This brief news clip from CNN, Why All of South Korea Went Silent, takes an amused, lighthearted tone to a Korean cultural phenomenon that strikes us in America as literally foreign--a 9-hour exam for which students begin studying as infants while still in the delivery room and which will determine their future college, occupation, and (to the extent that it elevates or confines their social class) their future spouse.
I understand why we might look at all of this with amusement. Police escorts to an exam? Grounding all flights? No squeaky shoes in the classroom? But there is a disturbing side to this story as well. What about the kids who don't do well? Not only have they brought shame to their parents (another mostly foreign concept to Americans), but they think that they've doomed themselves to a lifetime of mediocrity.
When I first began teaching Bible study to Korean-American high school students back in 2007, on the very first day I was peppered with questions about not only high school, but also college. These were incoming high school freshmen! It was the first Sunday of JULY before their freshmen year! I remember telling them something to the effect of: "Listen, and I know your parents will be upset with me for telling you this, but it doesn't matter where you go to school. You can get a good education anywhere if you apply yourself."
I recently relayed this anecdote to someone who disagreed with it. He happens to be an astrophysicist at Columbia. His point was that if you want to work in the upper echelon of a particular field, then you need to attend a school recognized for its expertise in that field. So let me qualify my words of wisdom to those students by saying that if you want to work for Goldman Sachs (are they still in business?) or one of the Big Six accounting firms (or is it the Big Five or the Big Four now?), a Harvard MBA probably needs to be on your resume. But if, like me, you believe that the goal of a college education is not solely job training but producing well-rounded, civic-minded individuals with an understanding of history and an ability to express themselves, then don't put undue pressure on yourself to conform to someone else's educational standard. You don't need it.
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is not among my favorite books, but in it he does highlight one eternal truth: some people prefer a self-inflicted, self-contained misery to an experience of grace. As an extremely brief synopsis, the main character is taken on an eschatological bus ride, during which he meets many fellow travelers, each of whom carries a perpetual cloud of cantankerousness over themselves. The bus departs from a land of dreary grays and eventually arrives at what is basically the Microsoft Windows wallpaper--rolling hills, green fields, blue skies--rich colors and lush scenery all around. Despite the improvement in their surroundings, his fellow travelers continue to find things to complain about. In fact, their bodies cannot physically adjust to the beauty of their new surroundings. While wandering through the greenery they discover that they are, in fact, ghosts who lack corporeal bodies. They cannot acclimate to the weightiness, the substantiveness of this new rea...
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