Do we need education of national identity?

     KMLA(Korea Minjok Leadership Academy) is famous for its unique educational system. Between numerous characteristics of KMLA, I want to write about KMLA's education of national identity.

     Why does KMLA emphasize national identity education? Most of people believe that there are mainly two reason that KMLA emphasizes national identity education. To begin with, unlike other ordinary high school students there are a lot of students applying for university abroad. Therefore, without national identity education they might lose ego identity. If the lose their ego identity while studying abroad, they will suffer from stress so KMLA educates students about national identity. Furthermore, when they ignore Korean culture when studying abroad, then KMLA would be criticized so that school's image can be damaged. 

     Secondly, KMLA is a Korea Minjok Leadership Academy. To lead Korea, one should be pride of being Korean. Since, KMLA's main purpose is to raise the leader of the nation, KMLA should grow leader with national identity. Moreover, the founder of KMLA lived in Japanese colonial period. During this period the founder, 최명재, have seen numerous Korean betraying the country and also experienced the importance of national leader. Therefore, KMLA searches for a global leader with national identity so national identity education is required in KMLA.

     Nevertheless, some people now say that national identity educations like 혼정, 아침기 should be optional, not necessary. Its because in global society excessive national identity education could lead to ultranationalism in global society. Moreover, necessary national identity education might also lead student to disregard other cultures. 

    So what do you think about national identity education. Even though it is needed by how should we educate national identity. Just 혼정, 아침기, national ceremony or just learn in our daily life?

2nd draft

                                        Dream a dream

                                                                                                Jo Hyung Woo

First of all, I want to say that I don’t have any special experience like the guy who survived from an airplane crash, or great achievement like Nelson Mandela. I’m just an ordinary teenager like you guys, so I have thought a lot about how to make an inspiring speech. After lots of thought and deciding, I arrived at a conclusion. I won’t be making an impressive speech like Steve Jobs, but I want to share my little experience with you guys. While preparing my speech, I searched for numerous famous speeches such as the speech made by Steve Jobs and Abraham Lincoln. Nevertheless, the most inspiring speech that I have watched was a speech made by Martin Luther King Jr. It starts with the famous saying “I have a Dream”, and talks about an ideal society that he dreams of. I was impressed by his speech since his dream was so beautiful and he has lived for that dream. I also want to talk about a “Dream”. When I was young, I used to say that my dream was to become an international lawyer. After entering middle school, nevertheless, I recognized that I wanted to be an international lawyer just because of high salaries. Therefore, when people asked about my dream during my middles school years, I said “I don’t have a dream.” I was not sure what to do in the future and didn’t even decide my career. So, I want to share concerns that I had while thinking about my dream.

As most teenagers do, I had a hard time since I didn’t know what to do in the future. I wanted to be a lawyer because of high salaries, I also wanted to be politician because of the authority and honor it provides, and also I was hesitating between other numerous careers. Therefore, I did not have an exact path or role model to follow. When I watched my friends, they seemed to have a dream and they looked like they were studying for there dreams. Nevertheless, I didn’t know what I was studying for and my future was uncertain. Studying such subjects like Korean, American History was very stressful and painful since I could not find the relationship between such subjects and my dream. Nevertheless, studying statistics was fascinating and interesting for me. Since I really liked studying statistics, I decided to become a math professor. I knew that it is extremely hard to become a professor, and especially a math professor receives low salaries. But I decided to become a math professor since I believed that dedicating my knowledge to the society was worthwhile. Even though I might not be famous or rich like you guys in the future, I guarantee that I will be very happy. It’s because I will be teaching and studying what I want. Now, I want to help you to become a happy person.

Some of you might be in agony because you are not sure what to do. However, what I learned from searching for my career is that you are not wandering without a destination. It is just a process of preparing for your dream. Before determining to become a professor, I searched about the pros and cons of numerous jobs. It has taken 16years for me to find my career. Some people might think that searching for a career for 16years is a waste of time. Since I was not able to choose my career, I could not focus on one subject so I have studied American History, Korean and English which are not related to statistics. Even though there is a saying “jack of all trades, and master of none.” I do not regret studying such subjects. By studying such subjects I learned more about my life and perspective. I did not have a chance to learn statistics sophisticatedly but politics taught me how to think deeply and philosophy suggested to me an ideal life. Even though some people believe that one should find a career in childhood and prepare for it, but it is not true. You are not wandering without destination, but widening your perspective. Having a dream itself is beautiful, however isn’t searching for your dream also beautiful? 

After Watching Catfish

     Today, I want to write what I have felt after reading CATFISH. Since I am one of facebook user this made me doubt rather my friends are real or not. By this movie I could recognize both advantages and shortcoming of SNS(Social Network Service). The advantageous factor of SNS that it is easy to make relationship with other people. I also made a lot of friends by facebook since it makes me easy for me to express my feelings to other people. Therefore, I could make numerous friends in online which made me I belong to the specific group. In Angela's case especially she could make new relationship to overcome her son's death. Nevertheless, this also caused some disadvantageous factors of SNS. Since people don't communicate in face to face, a lot of people tend to lie and hurt others feeling. I also had similar experience. In facebook I met a person who knows me but I did not know that person. Suddenly, he started to chat with me so I was very embarrassed. After finding out the information of that people, I recognized that it was just fake profile. Therefore, I could understand Nev's feeling when he found out that Megan was a imaginary person.
     This movie made me think of relationship between people. In SNS we can make numerous relationship, but cannot make deep relationship between each other. In the real world, we could make deep relationship with people but we are not able to make 100friends in a day like facebook. So, this led me to the question. "What should be relationship like?" In facebook we are chatting with person who we don't even know. So is this relationship sincere? Nevertheless numerous people including me are doing facebook and still making a lot of relationship. Even though I know that some relationship may not be sincere, I think we are making relationship to feel emptyness that we felt in the real world like Angela did.