{"id":1857,"date":"2012-01-15T16:13:58","date_gmt":"2012-01-15T16:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green-liberty.org\/circlesandsquares\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2012-01-15T16:13:58","modified_gmt":"2012-01-15T16:13:58","slug":"cartoons-and-education-in-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/2012\/01\/15\/cartoons-and-education-in-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Cartoons and Education in Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The question on our minds is: what is unique about Korean education? Well Barack Obama spoke of Korean education several times in his 2011 State of the Union Address, but I did not have the impression that he had any concrete sense of what is unique about Korean education.<\/p>\n

If you ask many Koreans, they will tell you that Korean education is a mess and many wish they could send their kids to the United States to escape from the land of forced memorization. But this story also doesn’t seem quite right. I meet many extremely well educated and thoughtful young people in Korea who are educated entirely in the Korean system. The level of education in the country as a whole is extremely high.<\/p>\n

So what is it about Korean education, at the primary level, that is outstanding? Well, I think that the supplementary materials are quite sophisticated. Of course there are the secondary materials to assist students in their studies. Such materials are quite well written and systematic. But even more significant are the new programs developed to introduce science to young people, some of which I think may be the best in the world. For example, the Hankook Institute of Life Science (\ud55c\uad6d\uc0dd\uba85\uacfc\ud559\uc5f0\uad6c\uc18c) runs a weekend program for youth to introduce the basics of biology and physiology that is both well planned, intellectually compelling and rigorous. The program is run on weekends and is not required for school.<\/p>\n

Then there are the comic books that my children enjoy reading so much. Unlike many vapid comic books circulated in the United States, there are Korean comics with considerable intellectual content that are popular in Korea. I would not say all comic books meet that standard, nor will I pretend to have conducted an extensive survey of Korean comic books, but let me draw attention to two comic books that stand out.<\/p>\n

First there is the comic book\u00a0“Math Bandit” (“Suhak Doduk” \uc218\ud559\ub3c4\ub451) which \u00a0teaches fundamental principles of mathematics in an engaging and entertaining manner. I have read through a few sections and I honestly believe the quality is high enough to warrant translation into English.<\/p>\n

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"Math Bandit" a remarkable comic book introducing mathematics in a fun manner for kids<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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“Tales Runner” (\ud14c\uc77c\uc988\ub7f0\ub108) is another popular comic book that is full of information for kids. The particular edition that I have selected has the title, “Let us try working for the United Nations.” Not only does “Tales Runner” present a positive image of working for the United Nations, it also includes within it extremely detailed descriptions of how the United Nations, and related global organizations, work. It is hard to imagine a mainstream American comic presenting such a positive image of working in foreign aid programs, let alone such detailed technical facts about the workings of any organization. These comic books are not required for any particular class, just fun reading for those interested.<\/p>\n

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The cover presents a very enticing vision of working for the United Nations and helping people<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Portrayal for kids of what is is like to be poor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Parachuting out of the sky to save the world<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Introduction to UNICEF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Very detailed descriptions of global organizations for 4th graders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question on our minds is: what is unique about Korean education? Well Barack Obama spoke of Korean education several times in his 2011 State of the Union Address, but I did not have the impression that he had any concrete sense of what is unique about Korean education. If you ask many Koreans, they … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9296425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[651,1342,68971,10990001],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-education","category-international-relations","category-today-in-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9296425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctpolitics.org\/circlesandsquares\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}