Questioning in classes
Arousing questions in class
Including bioinformatics class this semester, I’ve experienced new tide in my paradigm on the atmosphere in classes. I’m taking three classes where I feel free to give questions, answer professor or other students, and show agree or disagree with other’s idea. For me, honestly, it’s been thought but new to see in actual classroom. The difference I feel would answer why Korean students are quiet in classroom.
Education is a process that includes both teachers and students. A student listens to a teacher, or reads books to understand concepts and to discover/invent new ones. Knowledges from textbooks are already, discovered or agreed to be accepted as true. In other words, it’s been out there as public education protocol. In addition, what to do and how to act, and think. Many of students I’ve seen are asked to follow this guidance. What this pattern overlooks are diversity of individuals and that new things occur in the vicinity at the border of knowns and unknowns.
Diversity. Korean society seems having expected standard for a person life path. A person is told to follow and meet this standard which says you are supposed to achieve certain things by this age, as you don’t go to this college or this company, you’re lagged behind, you’re not supposed to think it different way. Well in the past, I agree, such standard or protocol was necessary because the education level of this society was lower than now and this country couldn’t afford the diversity. However now, needless to say that the standard of this society doesn’t cover diversity of individuals, it would seed a feeling of failure that decays in our mind of happiness by impressing that one is ‘wrong’. An individual’s preference and interests are to vary, and make each own motivation/passion vector. Society should help them to achieve or enhance this vector, but, unfortunately, the social standards are, quite often, very against the vector of an individual. One might ask, if the standard’s to lead us to a better society then it’s fine. Well, in the aspect of better way, I wouldn’t be asked to write this essay about the current state of Korean society.
A certain way of thinking is educated, or I would say tamed, on following the standard. Then isn’t it less likely to discover new things? New things are out of the boundary of our knowledge. If we’re asked to follow the standard, and stay in the known-zone, how can we find new things? We should try some alternative way to see what would happen, there may be trials that wouldn’t succeed. Without taking such risk, that the standard doesn’t want to hold, no return there will be.
Questioning in a class extends to questioning in life, and to society. Discussion following this questioning will find better answer for society.