Session 2 readings, 9/9 afternoon

[Erin Tanguay]

Wow! I love the projects that you have linked with this reading. I too thought this was a great way of getting a good amount of information about Korea to the students quickly. With the limited amount of time that we spend on Korea in the 7th grade, I thought this would be great. I wanted to share a few teaching ideas that this article inspired. #6 Korea is not a copy of China - I want to design a compare and contrast trifold on China, Korea, and Japan. The students would look at the differences in nature and art (#4), different inventions (#3), and Geography and population (#1). I really think that #10 (Koreans want to be Reunified) is extremely important to cover especially in light of what is happening with North Korea today. I am lost as to what to create. If anyone can think of an assignment or activity that I could use to incorporate #10 I would love to hear it. It has been on my mind. If I come up with anything I will update this secion, thanks.   

[Alejandra Jimenez]

I agree with you Josephine. I found the Korean Olympian extremely brave for ratification about his country, especially for the upcoming Olympics in LA. I think this is an excellent fact that all students should know that sometimes it may take too long to do the right thing. It is never too late to get things accomplished especially when it involves a whole community.

[Tanish Fortson]

Anything regarding women is of interest to me. I am a woman and am I am fascinated by women and their ability to maintain and keep order. The article that I want to address is An Exploration of Women’s Economic Activities in a Patriarchal Society. In Korea women were expected to cook, clean, sew, harvest veggies, provide medical remedies, watch the children, and ward off unwanted sprits. Women of wealthy households did not participate in difficult labor tasks but women from poorer households would.  Regardless of your social class you were expected to work and contribute to the process.  It absolutely fascinates me that with limited resources women still contributed to their society in Choson.

 

Dr. Jung-Kim did a wonderful job of giving us an overview of Korea and I really enjoyed the children’s story that she told. I think the name of it was a Blinds Mans Daughter. I think my young students would enjoy this story. The King fell in love with Shimchong and could not see her sad and sent her back to the world above and another King fell in love with her and made her a Queen. Her father magically appeared and gained his sight again.  My students could possibly pick out their favorite part in the story draw a picture and write a sentence about their picture.

[Cristina Hernandez]

Regarding this session, it was an interesting lecture.  However, I felt kind of lost due to the heat.  I was so focused on keeping myself cool that I was not able to truly enjoy it.  I guess, the lecturer Dr. Jung-Kim was also feeling the same way.  Nevertheless, the introduction to Korea and Korean history and culture was relevant to our classrooms at the present time.  Korea is constantly in the news because of the problems North Korea is causing at a global scale.  A couple of my students asked me a few days ago, where Korea was located and when I answer them, the next question was about a bomb reaching us.  I want my students to learn about Korea, but not only the negative aspects because Korea has such an amazing culture and history.  On a personal level, I want to visit Korea in the near future and it is important for me to learn more about it. 

[Catalina Silvestre]

         As a lover of literature, I must say that I extremely enjoyed, "Lost Names" by Ricahard E. Kim.  Gaining an understanding of the history helped me to visualize the event within the reading.  The imagery set the town along with a display of a high level of pride within the characteristics of the various characters from this particular scene, from a Korean Boyhood.   Figurative language is something that I include in my teachings as the various parts of speech are often excluded from todays curriculum in a direct instruction type of way of teaching.  The “imagery” used within this text really sets the tone for the events that occur.  In addition to the imagery the relations to what Hispanics, African Americans, and other cultures have experienced, this reading shows how a group of people were also stripped of something that was dear to them, being their name.  Lost names, as many cultures have also experienced has been a topic when other countries and lands had been invaded and take over politically. There are so many groups, a diversely large amount of people, with what I understand “Lost Names” to represent.  I see myself using this to show the adversity one felt where being stripped of their name in order to fit with what the government wanted to do politically and to fit what worked for the rest of the world.  Resiliency through adversity is all that I could think of while reading this peace and this is extremely important to teach so that student can see that they connect with the rest of the world. 

[Eric Hoh]

These stories ("Tale of a Blind Man's Daughter" and "Mulan") would be an engaging point of compare and contrast to the East Asian view of women in society versus the Western American view of women in society. It is particularly interesting to see how the role and position of women in Korea made a progressive trajectory within the confines of a patriarchal setting. I can imagine non-Asian learners might be tempted towards being critical of East Asian treatment of women. However, it is clear to see how progess was made in regards to women's rights in East Asian society. Although it has not been perfect, it certainly is not inferior to the development and progress of women's rights relative to the rest of the world (which unfortunately, has not been as progressive and equalizing as it could be).

 

All this to say, I would be interested in having students compare these stories with Beyonce music videos addressing feminism. 

[Gerlinde Goschi]

I enjoyed the article Top Ten Things to Know About Korea by Edward Shultz. I was surprised to find out fact three, that "Korea produced the oldest extant example of wood-block printing, the Dharani sutra."   I attended a German elementary school in Eastern Europe and vividly remember learning that the printing press was invented by Johannnes Gutenberg and wood block printing was invented by the Chinese. It would be very interesting to see the oldest wood block.  I would love to show it to my class during our IB unit "Things from Long Ago and Today.  Where we are in Time and Place."  I was not surprised to learn  fact one, that Seoul has a population exceeding 20 million people making it the third largest metropolitan area in the world.  I had the privilege to visit this great city in 1994.  I remember thinking how crowded it was.  Walking through the city, I noticed the large population density right away, although back then Seoul's population was only 10.8 million people.   

[Stella Castro]

I apologize but I really do not have much to say of this session, not that it wasn’t interesting , but for the mere fact that I got locked out of the classroom for quite a while, and I missed much of the information that was to be had and learned. I felt cheated because of this mishap, but oh well, nothing gained by complaining about the past. I just hope that in the following Saturdays that we are to attend this seminar, no games are held on those Saturdays. In this session it started off really good, In session two, the teacher did a wonderful job of coinciding the history of Korea, in the short time me that we had and considering that the teacher was having a hard time with the heat,(It was hot in that classroom), however it was interesting because in his session is where I learned about how married people wear their hair, (women in a bun and the men with their hair on top of their head, this was a wow moment for me. The teacher talked about the dynasties, the names and their power of authority, and of the benefits of the people born into those families. I was looking forward to learning more, but unfortunately this didn’t happen because of the aforementioned mishap. However, in the response section we are also allowed to comment on the readings and again because it seemed as if the readings were posted late, I did read all of the session one readings, but was unable to read all of session two readings, (I shouldn’t be so honest, but that is my nature), I did read a couple of them, but the one about the cranes, and again, (I’m being honest), I hate to admit I did not understand it. Although it is/was a folklore tale, and folklores always tend to have a point, I missed the point. I guess I will have to re-read it. But whatever I did get to listen to, in this session was very and quite interesting.

[Carlos Oyarbide]

This is a very informative and accessible article that provides a great overview for students who do not know much about the Korean peninsula. If I were to teach about Korea in my classroom, I might begin with this article to build background knowledge. The “Top Ten” organizational structure of the text also lends itself nicely to chunking the text with struggling readers. I can imagine breaking students into pairs or small groups and assigning them a different number so they can then share out the information with the rest of the class.

 

As students present the information they gleaned from their assigned reading, other students could take notes. I would then ask students to share out the information they learned from their individual notes. Each group could then synthesize their notes to create to create their own top ten things they learned about the Korean peninsula. This might seem a bit repetitive, but I find that structuring readings this way is a very effective way to distill new information for struggling readers. 

[Carlos Oyarbide]

Looking back at the 19^th century in East Asia, it’s easy to look back and understand why those countries wanted nothing to do with Europe and America. It is almost as if they knew then what we know now. How opening access to their countries would lead to the ultimate exploitation of their resources and work force. Korea, in particular, was right to be wary of doing witness with the West after all of their negative interactions with Japan and China However, with the impending Gunboat Diplomacy, it seems as if there really was no way to avoid the impending catastrophe with the west.

 

It seems that isolationism is always doomed.  Either through force of the sheer will of new ideas, the reflexive instinct to withdraw from the rest is futile. One of the ideological clashes can be seen in the conflict between Eastern Learning and Wester Learning in Korea. While the exposure to the West was not necessarily all negative, it cannot be denied that it forever changed the cultural course of Korea. Ultimately however, it would be Japan and not the West that would Colonize Korea. So the question is: once external forces begin to exert their influence on a country, how can it keep its sovereignty and cultural identity in tact? Whether a country chooses to willing adopt new ideas, trade partners, etc. or whether it chooses to turn inward and isolate itself, history seems to teach us that the outcome will be same. 

[Sonia Arrayales]

In reading the article, "Top 10 Things to Know About Korea in the 21st Century", you learn about many interesting facts about South Korea. The article gives information on religion, population, and geography. These facts give one insight into what life is like in Korea, what Koreans like to do, and historical information regarding the country. The way that I feel that I may incorporate this into my classroom is by doing a compare and contrast between life in South Korea and life in North Korea. This will allow my students to learn about a new country, and life in a communist and a non-communist country.

[Matthew Wong]

I found Seth’s Concise History of Korea an interesting primer on Korean history. I personally have limited knowledge of Korean history, except for what I was taught when I was in high school (i.e. the Korean War). My prior understanding of Korean history and current events involves knowing that the Chinese had an influence over the Koreans, particularly the Korean written language, and the news about Korea today.

One of the interesting aspects of the text is Seth’s argument that Koreans, prior to Western contact, believed in an Eastern Asian world order. Seth argues that Koreans held closely to the traditions, customs, and beliefs of a world centered on East Asia. Their major foreign contacts were China and Japan.

Because of the length of this text, I think this could be useful as a reading for high school students with appropriate scaffolding. This text could be introduced in an unit on World War II or the early Cold War. 

[Matthew Wong]

I agree! This article is great for students to use in order to better understand Korea. Perhaps, creating a KWL to see what students' perceptions and understandings of Korea. Then provide students with a copy of this article to better add to their understanding of Korea. You may even have a discussion about what students learned and how this may expand their understanding of Korea, particularly given US-North Korea and US-South Korea relations. 

[Jane Shen]

In this section, Dr.Kim explained teh social heirarchy in Korean history between 1800-1945 as below:

—Royal family

—Yangban (scholar-officials): civil and military orders

—Chungin (middle people): technical officials, local functionaries, descendants of illegitimate sons by concubines

—Commoners : Peasants, Artisans, Merchants

—Lowborns: hereditary class of people in despised occupations

—Slaves

And later on , when Royal family collaped, even though some of the above catagories were no longer exist, however the social hierrchy is still existing by seperating the Yangban with the Sangnum.

Even to nowadays, I still meet some Korean elders who are talking about their social levels at birth, some are proud of their Yangban birth and look down on those who are not.

 

[Lesly Gonzalez]

It was interesting to read how Confucian ideals played a role in determing the economic role of women in Choson, particularly in the upper classes and ruling elite.

I especially enjoyed the narrative about the husband and wife who make a pact sacrifice pleasure and leisure for 10 years in order to accumulate wealth. In this tale, it is the wife who ensures the couple stays true to their commitment to the very day. According to Pettid, this narrative demonstrates how "economic wherewithal" outweighed other, "Confucian virtues such as extending one's lineage."

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