Sunday, May 24, 2009
70-30
In September, I begin my B.Ed. program at the University of Toronto. In May of next year, I will be finished. Then I'll need to figure out what to do.
The options are stay in Ontario and try to get a placement in a high school, or come back to Korea and see what options there are at international schools. Of course, if I do come back to Korea, I could also put in time at a university, a language academy, or maybe even a Korean public school while I wait for a position at a place such as K.I.S. to open up.
Right now, I'm leaning 70-30 to coming back to Korea. The reasons are numerous, but among them are the fact that my family will be here, and Heather will hopefully have a secure job, something which eluded her in Canada. There are other less important factors such as climate and travel opportunities that favour coming back to Korea. I think, though, that during my return to Korea this summer I've realized that I'm happier here. I'm working at my old school, seeing many of the people I had gotten to know during my previous stint here, and I just feel much better about myself than I did back in Ontario. This really is a second home for me, but perhaps it should be my first home.
After reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, I came to the conclusion that it is no longer necessary for students to get their education in Western countries in order to achieve future success. This inter-connected world of ours permits the sharing of knowledge and employment opportunities that weren't possible before the Internet age. Kids who grow up studying in Korea, China, India, and in every other part of the globe can still access the level of education that Canadian and American kids have long accessed. Furthermore, the kids in the non-Western countries usually study harder and achieve more than their Western counterparts. And taken one step further, they usually learn multiple languages. So I'm actually starting to believe that my kids will be better off staying here in Korea.
About a week ago, I met a young man, an overseas Korean now living here. He grew up in England and Kenya, and he speaks four languages (English, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish). He told me that he sometimes feels like he has no real home in this world, no grounding in a particular culture. This is probably a common sentiment of students who grew up attending international schools in multiple countries, and at first glance it seems like a reasonable argument against the international school experience. Yet, I can't help but believe that these kids are best suited for the world of globalization. They don't necessarily see the world in nationalistic tones. They typically speak a variety of languages. And they make contacts with people from all over the world that ought to increase the chances of success when they finish with their formal education.
On a personal level, I have long felt a desire to travel the world and experience different cultures. I'll admit, however, that I'm more comfortable sticking close to Western values while living overseas. I'm stuck speaking English (although there is no better language to be stuck on), as I just find the study required to learn new languages too bothersome. But my girls are well on their way to being bilingual. I'd love for them to pick up Mandarin, maybe Japanese, as well as a European language or two.
Which brings me back to the question of the day: teach in Canada or overseas? Sure, there are good reasons to think about Canada (family and friends). But I'm thinking more and more with each passing day that I belong overseas. I love the energy of Korea, and I really like the fact that I'm in demand here. In Canada, I'm just another guy in a depression-hit country, competing with many people like myself. Not so here.
I might still change my mind a year from now, but for now I'm leaning toward returning to Korea.
The options are stay in Ontario and try to get a placement in a high school, or come back to Korea and see what options there are at international schools. Of course, if I do come back to Korea, I could also put in time at a university, a language academy, or maybe even a Korean public school while I wait for a position at a place such as K.I.S. to open up.
Right now, I'm leaning 70-30 to coming back to Korea. The reasons are numerous, but among them are the fact that my family will be here, and Heather will hopefully have a secure job, something which eluded her in Canada. There are other less important factors such as climate and travel opportunities that favour coming back to Korea. I think, though, that during my return to Korea this summer I've realized that I'm happier here. I'm working at my old school, seeing many of the people I had gotten to know during my previous stint here, and I just feel much better about myself than I did back in Ontario. This really is a second home for me, but perhaps it should be my first home.
After reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, I came to the conclusion that it is no longer necessary for students to get their education in Western countries in order to achieve future success. This inter-connected world of ours permits the sharing of knowledge and employment opportunities that weren't possible before the Internet age. Kids who grow up studying in Korea, China, India, and in every other part of the globe can still access the level of education that Canadian and American kids have long accessed. Furthermore, the kids in the non-Western countries usually study harder and achieve more than their Western counterparts. And taken one step further, they usually learn multiple languages. So I'm actually starting to believe that my kids will be better off staying here in Korea.
About a week ago, I met a young man, an overseas Korean now living here. He grew up in England and Kenya, and he speaks four languages (English, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish). He told me that he sometimes feels like he has no real home in this world, no grounding in a particular culture. This is probably a common sentiment of students who grew up attending international schools in multiple countries, and at first glance it seems like a reasonable argument against the international school experience. Yet, I can't help but believe that these kids are best suited for the world of globalization. They don't necessarily see the world in nationalistic tones. They typically speak a variety of languages. And they make contacts with people from all over the world that ought to increase the chances of success when they finish with their formal education.
On a personal level, I have long felt a desire to travel the world and experience different cultures. I'll admit, however, that I'm more comfortable sticking close to Western values while living overseas. I'm stuck speaking English (although there is no better language to be stuck on), as I just find the study required to learn new languages too bothersome. But my girls are well on their way to being bilingual. I'd love for them to pick up Mandarin, maybe Japanese, as well as a European language or two.
Which brings me back to the question of the day: teach in Canada or overseas? Sure, there are good reasons to think about Canada (family and friends). But I'm thinking more and more with each passing day that I belong overseas. I love the energy of Korea, and I really like the fact that I'm in demand here. In Canada, I'm just another guy in a depression-hit country, competing with many people like myself. Not so here.
I might still change my mind a year from now, but for now I'm leaning toward returning to Korea.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Connecting Dots - Part 2
Film school was a lot of fun, and I did well there. Considering I had had no previous experience with screenwriting, I can say I learned a lot. And when I completed the program, I did what anybody who is serious about a career in film needs to do: I volunteered. I helped co-produce a series of student films in the summer of '08. I provided script coverage for a production company in Vancouver. I tutored game design students who were developing storylines for their games. And I wrote a couple of short scripts, with hopes of getting them produced by directors I know.
But as our family financial resources dwindled, it became imperative that I make money. So I got a job teaching at a business college, and my interest in the film business took a backseat. Eventually, with the support of family, I decided to apply for teachers college. This September, I will attend OISE (University of Toronto) to get my teaching certificate.
And my screenwriting career seems to be fully stalled.
The truth be told, I'm not sure I have the requisite passion and discipline to be a professional screenwriter. Thus, I really do wonder if I just wasted the past two years of my life (including blowing our savings).
This brings me back to what Steve Jobs said (as quoted in Tom Friedman's book), that you can't connect the dots looking forward. So, I'm going to trust that down the road, my screenwriting training will serve me in some capacity related to teaching. Instead of fretting about the past, I'm going to focus on teaching now.
----------------
As for teaching liberal arts, let me say that I acknowledge the importance of math and science in the curriculum. They are essential for today's students in an increasingly technological society. But what are the arguments for continuing to fund arts programs? As Friedman discusses in The World is Flat, so many of today's knowledge jobs -- you know, 'left brain' work such as sequencing and analysis -- can be done more cheaply overseas. At the same time, jobs requiring creativity (right brain ability) will become more and more prevalent in our part of the world. Thus, music education will be given its due, as will art and design, for these are the disciplines that evoke creativity in other subjects.
As for my teachable subjects -- history and politics -- I want to see integration of these subjects with others in the curriculum. I recall doing a group project in my M.A. program where I and two other teachers developed a cross-curricular study unit around the study of World War Two. I made a study unit for history around the Great Man theory; another group member did a math unit looking at casualty figures for the different countries involved; and the last teacher created a music unit that studied musical compositions that came out of the period and inspired events. This type of curriculum integration is the future of education, and this is where liberal arts will find their rightful place.
But as our family financial resources dwindled, it became imperative that I make money. So I got a job teaching at a business college, and my interest in the film business took a backseat. Eventually, with the support of family, I decided to apply for teachers college. This September, I will attend OISE (University of Toronto) to get my teaching certificate.
And my screenwriting career seems to be fully stalled.
The truth be told, I'm not sure I have the requisite passion and discipline to be a professional screenwriter. Thus, I really do wonder if I just wasted the past two years of my life (including blowing our savings).
This brings me back to what Steve Jobs said (as quoted in Tom Friedman's book), that you can't connect the dots looking forward. So, I'm going to trust that down the road, my screenwriting training will serve me in some capacity related to teaching. Instead of fretting about the past, I'm going to focus on teaching now.
----------------
As for teaching liberal arts, let me say that I acknowledge the importance of math and science in the curriculum. They are essential for today's students in an increasingly technological society. But what are the arguments for continuing to fund arts programs? As Friedman discusses in The World is Flat, so many of today's knowledge jobs -- you know, 'left brain' work such as sequencing and analysis -- can be done more cheaply overseas. At the same time, jobs requiring creativity (right brain ability) will become more and more prevalent in our part of the world. Thus, music education will be given its due, as will art and design, for these are the disciplines that evoke creativity in other subjects.
As for my teachable subjects -- history and politics -- I want to see integration of these subjects with others in the curriculum. I recall doing a group project in my M.A. program where I and two other teachers developed a cross-curricular study unit around the study of World War Two. I made a study unit for history around the Great Man theory; another group member did a math unit looking at casualty figures for the different countries involved; and the last teacher created a music unit that studied musical compositions that came out of the period and inspired events. This type of curriculum integration is the future of education, and this is where liberal arts will find their rightful place.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Connecting Dots - Part 1
I'm very much a believer in a concept that others may put less faith in: that everything happens for a reason.
If I go back to important life choices I've made, particularly since high school, I can see how those choices appear to have been utterly necessary to get where I am today. This way of thinking has long influenced my own understanding of how I met my wife, who is Korean. If I connect enough dots, I end up back at high school in Wiarton, Ontario.
It started off when I became good friends with a guy named Terry. We met in the summer of 1985 while playing ball together, and we went on to become best friends within the next couple of years while attending high school. It just so happened that his dad, Ernie, was the principal of the school. Ernie was a fine educator, and an even better human being who made me feel welcome in his home whenever I visited Terry. So in late 1989, when it came time to apply for college or university, and I had chosen broadcasting school, Ernie took me aside and recommended going to university to get a degree instead. But not just any university. He recommended the University of Guelph, where Terry was going to go. For some reason, I capitulated and accepted Guelph's offer of admission early in 1990. This would be the first dot connecting to my wife.
While at U of G, where Terry and I roomed together in our first year in residence, I met a guy named Kenn. He was an animal science major, or an Aggie. Terry and I became great friends with Kenn, going on road trips to Cooperstown, New York, and Chicago, Illinois. I also had the good fortune of attending two Aggie-sponsored trips thanks to my friendship with Kenn. On the second of those trips (to New York City), I met this girl named Miriam, who was a classmate of Kenn's. Miriam and I began dating early in 1995. This was the second dot.
My relationship with Miriam wasn't destined to last very long. I already had plans of going overseas for a year, and Miriam wasn't interested in following me at the time. Nevertheless, there was a stroke of good fortune involved -- for me, at least. I had committed to going to Korea to teach, and Miriam just happened to have two friends teaching at a school in Seoul. Through Miriam's friends, I was able to sign a contract with Universal Language Institute. This was the third dot.
Why? Because in the same month that I began teaching at ULI, a young college student with the English name Heather began taking English classes at ULI. Before the end of 1995, Heather and I began dating, and we soon recognized a great similarity in our personalities and interests. Of course, we eventually got married. I still believe that it was always my cosmic mission to find Heather, and neither one of us can imagine being married to anyone else. All those important life choices I made brought me to her.
These are the dots I have connected with the benefit of hindsight. And one might ask, what's the purpose of writing about this?
I've just finished reading a chapter of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, in which he talks about what it will take for people in the 21st century to compete in a globalized society. In one section about teaching liberal arts in schools, he quotes Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. Jobs tells how he dropped out of college after six months because the classes were not stimulating enough. However, he continued to "drop in" on courses that he thought sounded interesting. One course was about calligraphy. He explains how learning about fonts and spacing in the calligraphy course may have seemed like a perfectly innocuous way to spend time. But ten years later, when he and Steve Wozniak were developing the first Macintosh computer, Jobs brought that experience in the calligraphy class to the design of the computer's graphical interface -- and changed the history of the personal computer forever.
Jobs goes on to say, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." (Friedman, p.318)
This idea is important to me for two reasons at this time. First, I've spent a fair amount of time over the past few months mentally dissecting my choice two years ago to attend Vancouver Film School, only to find myself immediately after graduation getting back into teaching. Was that choice wise? So far, it seems to have done nothing more than bankrupt me, with no likelihood that I will gain from the choice I made to study screenwriting.
The second reason relates to the bigger idea that Friedman argues in this chapter, which is that we need liberal arts in the education system. As someone planning to become a history teacher at the high school level, I find myself wondering how to explain the need for such programs when so many people say we need to focus on math and science.
With these two reasons in mind, I will explore them in my next post... for this one has gotten way too long.
If I go back to important life choices I've made, particularly since high school, I can see how those choices appear to have been utterly necessary to get where I am today. This way of thinking has long influenced my own understanding of how I met my wife, who is Korean. If I connect enough dots, I end up back at high school in Wiarton, Ontario.
It started off when I became good friends with a guy named Terry. We met in the summer of 1985 while playing ball together, and we went on to become best friends within the next couple of years while attending high school. It just so happened that his dad, Ernie, was the principal of the school. Ernie was a fine educator, and an even better human being who made me feel welcome in his home whenever I visited Terry. So in late 1989, when it came time to apply for college or university, and I had chosen broadcasting school, Ernie took me aside and recommended going to university to get a degree instead. But not just any university. He recommended the University of Guelph, where Terry was going to go. For some reason, I capitulated and accepted Guelph's offer of admission early in 1990. This would be the first dot connecting to my wife.
While at U of G, where Terry and I roomed together in our first year in residence, I met a guy named Kenn. He was an animal science major, or an Aggie. Terry and I became great friends with Kenn, going on road trips to Cooperstown, New York, and Chicago, Illinois. I also had the good fortune of attending two Aggie-sponsored trips thanks to my friendship with Kenn. On the second of those trips (to New York City), I met this girl named Miriam, who was a classmate of Kenn's. Miriam and I began dating early in 1995. This was the second dot.
My relationship with Miriam wasn't destined to last very long. I already had plans of going overseas for a year, and Miriam wasn't interested in following me at the time. Nevertheless, there was a stroke of good fortune involved -- for me, at least. I had committed to going to Korea to teach, and Miriam just happened to have two friends teaching at a school in Seoul. Through Miriam's friends, I was able to sign a contract with Universal Language Institute. This was the third dot.
Why? Because in the same month that I began teaching at ULI, a young college student with the English name Heather began taking English classes at ULI. Before the end of 1995, Heather and I began dating, and we soon recognized a great similarity in our personalities and interests. Of course, we eventually got married. I still believe that it was always my cosmic mission to find Heather, and neither one of us can imagine being married to anyone else. All those important life choices I made brought me to her.
These are the dots I have connected with the benefit of hindsight. And one might ask, what's the purpose of writing about this?
I've just finished reading a chapter of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, in which he talks about what it will take for people in the 21st century to compete in a globalized society. In one section about teaching liberal arts in schools, he quotes Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005. Jobs tells how he dropped out of college after six months because the classes were not stimulating enough. However, he continued to "drop in" on courses that he thought sounded interesting. One course was about calligraphy. He explains how learning about fonts and spacing in the calligraphy course may have seemed like a perfectly innocuous way to spend time. But ten years later, when he and Steve Wozniak were developing the first Macintosh computer, Jobs brought that experience in the calligraphy class to the design of the computer's graphical interface -- and changed the history of the personal computer forever.
Jobs goes on to say, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." (Friedman, p.318)
This idea is important to me for two reasons at this time. First, I've spent a fair amount of time over the past few months mentally dissecting my choice two years ago to attend Vancouver Film School, only to find myself immediately after graduation getting back into teaching. Was that choice wise? So far, it seems to have done nothing more than bankrupt me, with no likelihood that I will gain from the choice I made to study screenwriting.
The second reason relates to the bigger idea that Friedman argues in this chapter, which is that we need liberal arts in the education system. As someone planning to become a history teacher at the high school level, I find myself wondering how to explain the need for such programs when so many people say we need to focus on math and science.
With these two reasons in mind, I will explore them in my next post... for this one has gotten way too long.
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