Month: March 2010

Caveat: Becoming a better teacher

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Teaching & Methodology

I read a long book review of a book by Doug Lemov entitled Teach Like a Champion, in the New York Times.   While the apparent reported premise of the book – that good teachers can be "made" as opposed to it being something that is innate – resonated with me deeply, I came away from the review feeling a bit annoyed with the both the reviewer and the book's author.

That's because instead of coming out and explaining the details of Lemov's thinking about how one becomes a better teacher, or how one can be taught to be a better teacher, the review only serves to "tease" the content of the book.  The reviewer is obviously a Lemov "fan," and she's just cheerleading without really contributing to an intelligent discourse about teacher education.  Basically, the message of the review is:  buy this book, and you'll get the secret to becoming a better teacher.  

Knowledge like that shouldn't be proprietary.  But setting aside philosophical/ethical quibbles, I also suspect that knowledge of that sort can't be proprietary – by which I mean that it's not going to help improve education as long as it remains proprietary, when looked at from a cultural practices / knowledge systems angle.  Where good educators come from and how they're made, if they can be made, is not the sort of information you can or should hide behind a "for only $16.77!" barrier (current price on Amazon).  Lemov (and possibly the reviewer) may wish to revolutionize education in America, but I doubt they'll make much progress until they lose the mercenary attitude.  Is that too idealistic of me?

I have had consistently bad experiences with knowledge that hides behind "buy this book" barriers – I'm thinking mostly of the infinite number of self-help manuals that circulate in the world, but my experience with Rosetta Stone language-learning software is also a recent, and expensive, example.  I have begun to develop the belief that "good" knowledge (by which I mean truly revolutionary and/or useful knowledge) must, by definition, be "open source" in some sense of the term.  

So getting back to the idea that good teachers can be made, instead of found, I guess my thinking is that I agree, and I think the idea could be revolutionary for teacher training, but for now I'll continue looking at my own insights, and keep searching blogs and other online content, and keep reading less promotion-reliant tomes.

Caveat: ∃@*$

Banalities & Journaling

I carry around my little black book, which is kind of like a private version of my blog, combined with a place to write down names, or addresses, or vocabulary, or other things I want to remember. In my black book for the other day, I found written: “∃@*$”

I have a long history of inventing weird ways to symbolize and abbreviate things. I can go back and find pages of utterly incoherent codes and abbreviations in my old college notes, for example. But I figured out what the above meant: “I am at starbucks.”

The first symbol is probably the obscurest – it’s what’s called the “existential quantifier,” and is used in mathematical logic, higher-order mathematical proofs, and some types of formal semantics. So that symbol means “I am.” Really, I mean it in the locative as opposed to existential sense, though, which isn’t really right. But the “@” makes it clear that’s what I mean.

The asterisk is fairly clear: it’s a “star,” in computer-people-slang. And the dollar sign means “bucks” of course.

What was I writing about being in Starbucks? I was being weirded out about hearing Joan Baez on the soundtrack (all Starbucks play the same music – no concessions to locale on that playing field) while sitting in Korea. Why was I sitting in a Starbucks? Call it an indulgent and somewhat embarrassing habit.
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Caveat: 시티홀

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

I’ve been watching a drama called 시티홀 (The City Hall, from 2009 – although the hangeul could more justifiably be said to represent the English phrase “shitty hole,” from a pronunciation standpoint, which I think is kind of funny, although not really relevant).

Actually, I like this drama – it addresses South Korean politics, which, at least up until now in my personal experience of Korean dramas was an off-limits topic. And as a parody/commentary, it’s got some strengths. I’d say that in some ways, it seems a little darker, and more cleverly self-referential, than the others I’ve been looking at recently. I definitely recommend it, if you want an entertaining and fairly light look at the rampant cronyism and corruption that seems to prevail in South Korean politics.
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Caveat: Ephemera

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Life is a Dream / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #2 on new numbering scheme)

Ephemera

There were many faces in the corridors.
I had given my seat to an old woman, on the bus, and so I stood the whole way. It’s odd, but there’s no discomfort in standing that way – voluntarily. Swaying.
In the faces, then, I saw the resolve of each person, to live each person’s life. All separately.
On the sidewalk, there was a discarded cigarette, still burning.
I felt despair. These feelings come and go.
Like this, the sun strikes out across the sky in the morning.
I saw it glittering off the side of a glass building. A weird angle.
I felt resolute. These feelings, too, come and go.

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Caveat: (re-)making history

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

Korea has a lot of history. And contemporary Korea loves exploring, studying and re-enacting their history. Just take a look at the sorts of dramas popular on TV, for example – there’re always several historical dramas running. Those aren’t the sort I enjoy, mostly because the language is stilted and harder to understand (which makes sense, since they’re trying to capture the more formal Korean of centuries past). Also, I don’t always think those sorts of dramas are particularly faithful to the historical “facts.” But anyway…

Yesterday I went with some of my Suwon friends to see some re-enactors at the Hwaseong palace. These were guys with swords and pikes and other things, doing martial arts displays of various kinds. Half choreography, half hapkido / geondo (= japanese kendo), etc. Here are some pictures.

In the first two, the guy was using a big pikelike-thing to hack up some bundles of straw. The last picture is me with some re-enactors, along with two kids I’ve gotten to know, who are the Chinese tea-maker’s children: a brother and sister named Dong-jun and Dong-hui (it’s very common for siblings to share a syllable that way, in their name).

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Caveat: 다시 차를 마셨어요.

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I went with Mr Choi again to meet his tea-making friend, and provide some informal English practice to him and his acquaintances and various children, too.  And then we went out for “Chinese.”  Going out for Chinese food in Korea is a bit like going out to Chinese in the U.S., in the sense that what you end up eating isn’t actually Chinese cuisine, but rather an American interpretation of Chinese cuisine.  So it’s basically a special type of Korean food, that they conventionally call “Chinese.”
It was interesting, and maybe helped to keep my mind off my frustrations with learning, at least while it was happening.  Afterward, of course, I could nothing but meditate on how ineffective and stupid my various efforts at using the language were.
It’s obvious I’m feeling very frustrated, lately.  This is, from a language-learning standpoint, entirely to-be-expected.  But knowing that it’s part of the process doesn’t make it any more pleasant.  And my feelings of discouragement tend to rebound against other aspects of my life:  feeling like I should be trying harder to find a job; feeling like I should be working on other things, like my writing; feeling lonely.
Of course, there’s the approaching solstice.  I always feel like I have some weird seasonal-affective thing going on, around solstices.  My mood starts to seem very volatile and shifts around.  Not sure what that means, either.

Caveat: Pop Architecture

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

Modern Korean pop architecture is fun to look at sometimes. I think any country where there is a strong capitalist, advertising-driven culture, you will find architecture that is kitschy, often tasteless, over-the-top, etc. Some of the more interesting buildings tend to be the ubiquitous “wedding halls” as well as churches. Here are some pictures I’ve taken recently.

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Caveat: 전 오늘 절망한 기분이에요.

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I’m feeling very discouraged.  I can’t seem to understand anything my new teacher says.  Partly, it’s my “level-up” that I’ve just done, skipping a level.  Mostly, though, it’s because she’s got a different teaching style that I simply haven’t figured out yet – I can understand whatever grammar point / vocabulary we’re covering at any given moment fairly well, but I find her “meta-instruction” (i.e. what she expects us to be doing, her instructions to us, her explanations) incoherent.  I’m just not used to it, maybe.
Anway.  Sigh.

Caveat: Parachute

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I was recently exposed to the term "낙하산 인사" (nak-ha-san in-sa) in one of the dramas I've been watching.  Literally it means "parachute personnel managment," roughly, but it refers to the way that Korean business and government organizations will "drop" someone into a given department or branch office from "above" (somewhere up the hierarchy) for either political or nepotistic reasons.

Anyway, I used the word "낙하산" (parachute) yesterday in class, to describe my situation.  The teacher laughed, so I must have used the word more-or-less appropriately.  What situation?  Well, I moved up a level in my Korean Language class, but found out yesterday that, because I was the only one enrolled at that level, that my class was cancelled for the term.  My instant solution?  I asked the hagwon manager (in English – my Korean's hardly that good, yet) if I could just jump up to the next level.  I'd have to work hard, obviously.  But she said, sure, give it a try – she hardly wants to lose a paying customer, right?

Actually, this may be a great development.  It will push me extra hard in my learning efforts, because now I have 16 chapters worth of grammar and vocab that I need to "catch up" on.  It will push me hard, preventing me from taking this "full-time-student" thing in too leisurely a way.

I have an ambition to put together a special web page that will be an index of Korean "endings."  I may have mentioned or undertaken this before, but without much success.   One of the difficulties with Korean is that given its highly agglutinative (this is the formal linguistic term) nature, it has a plethora of endings, for nouns and especially for verbs.  I even found a verb ending in my reference grammar that allegedly exists for the sole purpose of talking to oneself!  [-{ㄴ/는}담 … I have no idea how widely used this is, but the fact it's mentioned in a reference grammar highlights some of the fascinating aspects of the language.]

The problem, of course, is that it's hard to look up endings.  The online and cellphone based dictionaries I use are useless for this task.  If I put all the endings into a document or webpage, and ensure that it's consistently formatted and laid out, it will be easily searchable through the use of the simple "find" function, and I can look up endings.  And the fact of making it might help me remember things better, too.

The drawback is that, in fact, endings are not my particular area of difficulty.  I know far more, already, than I "should" given my level, at least from a recognition standpoint.  Grammar, in general, has always come easily for me.  My weakness is vocabulary.  So maybe this "endings" project is just my special way of procrastinating on what is, for me, the painful part.

Caveat: Awoke at 2 AM

Life is a Dream / My Poetry & Fiction

I dreamed 3 things.
The first thing: I dreamed a language.
I was holding a language, that writhed in my arms like a weeping child.
Or like a laughing child.
It was a rough and restless language.
I was holding a language.
The second thing: I dreamed an emptiness.
I was holding an emptiness, that stretched out around me like an enveloping forest.
But it was shapeless, quiet, cool.
A smooth, safe emptiness.
More safe than feelings, more safe than optimism.
I was holding an emptiness.
These were evaporating abstractions, but I held them close to me, like two musical instruments, ready to play.
The third thing: I dreamed a smile.
I was holding a smile, that was like a cat’s face in the sunshine.
Or like a painting of the stormy sky at sunset, more stunning than reality.
Or like a mask that reveals everything.
But it was a kind and guileless smile.
I was holding your beautiful smile, in memory.
I awoke at 2 am, from sleeping on a warm floor.

[UPDATE: I re-published this poem as one of my daily poems on June 20, 2021.]
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Caveat: 89

Banalities & Journaling / Language & Linguistics / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Because I’m continuing at my Korean Language hagwon, I took an end-of-level test today. There were listening, speaking, and grammar/reading sections. My overall score was 89.

That’s not bad, I guess. I was surprised that my lowest score was on the grammar/reading part, since that’s really my strength, but I had made some careless mistakes, on the one hand, while on the listening section, which was the hardest, the teacher gave all the dialogs and questions twice, which may have been stretching the intent of the test, a bit, making it easier, so that my score on that part was 94.

What else can I do to get more out of my language study? I need to spend more time reviewing and memorizing vocabulary. I have some excellent tools that I’m not making much use of, for example that Rosetta Stone software, as well as the spreadsheets I’m maintaining with list of words I’ve looked up. I could stand to spend more time with each of those.

I had a weird conversation with a short-term guest at my guesthouse, the other night. He was Australian. I told him I was studying Korean, and his comment kind of sums up some preconceptions and prejudices that exist out there, with respect to my endeavor. He said (roughly), “Wow, I never met someone studying Korean before who didn’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend helping them.” I just laughed. I had no comeback, at the moment, but I thought later, I should have said, “Yeh, I guess so. I’m in love with the language, directly, instead. It’s a frustrating relationship.”

I have so far to go. Will I become tired of it, at some point? Will I become disillusioned, over time, as the difficulty of this “relationship” emerges in all its permutations and complexities? I have been infatuated with the Korean Language since we did a unit on Korean in my undergrad syntax class at the University of Minnesota in 1988. But I didn’t really pursue that infatuation, for a very long time. Then, a little over 3 years ago, as I was shopping around for “what to do next with my life,” once I’d decided to quit the computer thing, I decided: “Find your passion, and chase it down.”

Then, over the following two years, I became side-tracked by the sheer volume of work related to teaching (or trying to teach) English to kids. And that was VERY rewarding. No denying that. It taught me new things about myself, and gave me new tools to cope with life’s challenges. But I didn’t pursue this passion, this linguistic avocation, very aggressively. I dropped the ball. Now, I’m trying to pick it up again.

When I was really trying to learn Spanish, first starting out, in 1986, living and working in Mexico City, I remember many times thinking, “wow, this is exhausting!” Learning Spanish, trying to become essentially fluent, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Harder than basic training in the Army. Harder than grad school (although that was, in fact, part of learning Spanish, too, at a much more advanced level). Maybe even harder than that messy fall of 1998, when things fell apart with Michelle and I had to make the difficult decision that existing in the world was worthwhile.

And now, I’m trying again. I will learn Korean. Because if I succeed, it will be such a magical, amazing accomplishment. Unconventional, and, in the greater, grander scheme of things, pointless… yet, for all that, utterly worth doing.

There, I’ve laid my cards on the table. I always feel uncomfortable declaring goals, for fear that when/if I fail to achieve them, I have to then bear the secondary humiliation of everyone knowing that I’ve failed. But… by declaring my goals, I am also giving myself extra motivation, extra impetus.

So, friends… hold me to it. If I stumble, or pause, or fall down, or wander off in frustration or distraction, please gently remind me: “Jared, what about your goal? How are you doing with the Korean?”
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Caveat: Have you ever peed in a soccer ball?

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

I know that’s a strange title to a blog post, but I couldn’t resist.   I was taking a long walk the other day, and saw Suwon’s “World Cup Stadium” out on the east side of town.   There’s a park around the stadium, and in the park, there are soccer-ball-themed public restrooms.  I just had to make use of the facilities, just to be able to say I’d done it.

Here are pictures – you can see the boy-girl icon on the giant soccer ball, that tells you there are public restrooms inside.
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Here’s a view of the stadium from a pedestrian overpass.
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Below is a picture of the northeast gate of the Suwon city walls – where they’ve punched a hole under the wall for (or reconstructed it over) a major street.

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