I haven't seen you before, but you are my friend.

Do you really need online friends?

             The advent of Social Networking Service (SNS), represented by Facebook, has changed the world so much that the figure of the society without SNS is even impossible to imagine. Social Networking Service is an internet-based communicating space where users can make their offline relationships online. The impact of SNS on modern society is incalculable. You can know every day life of a person who lives in the opposite side of the Earth, share photos of you and your friends, and conduct political activities in order to fulfill one’s political goal by just surfing through SNS websites. Police officers are using Facebook as a tool to put a guard on potential criminals, trace evidence, and inform public about certain crimes such as kidnapping, terrorist attacks and burglary. Yet, the most important role of SNS is to connect people online. 600million Facebook users can find their friends on Facebook and add them as their friends. Since Facebook provides its users with friend connecting technology which uses a person’s individual information to identify his or her friend, you can find your friends by simply putting some of your personal information, such as your occupation, age, sex, and your personal interests.

             Even though the friend relationship on Facebook is based on offline relationship, you can make an online friend relationship with a person about whom you don’t know anything. While surfing in Facebook, you might have a chance to add a person who you think is interesting or fascinating as you friend by just looking at his or her profile picture and reading personal information. Making such relationship can be an entertaining thing to do, but it may end up so awkward that you might think that it would have been better not doing so. Your friend in Facebook may not be a person who you think to be, because, what you see about him is what he intends others to look at him, and that’s something you do, too.

In the movie, The Catfish, the protagonist, Nev Schulman, becomes a friend with an 8-year-old girl named Abby Pierce, who is incredibly good at drawing. The relationship started when a parcel of the picture of one of Nev’s photo arrived in Nev’s office. Nev and Abby became Facebook friends and the friendship has broadened to Abby’s family. As time goes by, Nev became so friendly with Abby’s family that he felt that Abby’s sister Megan fell in love with him. However, Nev and his brother Ariel, and his friend Jooke found out that something was strange about Abby’s family. The song that Abby send him, which she said she has recorded, was actually an MP3 file of a Youtube video, and Abby’s family has never allowed him to talk to Abby on the phone, saying that Abby is sick, or is playing with her friend. In order to reveal the truth, the three guys went to Abby’s home. Surprisingly, there was a family in which there were a father, a mother, who looked far different from her profile photo on Facebook, and two handicapped sons, who have never appeared on Facebook, and Abby was not even good at drawing something. This happening was a very intricate and weird plan of Angela, the mother of Abby, who loved drawing and wanted to make friends with others. She made several Facebook accounts in order to compose a family and used others’ photos to replace her own, somewhat, bad appearance. 

You might think that the situation happened in the movie may be a super exceptional one. I understand that you might find it so difficult to accept the reality, but reality is reality that you can’t stop from encountering it by just trying to not admit it. At first, I also thought that the movie is depicting a very rare situation; however, it wasn’t that rare. One day, one of my friends contacted me by MSN, and told me that she is worried about her younger brother. What she told me was that she thinks that her brother has a fake Facebook account and made friend with some foreigners whom he has never met. As you can see, people are faking their identity in online spaces and pretending to be more handsome, cool and attractive. The reason of doing so is simple; they are not satisfied by themselves. Because they find themselves inferior to people who they admire, such as famous celebrities, athletes, or movie stars, they want to be like them at least on the internet.

The wave of social networking service became something modern people can’t avoid. You might not be able to live a life without Facebook account near in the future. The pivot of economy, culture, and politics would shift from offline places to online websites. Your personal relationships will be stored in Facebook, and you might have to keep in touch with your friends regularly, for you might not be able to meet them face by face. You might feel happy by making friends online, for you feel that you come to know more and more people. However, there’s one thing that you should never forget. Keep in mind that your real friend is not your friends in the internet, but friends who you are with now.

CR#5-Don't Insist on English

     6.8 trillion won. This is neither the amount of money a developed industry makes every year, nor the money a local government spends annually. It's the amount of money that Korean people spend in private English education. Koreans spend more than a third of total expenditure on private education in English education, yet they spend only a sixth in Korean Education. 

     11% vs 20.5%. These are the statistics showing the ratio of outstanding Korean middle school 3rd grade students in Korean and  English ability. The result is simple. The number of outstanding students of English subject is twice more than that of Korean. Korean students are not as good in Korean as in English. 

     It is strange and inconceivable that Korean students are not good in using their own language than in using English. Koreans should use Korean better than any other people in other countries since Korean is their mother tongue; They have learned Korean since they were born and they use Korean in their everyday life. How can this situation happen in Korea?

     By thinking a lot about this issue, I found out that there is a logical explanation. The reason why English is predominant over Korean is because Korean people are so much obsessed with English. Korean people think that people who can speak English fluently is fascinating and great, and they want their children to be someone like them. In fact, people who can speak English better than others have been succeeding in most of the fields of our society causing others to envy them their success. By looking at their brilliant success, Koreans were more likely to have the idea that English education is more urgent than Korean education, which, they thought, cannot bring success, and it caused this kind of obsession of Koreans towards English. 

     As a student of KMLA, I felt the same before that having ability to convey one's thought in English fluently and fashionably is one of the best and most profitable ability a student can have. Looking at seniors who made   speeches in the election for student council, and looking at my friends in EDS(English Debate Society), I felt inferior to them, and sometimes criticized myself of not being able to speak English as fluently as them. However, I had found out that ability of foreign language usage should not be a barricade or an obstacle prohibiting people from working or studying. 

     The ability of foreign language usage, especially the usage of English, is emphasized because society requires people who can speak diverse languages, but is it really true? It is obvious that leaders of the society are not good in English compared to the natives, but still they can communicate with the leaders from other nations because they can find people who can interpret their thoughts in certain languages. In addition, preeminent scientists are not good in English, yet they are admired by others of showing outstanding achievement. For them, their ability of  English no longer a matters. Whether they can or cannot speak English fluently doesn't matter and can't determine their success. It is not true that society requires people with diverse language abilities, since it is possible to find people who can help them convey their ideas and intention in foreign languages. What a society needs is not a person who can speak English fluently but a person who be a real professional in any fields and can achieve certain goals or success in his or her field. One's ability of using foreign language should not be an obstacle to one's success, and if so, it will be less likely for society to gain advance. 

     In addition, insisting on English might cause serious harm to the society. As I mentioned in the beginning of the writing, Koreans are not good in Korean because they've only focused on educating their child English rather than Korean. What would happen if Koreans lose the ability to use Korean? Before answering to this question, let's talk about the importance of a language. Language used in a culture shows the ideology the culture is founded upon. Language reflects the thought of people using it. For example, the ideology of community spirit is shown in Korean as a form of frequent usage of pronouns such as "us", "our". We call Korea as "our nation", not as "my nation", also we call parents as "our parents", not as "my parents". If Koreans lose the ability to use Korean, they will also lose the core of our culture. In that case, it is obvious that Koreans will lose their roots, the origin they came from, and people without origin are less likely to bear the hardship they'll face in the future. 

     I won't deny the fact that English is the Lingua Franca now. It is almost possible for people to communicate in English with others from any other countries. In this situation, it is an undeniable fact that English ability is beneficial. However, we should speak out the fact that English must not be used to judge individuals' ability. As King Sejong wrote in the preface of 훈민정음, which is a book about the invention of Korean, a language is a tool for people to communicate with each other. It is acceptable to teach English as a tool to communicate with foreigners but we should not say to students that you're incapable because you are not good in English. Regarding the basic principal of language, we can figure out that English itself can never be and should not be a goal of study and a hindrance to one's success.

30 Days TV program

30 days

Main Concept:  Lazy father in the house with children

  

     Some fathers in the society simply don't care about their wives' life. They don't know that their wives are doing all the housework and baby caring which are at least as burdensome as their work. Fathers don't think that housework is as difficult as normal jobs since they've never been through all the work. It may be acceptable to understand resting after work in weekdays, but the attitude of sleeping all day long or watching TV in the bed is so unacceptable. 

     I think that it is because of the lack of experience and understanding about mother's life. So I suggest a 30-day program to make fathers understand what mother's life is. In order to make it possible for fathers to know how hard the work can be in extreme, we assume a situation that a lazy man is in a family in which there are 5 kids under age of 10. There, he will go through diverse situations form crying baby, fighting kids and messes made by kids to going to school to say sorry for his child's mistake, not sleeping a whole night to make their kids sleep. Additionally, we put certain condition on the program; if the father doesn't try to clean up all the masses, and solve all the problems in the house, he cannot enjoy the free time given to him after all the kids are asleep. 

     

     After the end of the program, he will feel a lot from it. Basically, he will figure out how hard is the housework. He will find it really burdensome and may think that it might be even harder than his work. He might, in fact, feel that he should help his wife who would have been suffering from such an ordeal. By looking such changes, fathers in the society will reconsider how they should behave in their home, and might change in to a generous and helping father.

Don't you want to go to Harvard?

     If you are a Korean student, you can't avoid listening that you must go to Seoul National University in order to succeed in the society of Korea from your parents, teachers, relatives and even friends of your parents. For Koreans, Seoul National University is the only hope and if someone cannot go to SNU, every single person in the nation wii think that he or she will certainly ruin his or her life. But do you agree on that idea? Do you agree that if not Harvard, if not Oxford, if not SNU, there is no answer at all?


     "Education is a plan for 100 years-교육은 백년지대계" is one of the most famous quote of Korea, emphasizing the importance and significance of education of a nation. Education has a power that can change the whole nation from weak to strong and strong to weak. The Miracle of Han River, which is a term referring to the economic success of Korea, was possible because of the passion of Koreans on the education of their children. Parents of Korea did whatever they can do to afford money for their son's or daughter's education. It provided Korea lots and lots of skilled worker which we needed at the moment of economic development. But the situation has changed. The industrial revolution is 250 years ago and the idea from that era cannot be and should not be applied on current society. Today, we need people with creativity, leadership, persuasive speaking skills, know-how of collaboration and even bizarreness. However, although the need is high, current public education cannot properly teach students.


     Why can't the public education produce capable workers? Because it is not appropriate. Current public education cannot teach students the ability that the society really needs. Public education is teaching student that one should strive to find the most appropriate answer to score well on standardized tests and discuss questions aren't appropriate because it's kind of cheating. We obviously know that it shouldn't be the ultimate goal of education; the goal of an education should be to let student think the solution for a problem with creative thinking and constructive criticism. Given this kind of situation, we should change the education.
      
     The most important thing to change and the most essential change we should make is to provide students with as many chance as possible to let them have enough chance to do whatever they want to do whether they are good at it or not. We can't expect much from teaching mathematics to a student who doesn't like math. However, if we teach art to a student with interest and talent on art, he or she might become post-Picasso or even better. If one can do what one wants to do, it is obvious that he or she can have the greatest possibility to succeed in that field and show his or her full talent. By giving students those chances, society can fully utilize all the human resources and talents of the society which can definitely help increase the quality of life of a society which is the ultimate goal of our society.


     Some might argue that there is a limit to the society that it cannot provide proper education for all of the students in the society because it doesn't have enough money, time or other resources. But that certainly cannot be the reason why we shouldn't change. Even though today's change might be small that we send the message to society that Harvard is not the only place where geniuses come from, it can be followed by another change which will be followed by other changes. Isn't well begun half done?

Debate Motion

THBT government has the right to give physical pain during the examination of possible criminals.

 It is obviously clear that all the nations are facing difficulties when dealing a matter of crime. It is hard to catch criminals because there certainly is not enough evidence to imprison them. So, in order to solve this kind of problem, polices give pain to the criminals so that they confess what they have done. Some people argue that this kind of torturing is wrong because it is clear the the constitution bans torturing and police might convict an innocent person. Others assert that it is definitely clear that torturing can help society to catch criminals and do justice.

 I think that it is a very interesting topic for us to debate since all the nations are facing the danger of serious crimes such as terror, homicide or sexual assaults.

2nd assignment

Bulhwigippennamo which is the school newspaper of Korean Minjok Leadership Academy sometimes has to cut some of the articles out of the paper just because the teacher who allows them to publish in the school says the articles are inappropriate for student newspaper.  The content of those articles are usually about criticism toward school policy, and sometimes some articles showing the result of student survey record are cut out. This is a kind of censorship that Korean students face when trying to express their opinion toward the issue where authority of certain organization or person is directly related.

When it comes to a topic of censorship, some adults who support censorship argue that censorship is essential for government or other organization with authority because they have to control the ideas published on the media so that they can stabilize the society, and also if there’s no censorship, biased information could be exposed to the public which might deceive and harm the society. However such logic is definitely wrong.

I want to question on the fact that stability caused by censorship is really good. It may not be as good and desirable as public thinks so. In 1980s of Korea, there was censorship upon almost every media and art from newspaper, TV, music and even cartoons on TV. Every publication must be censored by the government before being released to people, and also they can be banned whenever the government wanted so. It is true that the society was very stable; but is it a desirable stability? No, it is not. That’s a way how the dictator commands society, It was the realization of the novel, 『1984』. Such censorship stabilized the society as the dictator wanted which shouldn’t be tolerated in order to achieve democratic world.

Also, the logic that information not verified by the authority can harm the society and deceive public is definitely not true. If you know the case of Wikileaks, you will soon figure out that why such logic is wrong. Wikileaks is an organization which publicizes certain confidential information related in the field of financial market, diplomacy, politics and even the national defense, and it caused sensation to the society that the information we thought to be true may be fake information strategically released to the public in order to achieve what the government wanted. Some people worried that it may cause too much horror to the society and might destroy the current system. They say that the reason why certain information was manipulated is to achieve bigger goals. However, government should not deceive its people because whatever situation it is in, the very first duty of the government is to let the people know what is happening and to help them decide what to do by providing information as much as possible. If they don’t we, the people of a nation, certainly have a right to fight against the authority.

I understand the idea of opposition that censorship should be allowed if there’s a plausible reason. However, we cannot decide how much will we allow it, and we cannot also be certain whether censorship would be properly done. I hope that all the people of the society know about the inappropriateness of censorship and strive their best to protect their right as human beings and a member of the society.

THB: all the censorship should be banned
THS: publication without interference of government
THB: freedom of speech shouldn't be invaded

Impressions on the video, "The Story of Stuff"

     Before watching the video, "The Story of Stuff", I had watched the same series of video, "The story of Bottled Water". At the moment I was watching that video, I was almost persuaded by the speech of Annie Leonard and the animation in the video. However, when watching "The Story of Stuff", I was a little dubious about the credibility of the show.
     Unlike normal debate broadcast, the video only showed one aspect of idea, which might cause a serious bias to its audiences. In the video, the mainstream of the idea is that consumption based economy of U.S is causing the waste of resources, exposure to malignant toxic, and pollution of the Earth. However, this is not true in some of the businesses. Some corporations produce eco-friendly products, products made without toxic or in an energy saving procedure. Without given this kind of information and  given only one side of idea, the audiences might lack of the ability to assume other sides of idea, and such could be too much inflammatory.
    I know that this video can provide us some creative ideas and new perspectives on the issue of current economy, but the video being used for education should be reconsidered seriously, for the video might cause many disadvantages. If an educator wants to use this video, I really want to recommend him to find another class material which shows the perspective of the other side so that students can think of what is right or wrong in unbiased situation.

These are 3 motions I suggest for Debate Class

1. THB educaters should ban the use of class materials that are not officially approved.
2. THB censorship can be justified when the goal of which is to educate students.
3. THS education about politically sensitive issues in school.

Debate Class

I'm definitely worried about the class, for I'm not a fluent speaker of English and also I haven't had a previous experience of English Debate... However, I hope I can speak English better and understand better about English Debate!!

Also, I want to be familiar with Mr. Garrioch, too.