rest of my life!

Assignment #2

111056 10b3 박정민

2^nd Assignment

092311 (FRI)

Mr. Garrioch

Mr. Teacher, You Ain’t a Factory Worker, Are You

“Throw this away!” There are always some defective products produced in factories as the machines churn out the same things over and over. The “defectives”, which look different from the original design that the company has wanted, are thrown into the trashcans. This process seems to be logical in factory working system since no consumer would want a deformed product. The thing is that, exactly the same process is happening at schools. All they want is to manufacture the same products, called “students”, in order to forcefully put them into the industrialized society. There is no such thing as creativity. School kills creativity.

Asked for what they are mostly concerned about nowadays, most Korean students would answer without any sort of hesitation, “definitely the tests!” Students are obsessed with test scores, which they get based on how much information they have drilled into their heads. For taking the standardized tests at schools, no creativity is needed. It is all about who has done a better job in cramming every single detail from the textbooks. Even KMLA, advertising itself as the only high school in Korea where students can study for themselves while developing their own creativity, has this very standardized examination and scoring system. As Sir Ken Robinson has said in his lecture, many creative and brilliant people think they are not, because they are neither valued at school nor valued by the standardized examinations.

Not only the test undervalues creativity and originality of students, but so does the whole mood of classroom. There are two things you are not allowed to do in class time if you are a student. Most importantly, you cannot ask anything that needs to be elaborated further than what the textbook says, because the teacher does not know it either, and gets insulted by the question. Also, you can never raise your hand to answer the teacher’s questions and be wrong. The teacher would get very frustrated and start to embarrass you, supported by other students who would also want to get involved in fooling the “wrong” friend. After experiencing this, now you are not able to try out for an answer in class, afraid of being wrong. “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”- Sir Ken Robinson. Schools do not allow any creativity outside of information that they want to put.

As students, after the whole process of “cramming” information altogether into their heads, all they think of is how they can get into certain colleges and get a nice job that pays high monthly salary. For schools, public education is a way of standardizing students to certain types to fit into the society. For students, public education is a way of getting a stable job. Education itself is never valued. Though “educating” students in such a way limits their potentials, it has been like that since the beginning of public education. Because the original goal of public education was to make people fit into the industrialized society, they are still using the same strategy even now. The perception and ideology of getting into colleges and that being the final goal of education are ruining the possibility of students who could be much more innovative in the future.

Some could say, so what? Although more and more people have started to notice the problem, there is not really a clear way of creating the new education system. Standardization of test questions seems to be the fairest of all the methods. There are only few examples that show the system of developing students’ creativity, such as Finland’s. For now, no one knows what the most suitable program for students to both find their originality and learn classics at the same time is. There does not seem to be a definite answer for how the change should be done in order to replace the old one.

But, not having a definite answer does not mean having to stay the same. There are clear problems. Schools are killing creativity. The world in next 30 years would not be the same as the world in past 30 years. The next 30 years would not be the competition of having a degree and just cramming information in you head. “We must think anew and act anew.”-Lincoln. It is time to at least realize what’s problematic and start finding a new good method.

091611

“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, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.” This used to be one of the worst quotations I had ever seen in my life, at least I thought so. It was mostly because Mr. Spencer said this, and partly because I hated the word ‘rules’ used up there. “Following the rules” ties you to stay in the same position all the time.  Perhaps what I play now, one of the many games that are included in the big game called life, is the hardest one ever. I want change. And that is the game.

I am confused. I have always been confused about how the whole society works. Whenever I try to find out something that happens around the world, even just this small country, I feel the same thing over and over: this is not right. I used to abhor Korean government to such an extent to write about their brutality as the topic of my last term-paper for Mr. Johnson’s class. But, though I still think they are wrong, I changed my way of thinking a little bit. It is not just about the government and the president functioning in a wrong way, but the whole society.

I live in dorms. In this small dormitory society, everyone is overly interested in one another. Even for the least important things, they take care a lot, a bit too much. Students always spread rumors, and so do the parents of the students here. It’s their biggest pleasure of life. People are all the same. They think of themselves so much that they are always afraid of getting hurt from others. Spreading rumors is one of the ways to prevent from getting hurt; at least that’s what they do.

About four months ago, this May, I was literally “in love” with one of the seniors. It was more likely I worshipped him. Whatever he did looked so right, and I wanted to be like him. I still don’t know exactly why. And there was this friend of mine, whom I trusted all the time, called A. Of course A knew all about how much I admired that senior. I think she wanted to play around a little bit. She told the senior that I liked him and wanted to go out! This was never how I thought of him. He was more like a model figure of mine. Somehow, he got mad at A, and told her to stop, saying some bad words. A got extremely scared and started to lie. She kept telling him I forced her to say that to him and stuff. This was the saddest moment I have ever had, not because she was playing around, but because I realized I was not such a big deal for her. She could just sell my name whenever she wanted to, knowing I trusted her the most.

Others in the dorm were busy spreading this rumor all around. I was suddenly a “such-a-weirdo” in one short day. Though my relationship with that senior broke up, that was not a problem for me. The important part was I lost my friend, trustworthiness of her. Some could say this would not be a big deal for teenagers, but it really was, for me. The world I used to live in turned into a completely different one. Since then, I feel like I should not trust anyone in the world. And from this one little incident, I could understand why this world works this way, in a wrong way. There is this hidden rule in the society, the rule people never promised to follow, but was formed naturally.

People don’t trust each other. They just can’t do that. Although they try to look as if they do trust others, it is just a way to form good relationships. In the end, people go for themselves because they are afraid of “what if others betray them?” Thus they betray others first, not to get the bruise from being betrayed.

Game is not always something that you have to play. Sometimes it is just there, and it is just so huge that you can’t even try to be a player. But now I am trying out for the game. The game is to break the rules up there, like “subtle bruises”; it often seems like as if it’s okay, but it still hurts. Rule #1: Preventing something is always safe. Everyone’s life is as steady as a rocking horse.

This needs to be completely revised, but I can't really think of a good way to revise it...