HI!

I have an idea that I ran by my social studies teacher who I work with in our Contemporary Asian Studies class. I would like to have the students research (and we will provide them with credible sources and/or how to retrieve credible sources) Korean Food, KPop, Korean Film and Kdrama. They will research and cite their sources. Then, they will create (using Imovie) we are an Apple school, a trailer for a cooking show, Korean Film, drama, or if they are so ambitious create their own meal from a Korean recipe and film it. They will present this to the class, and the class will ask questions. They will need to spend two class sessions researching and two creating.

More about the articles next.

Articles: I have two comments. 1. Esports is interesting in that not all students can physically participate in physical sports. There are some schools that have esports clubs in Maine. We do not have this.

2. The second article talked about the popularity of webtoons overseas. I am surprised my students have not tuned (sorry for the pun) into this yet. They love Manga and Anime from Japan, and they love Kpop and Kdrama. An Asian market just opened up here in Bangor Maine, and when I visit, I see my students buying chips from China and drinking BoBo Tea. But Webtoons is not taking off yet, and I say yet because now that I know what they are... I am going to notice this.

I am here and my curiousity is now awake https://www.webtoons.com/en/

So, I am thinking to create an opportunity for my students to share 1 value from their own culture that is worth sharing with the rest of the world. They would identify, explain and demonstrate this value via a short video presentation tool Adobe Spark. I would provide structure and an example from my own culture using the same tools. Each Adobe Spark video would be short (1-2 minutes). This is just me thinking out loud. Another cool method of delivery could be the Ignite/Pecha Kucha speech format. I'm open to other ideas and suggestions. In my context, again, the issue is that my students are visiting international students coming from not just South Korea, but from other countries in Asia, South America, the Middle East and Europe.

I like your ideas, Roger. Sharing of cultures and experiences always makes learning richer.

Courtney and I teach Ethnic Studies at the same school and we have been considering how to teach more about cultural and community wealth that students bring with them in every space they enter. I like the ideas shared in this post so far about having students explore their own cultural/community wealth and then have an opportunity to share those with the class.  I'm really looking forward to our discussiion today about implementing what I've learned in this course into action! 

I agree with the author's point that the crowd or the audience are a vital part to a sport.  We all witnessed that world-wide when the pandemic led to empty stadiums when professional sports were being played.  Yes, people could watch at home, but there was no contaigous enthusiasm except from those who might be in the house at the time.  Large groups of people do tend to take on a personality of their own and many professional players spoke to missing the crowd's energy when playing to an empty stadium.

Another point, while esports has developed into a lucrative sport for some, it also has a dark side.  While I don't think the story of one particular Korean couple represents the entire country, neglect of their baby is a tragedy which could take place in almost any country in the West, including the US, Canada, and Great Britain.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/05/korean-girl-starved-online-game

Many young people's "Job" is working their way up many levels of games for money.  Paid by other gamers to reach a certain level where the buyer then takes over.

Hi Jerrica

Thank you! Yes most students know it since fir now we are an Apple school. The ones who do not know I show them.

Also, they will have to write a bit too and summarize what cultural items they learned or what they are trying to express about Korean culture in their trailer. 

I don't view the popularity of Japanese Manga so much that it is not strongly associated with a particular ethnic group so much as I think many of the topics and lessons taught are universal to people all over the world.

It was funny, but we had a department meeting yesterday and one of the other history teachers was asking about the concept of han, the concept of grievance, in Kdramas. One of the other teachers, who knew a little about Korean culture answerd and talked about how pervasive it was in Korean movies and brount up movies such as Parasite. However, he did not bring up the concept of heung (excitment), and I could add on to that a little with kpop and esports and webtoons. 

I loved the idea of oderlessness, and realized maybe that is one of the reasons that the charaters in the webtoons all had didfferent colord hair, so that they could be from anywhere!