Sick Days In Korea: Not A Novel Idea

 I've been confused lately by news stories such as this one in the Korea Times. In it writer Lee Hyo Jin states that "Korea is one of the only OECD countries that does not guarantee paid sick leave by law." And this article in the Korea Herald that states, "Currently, Korean law does not guarantee sick leave, much less paid sick leave, during infectious disease outbreaks."  Now take a look at this article from hani.co.kr. It states that over 43% of people surveyed were unable to freely use their annual leave when they became sick. Most are afraid to have their pay docked, which absolutely IS illegal according to the Labor Standards Act of Korea. It goes on to say that Korea still lacks proper legal mechanisms such as sick leave and points out that that very same Labor Standards Act contains no such provisions. I'm feeling like Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men when the judge says, "I don't understand, you're offering exhibits of a flight that did not exist?" then Kaffee says, "Oh we believe it did, your honour." 

You see kids, there was a time in Korea when the Koreans were able to run their country much closer to the way they wanted to run it. It was called 1997. It had been around 50 years since the US and some other allies had helped set them up to turn Korea into a country deserving of a seat at the table in that money moving, vulture capitalistic organization so euphemistically called one of "economic co-operation and development." And earn that seat they DID! Their tactics, while not brilliant, took Korea from utter devastation and economic ruin in 1953 after the Korean war to a thriving economy in '97. It is sometimes redundantly called the "Miracle on the Hangang River." 

Before 1997 jobs were plentiful in Korea. Even uneducated folks could get stable jobs that were almost impossible to get fired from. I don't need to tell you what happened. The richer Korea got, the greedier the few at the top became (government and chaebols) and before too long that brotherhood and cooperation to work together and make the country strong was highjacked by the greedy few who overextended themselves and fucked things up for everybody. See? Not brilliant. And we all know what happens when the rich few fuck things up for everybody - everybody but the rich few have to unfuck the things they fucked up for everybody. And that, in a dismissive nutshell, was yer IMF Crisis. 

I was here in '97 and I saw the citizens of Korea melting down tons of their personal gold items (about 227 tons to be precise) as one of the "austerity measures" attached to the IMF loans. They were still caught up in a frenzy of patriotic brotherhood that working hard and succeeding together can lead to. And this was promptly taken as naïve innocence ripe for exploitation by the degenerate gambler plutocracy that inexplicably still commanded the support of the people. Other "austerity measures" were called for by the IMF, which is essentially the World Bank, which is essentially the US. Debt imperialism is what we're talking about here. They're basically the international capital mafia. Here's a video that explains it well:

So in essence, what happened in 1997 was Korea being forced to choose whether it wanted to get in line with IMF/World Bank policy and have a seat at the big boys' table, or be one of their bitch countries. Korea chose the former, but with that choice came some changes to banking, financial systems, accounting practices, and... you guessed it... labour standards. 

I was working at Chonnam University in the early 2000's and management had been systematically stealing overtime pay from every teacher. We brought it up at a meeting and, in typical Korean crook fashion, caught red-handed they got angry at US and promised to make our lives difficult for our insolence and ungratefulness. They began making us teach on national holidays and/or do make-up classes and making us do make-up classes for sickness and/or come into work sick. A bunch of us got to work checking to see if we had any legal recourse and the answer turned out to be... yes and no. I distinctly remember contacting a labour lawyer by email and explaining what was going on and he wrote me some lengthy replies on Korean legal history and such that cleared things up for us all. I can't remember all of it, but he said that there were indeed laws prohibiting the above behaviors by any employer and told me the Korean word for sick leave (apeun nal I think) but told me that if I want to continue working in Korea, I should never EVER utter that word or any equivalent. It's like saying Voldemort! So needless to say, we had virtually no chance of arguing at the labour board of Korea. We might have even been black-listed if we'd tried.

I can't remember if he said it was since 1997 that Koreans had started getting militant about not taking sick days but I think it was. As all of the above articles point out, Koreans still do take sick days. Almost half of Koreans! How do they manage that if they're not legally mandated in this country where they're considered tantamount to treason? It's most likely the old Koreans who know that it's still the law and aren't buying into the mythology that sick days are not part of Korea law. 

At any rate, the story has a happy ending. A representative from the labour board of Korea came to Chonnam University, probably concerned about being contacted by SEVERAL of us teachers, and told the offending assholes to knock it off. Forcing people to work on national holidays, while sick, or do make-up classes for either, was, it turned out, even illegal in Korea. So they immediately stopped.

As an aside, people working while sick is one of the reasons for the positive association between masks and heroic citizens in Korea. That and protestors who wore them. This socially cemented stigma against taking sick days has probably saved employers mountains of money in paid sick leave too. Maybe enough to make a large dent in that IMF loan Korea got in '97? And don't kid yourself, employers regularly force employees to work while sick or do make-up hours, my current company not excluded. It is also part of the reason mask mandates have long since been lifted and Koreans STILL patriotically wear them even though they don't have to.

What the hell bro? No, honetly... 

Am I wrong, or are they currently trying to act like they are inventing the sick day in Korea? I mean, all it would have taken is an employee or two with some balls to tell the employer they're not coming into work and they can go fuck themselves. Or even just ask one of the old, most likely senior employees how THEY get away with taking sick days. Has neither happened in the last 26 years?

Not to toot my own horn but, go to 1:11 in the following vid:

Hwa - a - fucking - HWAAANNHH! I've stood up to Korean employers and got what I demanded. It doesn't take a worldwide pandemic to change them. I told the management at Carrot that sending the teachers from Icheon to Seoul to write lessons was a waste of everybody's time and we'd get more lessons written in less time if we could stay home. I was right, we stayed home, got more done in less time, management was happy and the teachers were happy. They still do it that way. I told management at Gongju Dae it was a waste of time having me sitting in my office desk-warming when I had 6 hours off. They eventually relented. Now I don't work for either of those jobs any more... and if Koreans wanted to stand up for themselves, they might have to change jobs too, but it could be done. 

I guess this is another thing done the hard way in Korea.

Anyway, it's long overdue and I'm happy Korean bosses are smartening up. The reason for not allowing sick days and all the desk warming and time wasting at work done in Korea is not as dignified as all the patriotic mumbo jumbo you might get if you ask an employer for the reasons why they are the way they are. The real reason is not a brain teaser either. They're just childishly untrusting of their workers and have been allowed to be so. I guess they reckon everybody will ask to work from home and drink soju all day, then call in sick the next day all on the company dime. The pandemic taught them different and adjustments are being made. FINALLY. So that's a good thing. But it's incredible that it had to come to this!

Oh, by the way, if you want to research the existence of sick day laws in Korea, they've been blocked very well. It wasn't as hard back in the 2000's as it is today to find them. But I have read the Labor Standards Act of Korea and they're not in there. For some, that might lead you to the belief that there ARE none because surely that's where they'd be, no? For a guy like me, the absence is almost evidence of their existence. They take the fewest sick days and have among the lowest productivity in OECD countries. Those stats you can find. They're starting to realize these two things might be related. Not only that, but maybe walking around the office with THE PLAGUE, mask or not, is a bad idea. Do you suppose optics has anything to do with this? Maybe acting like it was the law instead of we were just forcing people to work sick, spread sickness, and be less productive cuz we wanted more money looks better. What do ya reckon?

Now if we can get them to stop requiring a doctor's note. If I'm sick, I don't wanna go anywhere including the doctor's office. Don't make me go out and endanger others to placate you and your juvenile trust issues. But maybe I'm overreaching here. 

Have I Told You Lately That I Love These Guys?

 For all the complaining I've done about Korean winter NOT being cold enough or having enough snow, and for all the complaining Heather has done about it being too cold and having too much snow, I think the following pics might as well be considered a mike drop for me. Well, not literally, Mike wasn't dropped, he's in the pics of the fam. Well, minus the dogs and plus Heather's' parents that is. What a good lookin' bunch, eh? I forget the photographer's name but she was a northern American and obviously she knew what she was doing. Even managed to make ME look good! Check these out:

Now come on! How can anyone NOT love winter? I love that last shot! Me and the Kellster. I can't believe how big he is! He'll be bigger than me soon. The Spiwak/Peet family have sustained me spiritually through my many years in Korea. I love them like my own family. What's not to love? These pics are like model shots for cryin' out loud! I get a bit sweaty-eyed typing this but they're (probably - most likely - almost certainly) leaving the ROK in less than a year. I know I'm gonna miss them, but we've been temporarily separated before. It's been my privilege to share intervals of each of their lives with them. A better fam I have never encountered in my travels. Spin me around in any room of my house and I can't open my eyes without seeing an example of their collective generosity, but at the risk of corndoggin' the crap outta this post, the greatest gift they've given me has been familial forgiveness of drunken (and sober) shenanigans, putting up with my patented negativity, not always pointing out the flaws in my arguments, basically giving my assholery some latitude. Yes, I'm talking about the (gag, cough cough) unconditional love that only the best of friends and family can provide. While many have de-friended me after one such awkward post or message, these guys have weathered an F6 tornado of them. Oofa Madonne we could get into some doozies here! I reckon, and this is after 55 years of reckoning, that if a person has dealt with another person's shit, they're friends. When it is literal, why it's gotta be something more, no? I mean, we could probably go up and down a list of excremental bodily functions here. If I went out of my way to be a dick to this family, they'd forgive me. You know, like the mother of the serial killer. That's the kind of acceptance I feel here. I bet if I approached any member of this family and asked if they knew where a guy could bury some incriminating evidence, they'd give serious thought to becoming accomplices. Anyway, I feel like I wouldn't have survived so long in Korea without them and I love them all. 

Now... having said that obvious, but maybe not often enough said thing... I have to recant some of my previous trash-talking to Heather. Although I will never agree with her on cold weather, or even the way to measure how cold that weather is, and even though, the pics have clearly shown that winter RULES... I must admit to empathizing with Heather for a fraction of a second just two days ago. The following is an artist's rendering of an actual event that occurred Thursday morning on the campus of the Hyundai/Kia motors compound where I work. There had been a dusting of snow... FINALLY... and I was cheering the few inches of freshly fallen snow even though it made the commute to the compound a bit longer. I had just had a 5-day weekend for Seollal (Lunar New Year) and had filled my newly purchased cup with Coffee Bean coffee. I buy one or two every day and thought I'd better be environmentally conscious, so I bought a mug. At the big Coffee Bean on the campus (there are at least two) you actually get a discount for using your own cup! So I filled up (at the one where I DIDN'T get a discount) and walked to the building where my morning classes would take place, C 5_10. Just before getting there, this happened:

 

This is a pic of my actual notes from that day of classes. My first two classes were cancelled due to one student catching cold (so he says) and the other being on a business trip to Osaka. Her I believe. Anyway, it gave me time to kill so I drew the above pic of my epic wipe out. I only spilled a little coffee although the mug came completely out of my hand. I didn't hurt myself or break my hip if you are wondering. Still not that old. But I WAS embarrassed. The area was almost deserted, but there was one car coming down the road behind me so I popped up like a Bozo the Clown punching balloon. I checked as I took the elevator to the 4th floor where my morning classes were and found almost no snow/slush on my pants or jacket. I must have really gotten up fast! But I'm sure the occupants of that car had a good laugh. Later when I was going to lunch at the cafeteria just down the road I saw a dude snow-blowing the sidewalk there. It was dangerously slippery!

So chalk one up for Heather and her hiver hatred. I guess I am not totally right that winter is awesome. And, bless her heart, when I told everybody about the perilous fall I had survived, guess who was the only one to respond. Good old Heather. I love her guts.  

I suppose I should end this post before I gush too much and start serenading. I just wanted to put these pics up for posterity.  

Before I finish, an update on the job. I was audited today by the head teacher Daniel. He sat in on a class with probably my worst student. In some ways this is bad. But he says that the majority of students are like this dude. I have had only ONE guy like this dude so far. This dude! He didn't do his preparation for the lesson so it was much harder for me to do. And since EVERY other one of my students listened to me in week one when I told them to prep for every lesson, I was not used to teaching this lesson to an unprepared student. Trust ME to get evaluated on the lesson taught to the only unprepared student! But on the other hand, this makes me feel absolutely great about the job I'm doing because Daniel said the majority of most teacher's students are like this. I have just the one. Either they're very good students, they're afraid of me, I'm "lucky?", OR maybe I did a good job prepping my students in the first week and getting them to buy into the 50/50 flipped classroom scheme. 

It's incredible that this was the student Daniel chose! He was the one and only guy who did NOT fully commit to the 50/50. He said with his job and his 2 daughters he probably won't have time to prepare. He said that. He was the ONLY one. And sure enough, he's the guy I get evaluated on. I even went to the trouble of sending him a text message the day before class saying, "Okay, we're gonna have the head teacher evaluating the class and this is what I'll be teaching. Okay?" He said, "Check. Gotcha. No prob." Then he comes to class without having read the ONE PARAGRAPH he was responsible for! One paragraph! I should be mad at the guy, but here in Korea, especially around holiday time, and with the way jobs pressure the higher ups, I kinda feel sorry for him. And after all, he WAS honest enough to warn me...

But of all the luck, eh?

All Work and No Play Makes Dave a Dull Blogger

 Regular readers may have recognized the reason for my recent reticence. The persistent postlessness is a product of prodigious professional peon-esque occupation preoccupation. A couple apologetic bouquets of alliteration for you all!

The new job has kept me hopping for over 3 weeks now. I'm in week 4 of work even though I've been employed by SPEP since October of last year (officially Nov. 1 though). It's nice when you get a 5-day weekend in your first month of full time work (Lunar New Year here). For two months I was receiving more and more training until finally they just had me working full time hours even though the agreement was no full time hours until Jan. 3. I was doing training at the SPEP office (don't ask me what it stands for, they are in love with abbreviations, which they erroneously call "acronyms" because in modern English language usage, which is becoming more about impressing than communicating, it's better to go ahead and use a fancy word than look it up) and I was pencilled in for telephone teaching 8 hours at a time, 10-minute call at a time - which adds up to 48 phone calls without even a piss break in between. Two weeks of that, with 4 hours of commute time added on kinda hampers the old studies, which they knew about and assured me would not be interfered with until the new year.

Just LOOK at that paragraph! Warning signs all over the place. It's a miracle I have done ANY work for this company! And you haven't heard the half of it! But let's just skip over the half I haven't told you and get to my day shall we? I was told I'd be working in Namyang, which immediately made me wonder why in 2 1/2 months of apartment hunting Namyang was never an area we did any of the said hunting. I think I was found an apartment in Jukjeon because it is a fairly central location amidst all of the various SPEP job locations while being close to exactly none of them. So I was told I'd work from 10:30-7:00 at the Hyundai/Kia compound in Namyang. I guess I was meant to cream my jeans that I was tangentially working for a huge Korean company, like pretty much any Korean would. For me, the employer I am employed by is the important thing, not the client. I would still be working for SKhynix if I did not have to work for them through the horrible middlemen at Carrot. This I expected to be the same and so far I expected right. 

10:30-7 is more than 8 hours a day, a long day to be sure for an ESL teacher but I was fine with it since the past half a year of studies has drained the old bank account. Also, I was told we'd be getting a long lunch every day. Not a bad deal. But, as has been the pattern with this and all other Korean employers in my career, they left out a few important deets. You see because I'm not in Namyang, where I'd pay about 500 thou a month for a bigger place, but in Jukjeon where I pay 850 thou a month for a smaller one (I guess I'm meant to cream my jeans because I'm close to Seoul like pretty much any Korean would. For me living in a bigger place in the country has proven to be preferable in almost every way.) there is a considerable commute. I walk to the shuttle stop from 8:15-8:40, so a little less than half an hour. I can also walk - subway - walk and it takes the same amount of time and somehow ADDS to the walking. The shuttle picks me (and Jess a co-worker who lives nearby) up and takes about 50 minutes to get to the compound in Namyang. We get there around 10 and have time to get to our classes and set up by 10:30. Then we teach 25-minute classes (and a few hour-long classes) until 2. This is lunch time. We have 1 1/2 hours for lunch, which is long, but the cafeterias are not open at this time. I have been packing my own lunch for most days so far. Then from 3:30-7 we do more classes. After that it's another hour and a half of commute time and I'm home by 8:30.

SO, rather than 10:30-7 with a long lunch, I am working closer to 12 hours with a long lunch. I consider the full commute to be "work" although I doubt I'm paid for all of it if any. It's a rather large difference from what I was led to believe. But, as I say, this is nothing new and I was fully expecting something like this. It softens the blow when you fully expect cheap chicanery from your Korean employer.  

Now for the reasons I haven't told SPEP that unless they're saying spep, their name, and a ton of other abbreviations they seem to fancy as legitimization, are not acronyms, and, oh, by the way, you can Johnny Paycheck this gig! 1. As mentioned, I need the dough. SPEP pays. They've shown that. So at least I've got that going for me. 2. I've been getting over 10,000 steps a day on my pedometer since starting this prolonged intensive camp. I can't tell you if I've lost any weight or gut girth, but I do feel better. 3. The sugar numbers are plunging. I haven't changed my eating habits much. If anything they're worse eating dinner at 9 every night. But I have broken my record a few times since starting, and I've dropped my medicine dosage. 4. So far I like the co-workers and the students. That's always the best part of the job for me. And all adult students is a nice thing. 

So this job will be good for my financial and physical health although it will be a constant strain on the mental health. What I haven't told you yet is that there are even MORE hours to this job. Any teacher will know this. Even for an hour long class, it's important to do your prep. For intense 25-minute lessons, it's even more important. With short lessons you get even more students. Double actually. And that almost doubles the prep time. It certainly consumes a lot of extra time if you want to be a GOOD teacher and differentiate! I have over 50 students, most one-on-one, and I am trying to tailor lessons to their specific needs. This is done by giving them feedback at the end of every lesson that includes new vocab, pronunciation coaching, achievements/improvements, about 4 sentences from class that include errors for them to correct, grammar suggestions, and any other feedback you can give them. Then, we are responsible for their online attendance, which is sometimes a challenge since there are lots of tricky (and inexplicable) nuances to it. To name one, if a student has missed class due to a meeting, a common occurrence, there is no M for meeting we can use for their attendance. We can't use A for absent or W for work, we enter it in as Business trip domestic. On the same app is LPE (again don't ask me what THIS acronot stands for) where we have to give each student, most of whom we see for 25 mins a week, running grades from one to five on: 1. punctuality 2. class preparation & homework 3. speaking effort 4. attitude and motivation 5. Concentration 6. English-only policy 7. Book/no book 8. Listening comprehension 9. Grammar Usage-SVA (some vacuous acronot) 10. Grammar usage - verb tense 11. Grammar usage - Prepositions 12. Grammar usage - conditionals 13. Vocabulary Precision 14. Pronunciation 15. Application 16. Overall comments.

As you might have surmised, I have taken a leave of absence from my studies. I somehow managed to get my third 4.0 in a row even though I wasn't able to put as much effort into my studies as I'd have liked to at the end of last semester due to the unexpected work from SPEP as well as the holiday season. I actually just didn't do some of the assignments like marking fellow students' papers. So my overall CGPA went up.

 Not bad eh? But half a master's and a token gets you a ride on the bus eh? It's worthless until it's finished no matter how impressive the grades are. Tell you the truth, it's been a lot more expensive than I'd calculated. Not so much the tuition, but the survival without work. That's why I'm subjecting myself to the SPEPian water torture described above. This is the way I had to get my BA. It took a long time, but I got it. I'm sure this will be the same. I'll keep my eyes on the prize and soon I'll have enough to go back to studying. The harder the work, the more I appreciate the studying days. Even though I read the equivalent to a book a week, write for hours and hours, and have the frustration of doing group projects online with people all over the world while studying, it's like a holiday from work. From THIS job it'll seem like Easy Street! My LOA (as SPEP calls it) has been approved till June. My contract with SPEP ends in the GLORIOUS month of October. I'll have to see what transpires in the mean time. Of course I'd love to make it to the end of this contract and get the severance pay and have plenty of dough to get back to my studies, but who can say? Maybe I'll get an offer from a uni that will give me a sweet schedule that would allow me to work AND do my studies part time. Maybe SPEP will fire me. Maybe I'll quit. Anything can happen between now and October. I likely won't be posting a lot to keep you updated, but if not, just assume I'm still working. I'll let you know if there are any major changes.

We Must Cultivate Our Gardens

 This week is a good time to come back from my 2-month absence I reckon. I am working (and even getting paid for it) and studying, but have a wee bit of time to post. This week in my master's studies we were only assigned a discussion topic and a portfolio topic for personal reflection. Usually there's a writing assignment as well. I managed to combine the two assignments in what I think is a clever way (scuse me whilst I pat myself on the back). 

The first is the discussion topic. We're halfway through the course "Living and Learning Globally" now and it has so far been only about conservation, saving the planet and such. It's a topic about which I feel strongly, but I was expecting a bit of a bird course about teaching outside your country, being culturally sensitive and that sort of thing which, of course, I would ace. Turns out this course has been the toughest of the 6 I've taken! Every week we're assigned a book worth of reading, the usual writing, grading, groupwork, etc., and THEN some extra material on the state of our planet, the sustainable development goals of the UN and stuff like that. 

The first part of this post was an assignment I was none too thrilled about. I don't like rubrics because, like standardized tests, I find they focus students' efforts on passing, not learning. We were ordered to make a rubric to evaluate students who were doing projects like the ones in the YouTube vid about Indian Ocean region kids conservation projects. I designed a rubric for a garden project that I hoped would encourage learning. Here it is:

                                               Garden-Based Learning Rubric

The part that most impressed me in the video about the Indian Ocean region’s eco-schools was the garden-based learning project. In the past I have read about garden-based learning projects and actually experimented with them on my own a few times. I believe it is a good example of experiential learning, ecological literacy, agricultural discovery, environmental awareness, hands-on science, cooperation/collaboration, moral improvement through hard work, and possibly most importantly a chance to form a connection with nature that will grow into responsible stewardship and conservation of living things on our planet. I particularly liked the way Matthew Teeluck, a student in the video, said that he shared what he was learning at school with his parents who don’t know much about environmental issues (Eco-Schools, 2018).

I decided that if I had to make a rubric for a future project such as this, it would be divided into three parts: two parts formative and one part summative evaluation. The first will be my observation of cooperation and communication between the groups. Though the project will be about 90% hands-on, it will require effective and efficient collaboration with a partner for things like dividing responsibilities equitably. Planting, tilling, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and harvesting duties must be shared. There will be a variety of vegetables to choose from as well, so that choice me be arrived at democratically. Finally, the fruits (or vegetables) of the students’ labors must be divided up reasonably between the members of each group.

The second part would consist of a written report done by the students (ideally in teams of two) on how gardening is a good way to help the environment. In-class lessons paired with the garden project will include gardening virtues such as cleaning the air; benefitting the soil; lowering trips to the grocery store; reducing imported produce; composting and using your own waste; benefits to bees, worms, birds, spiders, insects; reduction of carbon footprint; reduction of global warming; boosting physical health through exercise and nutrition; stimulating mental health through peace and beauty; and lowering noise pollution. Any combination of five of these or any other valid benefits to gardening will earn the group full marks on their essay.

Part three will be based on what kind of connection the students form with nature. This may seem a lot for a teacher to expect from students, however, as of March, 2021 over 83 million Tamagotchi electronic, egg-shaped pets had been sold. If millions of people can form bonds with those, I think connections with living plants should not be considered an unreasonable thing to ask. Maria Montessori was an advocate of garden-based education. In “The Absorbent Mind” she said that when a student learns that the life of a plant depends on his/her care, it becomes more than a lesson, it becomes a mission (Subramanium, 2002). Part three will be a measure of whether the groups just thought of their plants as schoolwork, or if they took a genuine interest in their survival and success.

Cooperation and Communication	5. Students exhibit above average skills in democratic decision making and sharing.	4. Students show good skills in decision making and sharing.	3. Students show average cooperation and decision making skills.	2. Students have some difficulty in working with one another and making decisions equitably.	1. Students do not succeed in working well with one another.
Conservationism (Written report)	Students mention five or more environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention four environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention three environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention two environmental advantages of gardening.	Students mention one or fewer environmental advantages of gardening.
Connection	Students show an obvious connection to nature.	Students show a palpable connection to nature.	Students show some connection to nature.	Students show very little connection to nature.	Students show no connection to nature.

  

References

Eco-Schools. (2018, December 5). Eco-schools Indian Ocean: from schools to communities [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ofvcL7MZ4XY

Subramanium, A. (2002). Garden-based learning in basic education: a historical review. UC Berkely Monograph Series. https://doi.org/https://littlegreenthumbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GardenBasedLearninginBaseicEducation_4H.pdf

The second assignment of the week was more in my wheelhouse. It was a quote from Voltaire that some of you have probably heard. His epigrams could be said to be the most recognized of his contributions to literature and this was one that was well known: "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." We were told to contemplate the quote and relate it to our teaching. I did that while also relating it to the other writing assignment of the week. Here's what I wrote:

                                              Question Everything

Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

            What is your initial reaction to this quote?

The first thing I thought of when I read this quote was the two-word title of this paper and the best advice I have ever received or given: question everything. I received it from my 17^th century literature professor Joyce Forbes, and it summarized quite succinctly the renewed hunger for knowledge and the vast supplies of it to which, at the time, my university education was opening my eyes. That, in turn, reminded me of the Socrates quote, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing” (Kreeft, 2002). The more I question things, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the more I learn I need to learn. Learning enough to satisfy my hunger is a lifelong challenge I cannot satisfy, but at which I will zealously fail. To be complacent in one’s knowledge is a sorry state I rejected early in life, but intellectual stagnation is a fate for which many volunteer, and this led me to my deeper reaction to this quote.

            What is your deeper reaction to this quote?

Consider the source. Voltaire was a significant contributor to the 18^th century Enlightenment. He declared himself a member of the “party of humanity” and waged war on the twin Hydras of fanaticism and superstition to which the European social order of his time had fallen victim to their intellectual endarkening, in his opinion (Shank, 2022). His best known work, “Candide,” which is subtitled, “or The Optimist,” is a savagely told satirical tale of an ignorant optimist upon whom the world of horrors is unleashed. Candide, the title character, grows up in a castle and learns that “all is best in this best of possible worlds” (Boyd, 2017).  This is the philosophy taught to him by his tutor Pangloss. “Pan” and “glossa” are Greek words for “all” and “tongue” respectively. I will not get deeply into the plot, but Voltaire’s life (and mine) were similarly blissfully ignorant and optimistic in youth until knowledge of the world was revealed through experience and questioning comfortable positivity.  Voltaire was, and remains to this day, a hero to those who would promote skepticism, critical reason and political resistance to achieve intellectual liberty and advance progressive projects of modernization and reform (Shank, 2022). This led to an even deeper reaction to this quote.

            What is your even deeper reaction to this quote?

It seems to me that the good people who make up the majority in our world seem to be held in a similar miasma of false optimism and ignorant inaction as Voltaire perceived the people of Europe to be under during his day. In no aspect more than the main subject of this course: global competence. People seem to be kept globally incompetent with a Panglossian optimism about the state of our planet complicated by environmental and ecological illiteracy. In Voltaire’s day it might have (or might not have) been more a question of philosophy whereas in modern times the Panglosses of the world are captains of industry who want to wring every resource out of the world before someone else can, with little to no concern about destroying the planet that is the only place where they can use those resources. In a word, they are apocalyptically antisocial and need to be subverted. These are the people who are telling us that they have all the answers when their one and only question is, “How can I maximize my profit?” When will we realize they are all tongue?

            How do you relate this quote to active/inquiry-based learning and assessment of student learning outcome?

The answer to that question is in the word “inquiry,” isn’t it? As a teacher in a world where people are assets of industry and beholden to capitalist sophistry, we need to encourage our students to disregard the false answers and concentrate on the question from whence they all emanate. And we need to teach our students to question that question. Is life all about profit? Is profit just about resources? What are the things that will profit most and from which the most will profit? Soon the idea of profit will take on a less industrial and more egalitarian meaning. Soon we will realize that we profit more from brotherhood, compassion, and empathy than competition, avarice, and violence. Soon we will realize worldwide similarities abound and Robert Putnam’s idea of bonding social capital will replace money as capital and a novel capitalism will be formed (Claridge, 2018). If we can teach our students to fight extremism and radicalism with harmony and mutual respect, they can be the Voltaires of our era. We must protect our own planet, or as Candide might say, “We must cultivate our own garden” (Boyd, 2017). Our students can save our planet. What a learning outcome that could be!

 

References

Boyd, C. (2017). Voltaire's Candide is the hero we need. Medium. https://doi.org/https://clarkboyd.medium.com/voltaires-candide-is-the-hero-we-need-59e1c9e9292

Claridge, T. (2018). What is bonding social capital? Social Capital Research. https://doi.org/https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/what-is-bonding-social-capital/

Kreeft, P. (2002). Philosophy 101 by Socrates: an introduction to philosophy via Plato's apology: forty things philosophy is according to history's first and wisest philosopher. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Shank, J. B. (2022). Voltaire (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://doi.org/https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=voltaire

 

What do ya figure?  

Stupid, or Stupid Like a Fox? Part I

 Back in Korea. This has become my adopted home country so those words should bring a little comfort if only through familiarity. I have to admit to some of that no matter how much I bitch and moan about Korea and oh I do, and oh I WILL, but home has its comforts. For example, I am drinking a coffee with fresh cream in it right now. I had to avoid Nestle while in the Philippines so instead of Nescafe coffee with Nestle Coffee Mate, I started the day with a local brand of coffee and a local brand of whitener. Not bad, just different and uncomfortable. But it was the best I could do while I was there. 

It's also nice to know that at some time close to lunch time on this Sunday morning I am going to have some bacon and eggs and it won't be eggs boiled in a kettle like I had at Studio 18 in San Antonio, Pasig City, Manila, it'll be scrambled or fried eggs with good bacon and a slice of toast with real butter on it. All luxuries a guy in a room with no fridge can't afford. It's also great to be sitting here on MY computer chair with my windows open in a nice, cool 19 degree temperature unaided by air conditioning or heat. It was a glorious sleep in my own bed with my own pillows and a temperature (even with the windows closed due to mosquitos) that required some use of blankets for the first time in months! What a great sleep! And it was needed for a number of reasons as you will see if you read on.

Okay, now that the first piece of bread is lain down, it's time for some Korea bashing in this shit sandwich I am going to call "Korea: Stupid or Stupid Like a Fox?" There could be a LOT more shit in the sandwich, but I'll just concentrate on what I'm dealing with at the moment, and I am not at all sure how substantial the top piece of bread will be if there is one at all. This could be an open-faced shit sandwich I'm making here. 

Do you ever wonder when you see something outrageously stupid, "Geez, that's almost too stupid to be humanly possible! I wonder if they're doing that stupidly stupid, fucked up, moronic thing maliciously."? Ever wonder that? I find myself faced with that mental anguish on a regular basis in Korea and although there has been development since '97 when I first came here, I find Korea's over commitment to technology to be making up for whatever examples development has overcome. They're determined to prove to the world that they are country of technology and whether they are ready for it or not, it has become a religious, name-it-and-claim-it sort of endeavor, the growing pains of which the people (including, and maybe ESPECIALLY, the foreigners) who live in Korea have been saddled with. I have posted literally dozens of examples here from the electronic, Star Trek sliding, glass doors that malfunction and lock people IN buildings to new websites for things like booking flights, receiving packages, online shopping, Covid shot registration, hell almost EVERYTHING that don't work because they are all strictly tied to bank, phone, alien card, and passport information that conflicts because the agents at those agencies are so fucking stupid that they write your non-Korean name in Korean characters. Here's the crux of my post: Wouldn't it be fiendishly diabolical if one or all of said agents at said agencies hated foreigners and wanted to cause them all a lot of headaches and wrote the name, with full malice of forethought, in a combination of Hangeul characters that he/she knew no other agent at any other agency would possibly duplicate? It would almost be clever, wouldn't it? Now you are probably saying, "Surely they write the name in your alphabet!" Well THAT would be the smart thing, and, I admit, it is starting to happen here, but for a guy like me who has been here as long as I have without learning to speak their language and is forcing them to speak MY language to do their job, it's a punishment that sort of fits the crime, no? And stop calling me Shirley.

Now there is no way, there is no fucking way, I can prove this ever happens, but there again is a nice little Chinese water torture constant dripping that is in the background wherever I go and whatever I do here. Does this really exist or am I making it up? drip Can a whole country that is so disorganized in so many ways possibly be this organized in its mistreatment of foreigners? drip Or am I just assuming it's happening to all foreigners? drip Maybe this is just happening to me. drip Maybe I am being terribly narcissistic here. drip No, I have friends who have the same experiences. drip Or are they just placating my rage? drip Do they really have the same experiences? drip Or are all my friends lying to me? drip It makes ME a worse person. I have had so many bad experiences, for example, at immigration that it is almost impossible for me to see them doing something stupid/smart again that will add frustration to my life and NOT hold all the other examples of the same shit against the current immigration officer. What makes it especially bad is, what if I'm wrong? What if it just appears to be something stupid/smart, but it is actually necessary? Am I jumping to those conclusions now? Am I becoming the bad person in the story? Am I the one who has overdeveloped discrimination against Koreans, not the other way around? 

I'll share an embarrassing example. I have come to realize that asking for help at "help" desks or from people in department stores whose job it is to give you help, is fruitless. It's easier and faster to just search for what you're looking for yourself. Again, I am not alone in this (and it's not just friends placating my rage). Had circumstances been a bit different yesterday, there'd be a beautifully poignant photo here of round, green question mark signs posted on a pole on the 3rd floor of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1. I wanted to take a picture, but I was so frustrated I didn't. Let me back up to the start of the story. I got up at 9 or so after only a few hours of sleep on my last night in Manila, packed up and got the attendant at the desk to call me a Grab cab. Grab is a huge company in the Phils. Their taxi service is like Uber. They are everywhere on scooters delivering food and other things too. Anyhoo, I got into the Grab cab already tired. I couldn't sleep mostly because of stress at what I was pretty sure would be a(n?) horrific few days coming up. We got to the airport a little before noon. There was a huge line-up to get into the airport. I got in line behind a white dude a little younger than myself sucking the face of a twenty something Filipina who had on sexy shorts and a tight, white, low cut top. Pretty obvious what was going on there and if I had my life's savings to bet on it I'd place it all on Angeles being the destination the dude was going home from. He was speaking English and I think I detected a German accent but couldn't be sure. They were holding up the works. The line had moved up while they were "engaged" and the girl politely motioned for me to go ahead of them. I did and heard Face Sucker say under his breath, "Nice shoes by the way." I was wearing my newly purchased hiking shoes. I brought them in case I wanted to do some jungle exploration. I had worn my sandals on all the walking around Manila though. Fate had not allowed me the visit to Palawan I was hoping for.

At any rate, I got to the end of the line and was told I was too early but I could wait in the passenger waiting area. Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I guessed. So I asked the security guard at the entrance to the waiting area when I would be able to enter the airport and she mumbled about 6 o'clock or 6:30. It was noon remember. I had 6 hours of waiting ahead of me. So I passed my stuff through the ex-ray and saw a sign that said restaurant over the entrance to the waiting area. I was hungry for lunch having had only a granola bar and some local coffee with local whitener for breakfast. I got to the waiting area and it was just chairs and chargers. The restaurant area was gutted. Just people sitting down and using devices. I had planned on studying during the wait so I got out my laptop and tried, but I couldn't construct an efficient way to read and take notes. My mind was on other things anyway. So I just waited. There was a Jollibee on the other side of the outer airport where I had some chicken (and that awesome gravy!) By 7 I had waited long enough to get hungry again, and way more tired. I stood in the perpetually long line-up again and when I got to the end I was allowed into the airport even though my flight hadn't opened for check-in quite yet. I saw TWO guys, both white guys if that matters, wearing hiking shoes like mine so I felt a little less self-conscious about Face Sucker's comment. 

Check-in was no problem, I got something to eat at an expensive (for the Phils) eatery with not-so-delicious (for the Phils) food. Then I went to a cordoned off area in front of gate 3 to wait another 3 hours or so before we boarded. There were security guards (with guns and rifles) making sure nobody left the waiting area. More Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I guessed. I even had to exchange my passport for a plastic tag with number 17 on it to go to the bathroom outside the waiting area. When I came back 3 minutes later, they asked to see my alien card to compare it against my passport (and they DID!) before they gave it back. The flight was unremarkable and as expected I got exactly zero sleep between midnight Philippine time when we took off and 4:30 Korea time when we landed. Now, remember this next part. It'll come to bear after I (finally) get through the embarrassing example I promised.

I disconnected my phone from my battery which it was hooked to in my bag in the luggage compartment for the whole flight. I knew I'd need it to scan the QR code for the PCR test I'd be getting. I had read that Sept. 3 the pre-flight PCR result before entering Korea had been dropped, but you'd still need to get one after landing and report it electronically. Electronically! Online. You can smell a problem arising here, can't you, my sagacious reader? The airport was relatively empty at 5 AM and I had stopped to pee out the beers I had had on the flight to unsuccessfully encourage sleep. Kloud beer of course. Being up in the Klouds. Anyway, the rest of the passengers had passed me. I was the last one, or close to it, off the flight. As I walked toward the luggage claim area I saw more and more people wearing a kind of Hazmat-looking full-body scrubs. They were the Covid/Monkey Pox precautions I assumed. Like 20 of them or so. A few of them motioned and/or said, "This way," or something. I got to a signboard that had two QR codes on it. One for Koreans (that probably worked) and one for foreigners. Doing my best to approximate the boredom of a seasoned traveler I got out my phone and prepared to scan the QR code. Two young fellas who spoke English very well approached me and asked if I had filled out my health statement. That was another thing I did after coming out of the toilet. I filled out my yellow health statement while other passengers who had received them from the flight attendants before landing passed me by. They told me they had run out when they reached me during the flight. I filled out my arrival card and customs declaration instead. Then as I deplaned the stewardi had yellow fans of health statements for those who had been lied to during the flight. I grabbed one and filled it out while sitting on a planter in the airport hallway. So I said to the fellas, "Yes, here it is," and produced my yellow health statement. They looked at it and said, "You're good. You don't need this code. Go ahead. Keep going." or something like that. I said, "I don't need to do any test?" and they said no. 

Remember that. Also, there was a girl, in full hospital hazmat garb who handed me another paper just before I got to the immigration area. Immigration is what had caused most of the stress that kept me awake the night before and during the flight. I had two days left on my D-10 visa and was wondering what I could do about it. Could I get an extension until after the weekend? It was early Saturday morning, so Sunday (today) was expiration day. Could I get a new D-10 at the airport? Could I hand in my alien card and switch to a 6-month visitor visa? It used to automatically kick in after a visa expired if I'm not mistaken. But either for Covid reasons or others, I assumed that would not be the case. So I had a bit of curiosity along with the overwhelming feeling of DREAD caused by the umpteen dozen problematic run-ins I had had with immigration officers during my years in Korea. I have grown accustomed to them and am utterly unable to put them out of my head when I do anything with immigration. But this was maybe the one and only time I was actually looking forward to talking with an immigration agent to get some closure on what was going to happen. I reached immigration and was in line to talk to a human agent and some lady dressed in her security-like uniform pulled me out of line (I don't know why she singled me out) and told me to use the passport scanner. Ah automation! It makes everything easier doesn't it? (scoff scoff) I scanned my passport and it didn't work. I scanned my passport and it didn't work. I scanned my passport and it didn't work. She grabbed my passport, scanned it on a different scanner and it worked. So I was able to pass through immigration without talking to an immigration officer. Automation had once again given me what I DIDN'T want.

As I exited the immigration area to find out what carousel my checked baggage was riding, I noticed a girl at an unmarked desk. I took a chance and asked in English where I could talk to an immigration officer hoping she could point me to one of the immigration officers RIGHT THERE. She said airport immigration opened at 6. I explained my situation about my fast expiring visa and she vehemently removed herself from any responsibility for knowing what I could do, but told me airport immigration opens at 6 and they might know what to do. I thanked her and proceeded. By the time I had gotten my checked bag, gone through customs and re-entered Korea, it was a little after 5 and I was hungry again. Tired as fuck and hungry. I say that as an excuse for the upcoming embarrassing part. 

I saw a young, pretty girl behind the desk under the question mark as I exited customs. I walked up to her and asked where airport immigration was. I said, "Hi, where is immigration?" She looked befuddled and answered, "Zimmigration?" Immediately all the past immigration AND information, help worker, and a few good-looking Korean airhead incidents rose up in the judgy part of my brain. Nevertheless, I pursued the issue because I was in no mood to wander around the huge airport and find it myself. I said, "Immigration. Where - is - immigration?" A trifle over-enunciated, but I was a tired, hungry passenger. "Aaaah aaaah immigration!" she corrected. My pronunciation of my language is often corrected by Koreans who suck at it so add them to the judgy part of my brain. She told me it was on the third floor behind the letter H. I thanked her and went up the escalator carrying my two unwieldy bags. On the third floor I found H, found a luggage cart, and looked all around H and EFG, and IJK. I couldn't find immigration. I checked my phone and found a helpful site for airport information and entered "immigration." No match. I found a website with a map of the airport. No immigration. I checked about half a dozen sites online and found exactly no information about immigration at Incheon International Airport. I KNEW it existed because I had been there a couple of times. Once I paid a fee there for overstaying my visa. 

I found a big, electronic panel that invited me to touch the screen for information. I did so. Everything you need to know about the airport was right at your fingertips. The wonders of technology. I looked at the map. No immigration. I did a search. No match for immigration. During my fruitless phone search there was a site that mentioned "manned immigration" so I input THAT. No match found. I overheard a group of people speaking another language behind the useless machine I was screwing with and one word stood out, "Immigration." In my tired, hungry frustration, I just asked them in English, "Hey are you guys looking for immigration too?" They were Indian, so they spoke English. One of the guys in the group of five came over to me and said, "Yeah. We have been looking for it. There are no signs anywhere." He was right. They have signs with arrows pointing out all kinds of things in the airport. Not immigration. One of the ladies in the group pointed to a board full of references helpful to travelers and said, "No immigration." I said to the guy, "It used to be right here. I remember going there a long time ago. Maybe they moved it." He said he remembered it too and pointed out where he thought it once was. "Maybe it's been removed because of the new automated passport system," he said. I thought he just might be right. There was an office for customs, overweight baggage, money changers, bank machines, a couple restaurants, a Paris Baguette and a coffee shop (closed because who wants coffee or pastries at 5:30 in the morning? Stupidity or ingeniously irritating?), airport police, all kinds of stuff but no immigration. 

I wished my Indian friends luck and continued my hunt. I found a large map of the 3rd floor similar to the one the Indian lady had pointed out no immigration on. No immigration. I saw two big question mark circles though. One was not far from where I was reading the map. I figured I'd give this another shot. So I went to find the information booth that one would ASSUME is located at an area marked on a map with the internationally accepted icon of information - a circle with a question mark. I got to the area and there on a pole arranged in a triangular pattern around it were three circles with question marks on them. No booth, no person to give you information, just signs. I mean, that IS what the map promised isn't it? LMFAO! Stupid or intentionally and diabolically infuriating?

I take the elevator down to the first floor and push my cart back to the first girl. I say, "Hello again. I am looking for an immigration officer. Where could I find one?" She, of course, reiterates her original response. I said, "There's no immigration office there. There is customs, but not immigration." She insists again and again. Shows me a map with immigration office behind the H. I say, "Well there's a map upstairs that has an information booth marked on it and no information booth so sometimes maps are wrong." She kept insisting and even offered to walk with me and show it to me at 6 o'clock. It was about 5:50. I said, "If you are going to keep insisting it's where I've already checked, I don't want to waste another 10 minutes to check where I've already checked. Thanks for trying to help, but you didn't." Then I left and some nosy Korean dude asked her a question in Korean that included the word "immigration" in it. All the nosy asshole Korean run-ins I've had rose up to the judgy part of my brain too. But I went back to the elevator and avoided confrontation.

Now I was on the third floor just wandering around hoping to bump into an immigration officer by fortunate accident and fucking FUMING at all the current occupants of the judgy part of my brain. By fortunate accident, I happened upon the OTHER area that was marked on the 3rd floor map by a question mark in a circle and this one actually had a counter and another pretty girl, not just a pole with some question marks on it. LOL. Classic! Okay, there is probably an explanation like the kiosk is temporary and is not set up at the moment, although if they are as serious about this pandemic as their enforcement of the rules regarding it is, now is the time there are people who need information, isn't it? Like, where can I get a PCR test in the airport. At the beginning of the pandemic I flew to Guam and the airport was impossible to pass through without getting your temperature checked. And they checked and RE-checked those checks. Here is a pic of the sign WITH the kiosk set up underneath it and the polite agent (with the requisite white gloves lol) and the cute Korean animation that give the impression that this fever check isn't something they will shoot you dead for if you refuse to comply.

 

So anyway, I approach the new girl and ask. She says, "It's right over there behind the letter H." I say, "Are you SURE? I just came from there and there were several of us looking for it and we couldn't find it." She got annoyed and made a point of showing me that by putting down whatever she was holding a little too hard, opening the door to the kiosk a little to quickly and walking a little too fast motioning me to follow. I slouched behind the far too low cart and being unable to take normal strides without smashing my shins on the cart, I didn't keep up with her. This further annoyed her and she stopped way ahead of me, turned around and motioned a little too energetically, for me to follow. When we got behind the H, she started looking around like all the Indians and I had. She was NOT sure where it was either. In fact she walked right past it, turned around and THEN pointed to it. I said, "Great! Thank you." in as sweet a voice as I could. 

I SO wish I could post a photo here of the post festooned with question mark signs with nothing underneath it that I saw yesterday in Incheon Airport, rated fourth best in the WORLD by Skytrax, but, alas I didn't click a pic. It would have been a better way to end this post. I hadn't planned on it being so long. A warning about anything Korean being rated, if it's an internet rating, they'll vote, if not, they'll pay. They even have a word for it: sajaegi. You can read a little about it here.

So I guess this'll be a two-parter. It's well after 1 and I still haven't had breakfast. It's time for me to brunch. Suffice to say for now that airport immigration wasn't really helpful after all that effort. There was one dude and one girl and the girl did the talking. She said that they couldn't help me. They made absolutely sure that I understood that. I asked what my options were. She said she had no idea. Why that would be, I don't know. You'd think it'd be something they would know. Remember, I had been to that very office to pay the fine for an overstay before. So somebody who worked there in the past knew the rules. But that's the thing about immigration: the rules are never absolute. Every agency and every agent is different. The strict nature of enforcement is absolute, but the rules they are strictly enforcing are fluid. So it wasn't a surprise I didn't get much help from airport immigration. But it wasn't a waste of much time, so I thought I'd try.

Or maybe one of the agents I was prevented from seeing by the lady who forced me to use the machine instead might have known. Who knows? Anyway, she told me (and I think this was just to get rid of me) that she reckoned if I went to the Daejeon Immigration Office on Monday, the day after my visa expired, I'd be okay. I asked if I'd have to pay a fine, if so how much, but she didn't know. At least said she didn't know. So I said I was just happy that I wouldn't be deported. I added something about now all I needed to do was make an appointment on the HiKorea website to visit the office in Daejeon and sometimes that isn't easy. I gave her a little wink as I said this, thanked her and said goodbye not realizing how right I was. 

Consider that a teaser for part two.

Another Rubric in the Wall

 Third week of my fourth and fifth courses at UoPeople. I am still in the Philippines. It's been 25 days since I submitted my request papers for my pension dough. They said it could take up to a month. They also said it should only take 1-2 weeks. But it would have been foolish not to expect the month. So that's what I did. It's getting tense though. I extended my Sept. 15 ticket back to Korea to Sept. 23 so if the money doesn't come this week, I may have to eat that ticket cuz I don't think you can extend a ticket twice. I'll try if it comes to that, but I don't think it'll happen. So then I'll have to buy a new ticket home. Hadn't figured that into the budget. Life eh? It's always keeping me guessing.

Since there's not a lot new here just walking around the same hood in Manila every day and studying my courses, I figured I'd post another one of my papers here for your perusal. I've never liked rubrics and to be honest, I just hate the word. It sounds pretentious to me. Most of the teachers I heard talking about them WERE pretentious. Now though it's becoming a fact of life. Schools are using them more and more. MY school uses them. So I wouldn't be me if I didn't write my latest discussion post slagging rubrics and my school for the use of them. It's almost like I WANT to self-sabotage! 

                                             Discussion 3 Authentic Assessment

            Discuss benefits for students in using authentic assessment

I think it would be best to begin with a couple of warnings from Alfie Kohn before delving into authentic assessment. Kohn says that “…not all alternative assessments are authentic” (Kohn, 2006, para. 2). He also recommends a re-assessment of assessment to verify that it is consistent with the reasons most teachers decide to get into teaching in the first place (Kohn, 2006). According to a 2015 survey, the top reason teachers get into teaching is they want to work with kids to make a difference (Marsh, 2015). It almost seems absurd to say, but to make a difference in education… you need to educate. So let’s see if the benefits of authentic assessment for students include making a difference in their education.

At this point it would be prudent to define authentic assessment. Interestingly, at the outset of the article entitled “Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment,” the authors write that there is no consensus on the term or characteristics of authentic assessment (Frey et al., 2012). It is just one of many abstract concepts educators deal with in the notoriously imprecise, subjective enterprise of trying to gauge and judge students’ understanding and learning. The authors set out in an attempt to clarify just this one concept which they felt was mostly to do with mirroring real-world tasks or expectations in classroom assessment exercises. After completing their study of 109 scholarly publications about authentic assessment, they found that close to half of them did not include the critical dimension of realism in their definitions of authentic assessment at all (Frey et al., 2012).

Rather than trying to make it more concrete and quantifiable through definition, it might be more useful to look at a few practical examples of authentic assessment exercises. Indiana University published a list of exercises in their explanation of authentic assessment that they use ("Authentic Assessment," n.d.). It includes patient case studies and plans of care for the nursing program; company sales plans for students in the business program; troubleshooting code and website design for students of computer science; examining a case study from multiple theoretical positions for psychology students; diagramming natural processes for chemistry and biology students; and role playing significant events in history for the history program ("Authentic Assessment," n.d.). I do not think a person needs to be an educator to understand how these exercises can be considered “authentic,” and would be highly beneficial (and would make a difference) for students at Indiana University. When Frey et. al. (2010) traced authentic assessment to its original source, it was described by Archibald and Newman as having meaning or value beyond success in school (Frey et al., 2012). That really should be enough for a good teacher to be able to understand and implement authentic assessment in class, but there are costs and sacrifices involved.

            Analyze whether there are costs for teacher in using authentic assessment

In order to satisfy those who want some digestible representations of abstract concepts like learning and knowledge, shouldn’t there be a method of focusing the messy, complex, real world situations into easily evaluated and standardized boxes? Rubrics to the rescue! Although Chapman and Inman write that well-constructed, “rubber” rubrics can have some flexibility (Chapman & Inman, 2009), it is hard for me not to see, “Will you give us a rubric for that?” as the latest, “Will this be on the test?” An example was used of a parent trying to help her fifth grade daughter with homework and the daughter said, “No, that’s not in the rubric. Here’s the rubric. This is all we’re supposed to do” (Chapman & Inman, 2009). I read that trying to imagine why any fifth grader should even know the meaning of the word “rubric.” In the same article the authors write that matching students’ work to teacher-designed templates differs from analyzing, synthesizing, and thoughtfully evaluating it (Chapman & Inman, 2009).

I was evaluating a fellow student’s writing just yesterday. The rubric for the assignment called for the writer to outline two philosophies of classroom discipline and choose one over the other. The student whose paper I was grading made a very convincing argument that elements of both models of classroom discipline were useful and rather than abandon one and choose the other, the most effective way to create a positive classroom environment (which is the name of the course) would be to blend the two theories. I gave the student five out of ten for not making a clear choice, but I felt terrible about doing it. I tried to redeem myself by giving the student a perfect score for the category of academic language in which third person is to be maintained even though he/she used a lot of first person pronouns. After all, how can a person describe a personal choice without using the first person?

The above experience illustrates some weaknesses in rubrics that teachers may be forced to endure in order to make assessment exercises more closely aligned to the curriculum goals and standards. Rubrics can make authentic assessment less authentic by limiting exploration and creativity and herding student thoughts into such similar work it’s hard to differentiate those who grasp concepts from those who are grasping at concepts (Chapman & Inman, 2009).

In conclusion, I think authentic assessment is highly beneficial to my students, and others. I often use situational role play conversations in my ESL classes. I never attach rubrics to my assessment exercises because I feel they legitimize focusing student attention on grades rather than learning. I do understand how useful the rubrics can be for the administrative members of the schools at which I teach, but I have been fortunate enough to keep my authentic assessment rubric-free and thereby more authentic. I believe it has made a difference for my students.

 

                                                                  References

Authentic assessment. (n.d.). Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. https://doi.org/https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/authentic-assessment

Chapman, V. G., & Inman, M. D. (2009). A conundrum: rubrics or creativity/metacognitive development? Educational Horizons. https://doi.org/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ849020.pdf

Frey, B. B., Schmitt, V. L., & Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining authentic classroom assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 17(2). https://doi.org/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1245&context=pare

Kohn, A. (2006). The trouble with rubrics. English Journal, 95(4). Retrieved September 19, 2022, from https://doi.org/https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/trouble-rubrics/

Marsh, S. (2015). Five top reasons people become teachers - and why they quit. The Guardian. https://doi.org/https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jan/27/five-top-reasons-teachers-join-and-quit