44% College Dropout Rate-Journal #8

This journal is a response to the recent article on Korea Times that states that 44% of Korean students drop out of prestigious colleges.

1. What does Kim say is the most likely explanation for the high dropout rate among Koreans?

Kim states that the difference between American and Korean students is that American students divide their time equally to study and to do activities such as sports or music (extracurricular) while Koreans spend about 75% of their time studying.

2. How does the dropout rate among Koreans compare to the dropout rate among other groups?

While 44% percent of Korean students drop out of prestigious colleges, only 20% of Chinese and Indian students drop out, and 36% of Americans.

3. What are you currently doing to increase your own college readiness? Is there anything you think you should do before you graduate from high school to be better prepared for university?

Like Kim said, I think Korean students in general spend too much time studying. I’ve seen many students starting to learn SATs in eighth grade, which is very rare in the states. My goal is to divide my studies and activities so that when I attend college, I can participate actively in college life rather than stay isolated. Furthermore, another reason why so many Koreans drop out of college (according to my brother) is because most Koreans attend hogwons when they study in Korea; therefore, when it is finally time for them to study alone and scrutinize individually rather than someone telling them what to study, Korean students handle the independent studying. For almost their whole lives, they were taught in hogwons, so they were dependent on others. This is why I am trying to not resort to hogwon as much as I can. I try to study using the internet and textbook, because that is what we really do in college.

It’s Time for SATs-Journal #7

1. What role do the SATs play in your overall education? Considering discussing this exam in relationship to your class grades, extracurricular or athletic activities, relationships with teachers and letters of recommendation, college application essay, or other aspects of school life.

Most believe the SAT to be the key to college. Most Koreans that I know of, especially Daewon and Minjok High School, study the SATs from eighth grade. For four years, they spend their lives in hogwons, memorizing words and reading articles. As a result, most students receive a superb score. For example, the average SAT score in Minjok Foreign Language School is around 2300, a score that most people can’t imagine. Definitely, the SATs are a huge part of our high school, even middle school, lives. SATs are a method of measuring our reasoning skills and how well we can think. However, in recent years, it has become more and more preparation/mechanical tests that give stress to many students. It is effecting our grades, because we have to study for it, and even extracurricular activities. I think teachers do not really care about students’ SATs because they know that in the future, the scores are not that important in their lives. However, from a school’s and college’s perspective, SATs are very important to students because SAT is a big criterion that colleges consider.

2. What do you know about the SAT scandal that resulted in the cancellation of all scores from Korean test centers two winters ago?

Two years ago, a Korean hogwon leaked answers and tests to its students that created a huge turmoil to both students and ETS.  This resulted in cancellation of all scores from Korean test centers.

3. What impact would this have on Korean students?

It seems like the scandal two years ago is not the first time. Two summers ago, Hanyoung School lost its SAT certificate because ETS considered the school “cheating” and giving similar tests to students before the actual test. Clearly, whenever students take the SAT test from now, ETS will not consider Korean students trustworthy. Our credibility is very low and due to the scandal, we will probably be labeled as “cheaters.”

4. What are you most concerned about in regards to the next time you take the SAT (section scores, time to prepare adequately, frustrations with the structure of the exam, etc. ?)

I am always most worried about the structure of the exam more than anything. Every month, the SAT tests differ in difficulty. In May the test might be easy, and in June it might be very hard. Some student’s scores do not vary much; however, my score varies very much due to the difficulty level. I am also worried about what scores I will get (as all students will) because SATs will determine which college we will attend (although I know that it is not the only source of college acceptance, it does play a big role). Furthermore, if I don’t get a good score, I have to take the test again later, which really is frustrating.

Journal #6- Shooting an Elephant

H. What purpose does Orwell intend his narrative to serve?

This story was primarily about a British man in India and his feelings about living in a conquered territory. In a broader sense, Orwell touches upon the topic of imperialism and how he feels that imperialism is a wrong thing. While living in India or Burma (to be more specific), a British colony, the policeman feels out-of-place in the community. On a narrower sense, Orwell explains about a policeman who is alienated by the Indians. The people don’t like him because he is British (there is an anti-European sentiment), and they look at him in a disparaging way. Then the main conflict occurs when there is an elephant that threatens the community. The policeman has to decide whether to kill or save the elephant. The emphasis here is that Orwell explains about peer pressure, and how he is forced to kill the elephant even though he doesn’t wish to, because thousands of people want him to kill the elephant.

J. Orwell spends more time discussing the sociology of the event than about the setting in which it occurs. Explain why doing so is appropriate to his purpose.

The setting of the story is not really important. Even though a significant part of it is the historical content (that India was a British colony), setting does not play a big role. The beginning paragraphs explained enough about setting (about the British and the Indian colony and how the policeman is not welcome). The real emphasis is on the sociology of the community and the thoughts and feelings of the British policeman. The way he feels about killing the elephant, and how he is forced to shoot the elephant because of pressure from the people. The main theme of this short story was about imperialism and self-identity, not on setting. So the importance was more character-based, rather than setting-based. Orwell wanted to state that imperialism is not a good thing.

K. Why does the author spend so much time narrating the death of the elephant?

The death of the elephant is when the police officer feels the strongest guilt inside. From the beginning, he knows he shouldn’t have killed the elephant, but out of pressure and in order to not look like a fool to the two-thousand natives, the police officer kills the elephant. But Orwell does not let the elephant die right away. The elephant continues to live and brings great distaste to the police officer. As a representative of British tyranny and imperialism to Burma, the police officer almost loathes imperialism at this point. This is critical to Orwell’s main theme, and in order to emphasize this point about imperialism, Orwell spends a lot of time talking about its death.  In order to underscore the police officer’s distaste, Orwell creates his story so that the policeman leaves the scene, which shows that his emotions are unstable. The policeman also finds out later that the elephant died 30 minutes after he had left the scene. Overall, the death of the elephant is the crux of the story where the policeman (or Orwell) criticizes imperialism and himself for acting for Britain and to save his own face in the community.

 A. In what way is this essay a study in self-deception? Make specific reference to the text to explain your answer.

This story is a self-deception because the British policeman doesn’t really want to kill the elephant; however, thousands of native people want him to kill the elephant because they want revenge and compensation, and in the end the policeman is forced to kill the elephant. In a way, the policeman doesn’t want to become a loser or he does not want to let-down the hopes of the natives. In order to do so, he has to persuade himself that it is right to kill the elephant, even though deep inside him, he knows that it is wrong, because the elephant is peaceful, and he doesn’t have the owner’s permission and the elephant is peaceful. He states, “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” He, in part, knows that he is being deceived by the natives. He states, “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.”Finally, in the end he states that it was better that the “coolie” had died because he had justification for the killing of the elephant-but we also know that deep inside him, there is still unrest and uncertainty; therefore, the act of self-relieving is actually deception.

Journal #5-The New Face in Washington

This post is about an article on the current economic crisis in America (Wall Street) that is effecting the global economy as a whole. It was found on Newsweek(.com).-How Paulson Became the New Face of Capitalism

Recently, the whole world was shocked by the growing economic crisis in America. After Bear Sterns was sold to JP Morgan, Wall Street was in panic. Shortly after, JP Morgan would face its own problems, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be sold to the nation, Lehman Brothers would file bankruptcy,  Merrill Lynch would be sold to Bank of America, and the world’s biggest insurer, AIG, would receive $80billion of federal aid, and Washington Mutual is currently in deep trouble. These are, or were, world renowned investment banks and corporations that almost all people heard of at least once. These are corporations that survived the Great Depression, the 1980s economic crisis, and 9/11 attacks. But now, they have all been either sold or gone bankrupt. Especially the news that AIG, which is the world’s largest insurer, publicly stating that they needed $40 billion, shocked the whole world, and customers in Korea, Asia, Europe, and Americas were waiting outside AIG doors because they were worried that they would lose their money. American International Group, which has a headquarter in the heart of Manhattan (66-stories high), and three other (London, Paris, Hong Kong) sub-headquarters, is the world’s largest insurer with 116,000 employees and $1.05 trillion of assets. I realized how powerful these corporations were when the Korean economy rose and declined dramatically everyday after announcements of bankruptcies and federal aids.

What we also see everyday is the face of one man on TV. His name is Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, and current Secretary of Treasury. Despite his Republican background (Republicans are traditionally known for supporting individualism and free enterprise), Paulson recently changed the American capitalism. Giving out striking amounts of federal aid to companies such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Paulson has gone more active in economy. This has recently made him the most powerful man in D.C. Critics scoff at Paulson for being active and breaking the ideal of capitalism. However, I believe that at times like this, the government needs to step in and regulate the economy. Or else, America and the rest of the world will face a global depression. Today is different from the thirties. Back then, the stock market crash only effected Americans. However, American corporations and the economy have so much influence over the rest of the world today that one corporation such as AIG failing would lead to a global economic crisis. This isn’t just a matter of American tradition-this is a global issue and as a global leader, America should definitely do anything it can to solve crisis ASAP.

This is why Paulson recently announced a proposal for the biggest federal aid in American history. He asked congress to pour $700billion into the economic system to keep the money flowing. It hasn’t been decided yet, but major aftereffects will result whether or not the proposal is ratified. The whole world is watching America’s every move, and whether or not the bill gets ratified in Capitol Hill, it is inevitable the America will face one of its hardest times in history due to the recent failures.

Paulson has taken one of the most important jobs in US right now, and with that responsibility comes great power as well. Some analysts are even saying that because President Bush is not very sophisticated in field of economy, Paulson has become the new “king” of America, at least for few months, before the Bush administration leaves office.

Current Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson

Journal #4- This I Believe

1)From just reading the essay, I could guess many things. First, I guessed that he or she must be a person of at least some degree of age (about 50s or 60s) because the author is a Vice President of a company, and it is very rare for someone to become VP at young age. I also guessed that he must have lived in a diverse society because he is able to see Mr. Lee at any time in the neighborhood. His personality is most likely friendly/amicable because he says “hello” to every single person he meets. Although this statement might be an exaggerated inference, I kind of thought that the author was a man of some ambition because he makes a meeting with the founder of the company and asks directly what position he could become in his company. What I could not guess was the person’s gender and race, because anyone can be a VP and be social.

After listening to the author on NPR, I noticed some major differences between reading the essay in class and actually hearing him. First of all, he had an African-American dialect that made the article more personal to Howard White (because he is an African-American). I could associate the essay better after learning his race and gender. Additionally, his own beliefs were more emphasized in his article. He put an accent to words such as “I believe”, “every single person”, “smile” to strengthen his claims about the power of hello. My last thought about the difference between in-class and listening to Howard White is a mix of history and White’s voice. Because White is in his fifties, he has been through the Civil Rights movement (although at young age). He still knows the feeling of de jur and de facto segregation, and I think this was why he emphasized saying hello to EVERYONE. He states, “I believe every single person deserves to be acknowledged, however small or simple the greeting…I always used to say hello to the founder of the company and asked him how our business was doing. But I was also speking to the people in the cafe and the people that cleaned the buildings.” I could achieve this sense of emphasis on equality of people only by listening to White, because he is a person who does not care about a person’s race, gender, and type of job.

Howard White

2) An Optimistic View of the World– This article, by Dan Tani, was actually written and recorded onboard the International Space Station. Just reading the article was plain and ordinary, but after hearing the sounds of the loud machines in the background and the unclear transmission of Tani’s voice, I could clearly get the feeling that he was actually in space, wearing his spacesuit, and observing Earth. While looking down on Earth, a small blue, white, and green piece of ball, Tani states that Earth is a beautiful place. We need this optimism especially today, because every nation is facing some types of economic/ political problems. Korea is struggling economically and politically as the currency rate is unstable and people are losing faith in the president. America, the most stable  nation in the world, is boasting “change” due to poor leadership and failing economy and social unrest. Thailand is in a state of emergency due to  a rebellion. Russia was recently engaged in a war with Georgia. There is a war in the Middle East. We see cases of suicide bombings everyday on  CNN. Oil prices are constantly rising. In short, the world we live in is definitely not optimistic. However, the world as a whole, as Tani describes, is a beautiful/peaceful place.

Dan Tani in ISS

Black is Beautiful– Sufiya Abdur-Raham, the author of this article, is an African-American. Due to her race and complicated name, she lost opportunity to apply for jobs, and she was basically discriminated and overpowered by white-Americans with more common names such as Johnsons, Davids, Williams, etc. I liked this article because Abdur-Raham’s case relates to me and the presidential election in the United States. This article related to me because my Korean name, Keon-Woo Park, is actually harder to pronounce than Sufiya’s. When I first went to school in the United States, teachers could not pronounce my name, or they would pronounce it in an absurd way; so absurd that I could not even recognize that the teacher was actually calling on me. This is why I had to change my name to Kevin. Secondly, this article relates to the intense Presidential Election in America. One of the main reasons for why Barack Obama lost many votes is because he has a funny name, a name that threatens some Americans. His last name is Obama, which sounds very foreign (possibly Middle-Eastern) and threatening to Americans who still remember the 9/11 terror. More striking, Obama’s middle name is “Hussein,” which is exactly the same as that infamous Iraqi dictator’s name. However, I believe that minor issues such as a person’s name or race should not effect a candidate’s election. We should look at what the candidate is capable of-is he worthy enough to become president? does he have leardership and experience? These are the type of things that should guide us when we vote for a president, rather than names. Despite the fact that I believe McCain should become president, deciding a global leader by the candidate’s name seems petty to me.

Abdur-Rahman

Barack Obama is similar to Abdur-Rahman

Jon Stewart-Journal #2

Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?

From my point of view, comedy is a tool that relieves people of their daily stress and all the work and hard life. They had a whole day of news, controversial issues, and politics; therefore, when they come home, they need time to just laugh and relax without thinking about their complicated lives.

Often times, a comedy can mock an individual or group and create satire, because those are some of the things that make us laugh out loud. However, Jon Stewart has taken a step further. Unlike plain mocking/ridiculing/criticizing comedians like Steve Colbert, Jon Stewart actually tries to bring truth in to the news and controversial issues such as the elections. He does this very well because he doesn’t take any sides. He is neither a Democrat nor a Republican; he is neither pro-Obama nor pro-McCain. This ambivalence provides truth that many one-sided comedians and major news/ broadcast companies cannot bring to the general public. For instance, we see Fox endorsing the Republicans and openly criticizing the Democratic views. On the other side, NBC tends to be more Democratic. This bias is not what people of today want. This is what Jon Stewart and his Daily Show tries to solve; their purpose is not only to give laughter to the people, but also provide a sense of truth and objectivity in political, economical, and social issues around the world and in the United States.

It is this mixture of comedy and truth that viewers really enjoy. I think that Stewart calls himself a comedian because, as I have said before, comedians make people laugh, which is exactly what Stewart does. Jon Stewart’s main purpose of his daily shows is to relieve people from the “morning cup of sadness (the biased media).” In short, he wants to bring happiness to viewers. Happiness is his ultimate goal and motive, and in doing so, he has recently added some truth in politics that sparked more popularity among the people.

New Words: Indecision 2000, Straight Talk Express, “cherry-picking”, M*A*S*H, “Catch-22”, “morning cup of sadness”, “Mess O’Potamia”, “BADvertising”, Gitmo, Buster Keaton, Orwellian manipulations, “CNN’s Crossfire”, “It’s 3 A.M.”

*This video is one of many videos (Daily Show) of Jon Stewart on Comedy Central.

Life is Short-Journal #3

LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku-Sunday, July 15, 2007; Page D01

“Upon arriving at the gym after an hour’s drive, I find the first available steel-backed fold-up chair to park myself in for the next four hours. My daughter has already taken 400 milligrams of ibuprofen and 250 milligrams of acetaminophen in preparation for the pain she will feel after practice. The thought that it might be wrong for my 13-year-old to take painkillers to participate in a sport she loves stays with me. Most of us watching dream of the same thing: a shot at the Olympics or a college scholarship. Most of us will simply spend a small fortune on the sport of women’s gymnastics and wait for the day our daughters decide to do something else.”

-Pearl Keng

I clearly felt that this autobiography was the best one. This article portrays the pain and suffering that a gymnast and the parent (mother) has to go through. From the beginning to the end, the author uses a lot of details and numbers to give a sense of clear meaning. For example, she tells us that she sat at a “steel-backed fold-up chair” and also cites her daughter’s drug and amount of consumption. Her word choice was used to create a sense of pain in watching her daughter do gymnastics. Instead of using words ushc as “I waited” or “I watched” she use phrases like “park myself” to display a meanign of frustration and emphasize the extent of her waiting. From the exact and precise descriptions, we can get a picture of the pain and suffering that both the daughter and the mother has been going through. The feelings reflected modern-day paretns, because we see many of them worry about their children’s future and most of them have the sense of frustration like the author of this biography. Finally, she organized it in a way that kept the readers wanting to read more to find why the daughter has to eat painkillers, and what the daughter is doing to make her mother feel frustrated. The author does not tell that her daughter wants to be an Olympic gymnast from the first sentence; instead she starts out vague and ends with a clear statement about her feelings.

New Words: ibuprofen, acetaminophen

Pills that Keng's daughter takes everyday before doing gymnastics

Is Piracy Good or Bad? Journal #1

GM soybeans

Piracy can often be advantageous for its victims. Although it is illegal and morally wrong, piracy has shown to benefit firms in social, technological, and agricultural ways. For example, because of piracy, media companies have easier access to statistics. While losing money on selling tracks, firms have an idea of how to approach the people and make more profit. Furthermore, because of piracy, more people have access to a particular product such as the Microsoft software. This can provide a firm with benefit because they are essentially controlling more share of an industry and increase their popularity. Piracy can also benefit agriculturally. Brazil demonstrates this. In Brazil, many farmers illegally pirated GM soybeans. Currently, due to piracy, major percentage of soybean production comes from GM engineering system.

Peer-to-peer systems paved a way fro people to access and approach the media much easily. Before, many people were hesitant about whether a movie was good or bad; often times, they would not view the movie because of bad reviews or rumors. However, due to sharing, this concept has changed. Because it’s cheap and convenient, consumers feel at ease with approaching movies, games, and much more. In short, piracy created a revolution where mass media became more popular.

New Things: GM (genetically modified), Bathing Ape (Nigo)

Illustrated by Claudio Munoz

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