Review of ‘School punishment'

I gave the presentation about ban on school punishment in Korea.

I knew this topic is quite issue to ban corporal punishment or not but I didn’t’t know that Seoul office of education has set up new policy to ban corporal punishment, so I was surprised.

When I was a middle high school student, I suffered a bunch of corporal punishment for late, run away from unsupervised learning and homework. And during be beaten, I thought that it’s only a minute to patient then it will be passed and peace will come. Based on my experience, corporal punishment never works. Therefore, I agree to ban physical punishment.

But, I found the manual from Seoul office of education to guide teachers for alternative punishment instead of physical punishment. In my view as a student, looks the manual (campaign, give black marks, counsel with parents or etc.) also never works.

During searched the information for presentation, I saw the news to introduce good example highschcool (uijeongbu kwangdong highschool) which has good alternative punishment. Teacher gave student 108 bows for self-purification for punishment.

In interview, student said they can think about their fault and problem during 108 bows because it takes some minutes. I agree with him, and 108 bows for self-purification is a kind of Buddhist pray to reflect on self, so I think they can think about themselves too during 108 bows.

There are many way to guide with no corporal punishment, and we should do that because in my opinion, corporal punishment never works.

Review of ‘ODA’

Review of ‘ODA’

Review of ‘NEAT’

‘NEAT’ is National English Ability Test. It was first time to listen about NEAT in presentation. NEAT has four fields which is ‘reading’, ‘listening’, ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ but our now Korean English SAT has only two fields which is ‘reading’ and ‘listening’.

Because now Korean English SAT has only two fields, Korean English education focuses on mostly reading and barely listening. In my case, I also took an English class from elementary school to high school for 10 years. In that period, I used to learn 90% reading and 10% listening in a class. So, I am very weak at writing and speaking. And my parents had spent money to teach me to speak English well at private English academy. I am sure other parents too. Most parents spent a lot of money to private education market. If we have NEAT as SAT, the government tries to install the professional training for teachers and the public school will try to teach students all four fields, therefore most parents won’t to spend a lot of money to private education market. So I have a very positive opinion to set NEAT as SAT.

And NEAT is also can be an official English score instead of ‘TOEIC’ or ‘TOEFL’. Now on days, all job seekers have to have an English score for getting a job. Because of that, many 20’s and 30’s included university students take ‘TOEIC’ or ‘TOEFL’. But problem is that the test fee is not cheap. It’s about 40 dollars to take 2 parts of TOEIC, 110 dollars to take a full package TOEIC, and 170 dollars to take a TOEFL. It’s burden to students. Additionally all the money goes to U.S. It’s a foreign currency loss.

Maybe I will spend more time to study English and take the NEAT, but even that I am welcoming NEAT because I have a big expectation that my English skill will be better through take and study NEAT.

Review of ‘Working Holiday’

Working Holiday visa is quite familiar to me because I had been in Australia with working holiday visa. So, I was a working holiday maker from 2008 to 2009 for about 6 months.

Working Holiday is good to experience new environment, but probably it can be also bad because you don’t have enough background knowledge to live and supporter like family. But for me working holiday visa was pretty good opportunity to taste other countries with low living cost. However I want to say that the outcome of working holiday experience is depends on person.

In my case, I was pretty lucky. I went there without full-preparation to live. Even that, I met great homestay family and learn the English at very good language school. And I spent my effort too. I didn’t hang out with any Koreans and try to have every lunch with non-Koreans. So, I used to hang out with many Vietnamese and keep talk to homestay family. Additionally, during do part-time job I try to avoid get a job at Korean restaurant then I got a job at Thai restaurant. After waitress job, I worked at the farm to gather more money and when I stayed at the farm I still kept studying English with town librarian. To estimate my working holiday life by myself, I would like to say success.

I am also sure other Korean students will do good job with working holiday visa. In my view, usually Korean students have desire to be a good student. And I want to go New Zealand, UK, Canada or Ireland again even I miss proper time to get a good job.

Review of ‘Audition boom in Korea’

 Now on days, there is a bunch of audition programs and many people also love that. It is getting more popular and over million people apply to auditions. It looks very powerful in society.

However, I am not interested in audition programs. To be honest, I hate these programs. Based on strong points that fair competition, chance to success and easy to challenge, these programs get popularities but I think facts are not true. First, programs broadcast applicant’s privacy background story so, viewer get touched with stories then they can’t determine without emotions. It is not really fair. Second, it is easy to challenge but very difficult to win in over competition. In addition, most audition programs are focus on pop music which is too commercial. Talent is not only singing it could be painting, playing instrument, acting or etc. On my view broadcast stations do these programs for only money, and I didn’t pay my subscription fee to watch these selfish programs. I think they are also destroying children’s dream too. Children who watched these programs might change their dream and concentrate to practice for joining audition. Probably they spent much time and money to practice but they will recognize it is harder than they expected to win. After recognizing, they may feel empty and lose their dream too. It’s so pathetic.

 In conclusion, I wish this audition boom will be over soon. Firstly, these programs are not educational and lead over competition society. Over competition hurts too many people and effects many things badly. Actually, S.Korean society is already over competition to get a job and I am really sick of that as a job seeker!!!! Why do we need to be in over competition even in free time?

Review of ‘Mr.Ahn syndrome’

Mr.Ahn is a scholar and an entrepreneur, but in the past, he was a doctor, computer programmer and professor. As above, he has challenged many field and he is quite success in all field he has challenged. However, only political field is that he hasn’t challenged and refused offers. I guess he knows political field is not really ethical and quite difficult to deal. Even so, he declared that he is interested in running for mayor of Seoul in last month.

After his announcement, everyone included me are shocked and most people support his position. But just 5days after his announcement, he changed his mind to give up running for mayor of Seoul, and during these 5 days the stock price of his company went up high. This point is what I am curious to know. Because of his announcement, stock price went up high then someone got benefits, after that he changed his mind in just 5 days even he had refused political offers for many years. Who is someone? Who got benefits?

Anyway, I like and respect him because he is very challenging, punctual, ethical and inspiring person. He is most respect person of 20’s people as well. So I am completely welcome that if he will be a mayor of Seoul or president. Even somebody don’t like he is being a president because he doesn’t have any experience of political field, I am sure he will be good. Because he already challenged many field and he never gave up then success. Additionally in my opinion, company is also like a small country and he already mange his company very well. So following these reasons I can trust him to manage my country.

Review of 'Women driving in Saudi Arabia'

Yaqoub did a first presentation of our class. First of all, I want to say he did really good job.

He talked about Women driving in Saudi Arabia. I think the topic was important global issue what we are not really interested in because it is an unfamiliar topic for us. Actually 3 years ago when I had been in Australia, my Saudi Arabian friends told me about this problem, so I knew that women in Saudi Arabia can’t drive, but at that time my friends made me understand this problem with religious view. Since then, I have treated this problem as cultural differences or natural religious thing, not an issue we have to think and solve. However after Yaqoub’s presentation, I tried to think it in different ways.

Inside of this problem, there are many other matters such as religion, politics and people’s common sense. I mean it is not only problem about women rights, it could be political matters or religious matter. I found more details about Saudi Arabia on the internet and then, I realized Saudi Arabia has a biggest oil source of royal family’s own. I think royal family doesn’t want that people getting desire to have oil source. For that, royal family has to control the people and steal women rights is one of ways to control people. It is totally just my opinion.

In the earth, there are many different people, and we have to live together. Because human is social animal, therefore we can’t live alone. So we have to learn accept people who have different thoughts with us. In consequence, I don’t want to say we have to help women can drive or not. As I said before, that is not matter about only women rights and I have nothing to change Saudi Arabia. So, I just want to accept the way they live and their opinions without blames or supports. This is what I want to do for living all together.