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2019 Winter Personal Essay

GGHS 2019 Winter - Team 2

A Day Before Winter Grobal Camp

As It was my third global camp, I was really excited to meet new team members and new teachers. Every team members and teachers who I met through this camp have always never failed me and also they were are all enthusiastic about their topic!

The topic what I chose was “Dolmen and Ganghwa”. When I first saw this topic I strongly attracted to this one. Because I was working on a group project about ‘The tourism system of Ganghwa in 2018’ in my school club for a year, I became curious about why this stone tomb could be so attractive until these days. And mostly the geographical advantages for making dolmens in Ganghwa.

On the first day of camp

we had a group-talking time with our teacher ‘Evgenia’ and we tried hard to give her the red-carpet treatment; Literally we tried to get friendly with her while talking about the topic we will do to make her feel more comfortable. As all of our team members and teacher Evgenia were very bright people, It was easy to get close with each other. We even discussed about someone’s boy friends! As a team leader, I helped team members to gather their opinions and tried to listen carefully even about very trivial things. At first, as our team members were only six and the topic ‘Dolmen and ganghwa’ was quite hard to make fun presentation, others suggested ‘Just do it with ppt and simple description!’ But my beloved team members and I never gave up! After teacher heard our ideas she said, with surprised voice ‘Guys, we made this boring topic much more fun!’ Well, She was right! Our ideas was to describe about dolmen as a play which named ‘Alive museum’! At first it seems like we had a pipe dream to prepare this since we had only three days left, I didn’t care. Cause I felt we already got off a good start!

After we heard about the introduction about “how to upload on WIKI” from Linsey teacher, We started to research for the informations about dolmens. I separated what parts each person will in charge of and read some theses about the dolmen in Ganghwa. Through this, I could learn the geographical benefits in ganghwa which could explain why there are so many dolmens located in this island. And the different types and shapes of dolmen according to their local culture. And also, during my research about ‘How worthy the dolmen culture of ganghwa would be?’, I realized this; Most Dolmens are concentrated in coast areas, and Dolmen of inland areas are seemed to be built far more later than dolmen in coast areas. It was an significant discovery for me because it means maybe Ganghwa could have played an important role for development of dolmen culture!

On the Second day

We started to write a script for presentation. the main thema was ‘the Alive museum’ and I wrote it based on the information from the WIKI page where we have uploaded the group research. And we also made the props for play; a crown to represent a tribe leader and ‘the dolmen’ made of boxes(To make this, around 50 papers were sacrificed to color it and thanks to two members as they’ve run out of notes.) Maybe someone could think it must be a bitter pill to swallow for us to make it with only 6 members, but it was not actually! As we had less members than others we could easily memorize team members’ names and had more responsibility to be perfect in what we are in charge of. We didn’t shift our responsibility to other or try to get less works only for one. Mostly, We could find out what problems each person have so that we could give her a hand right off the bat. During our preparation for presentation, I could feel this benefits with my heart!

At last, on the third day of camp

we met as earlier as we could and practiced around the clock except the time for bathroom. Literally, we did our best and there was no doubt for our effort to this presentation! When we left 30 minutes for the presentation, we went down stairs to practice on the stage where we will soon perform. I kept uttering the lines automatically to don’t forget my lines because of nervousness.

After everything was finished, I realized that my eyes hurt as I forgot to blink my eyes on the stage. seriously, It was one of the most nervous moment in my life. I worried since I don’t have any clue about how our presentation went. But when I went down stage, our teacher ‘Evgenia’ gave us a big smile and told us we did a good job! It was so touching for her to say that nicely. Other members and I were really upset for stuttering a lot on the stage since we were the first team. But surprisingly, maybe our effort was seen to the audience! We won the prize at the final! We are all on seventh heaven and busy to share this moment with members and teachers. At that time, as there were so many teams who did more creatively, we almost gave up for the hope for prize. But thankfully, our effort never betrayed us!

Through this Camp

I learned that Dolmen had many functions. It was used to display the authority of the group that created the tomb, or simply to mark the tomb. It was also an object of worship for ancient people. And Dolmens also worked as one of the legendary symbolic icons in our fairytales or in bedtime stories. Furthermore, dolmens have been remained Its popularity until Joseon Dynasty. According to this, I learned that dolmen is on of the most significant heritage which relates directly to our ancestors’ lives and ancient culture.

A day before the meeting with my members and teacher, I was bit worried since it was my first time to be a team leader in the global camp and for me who is the only one second grade in this team. And also we got only six members unlike other teams, and that’s whay some of my friends said that could be your team’s weak point. But they didn’t know sometimes the thing that we used to believe as a weak-point can be a strong-point! All we need to do is to take a look at it in a different point of view! As I mentioned above, our team members and teacher Evgenia taught me something more important which I could never know if I didn’t do this camp; Believe yourself and others. When you think you can make it than you have already on the road of success.

2018 Summer Personal Essay

'2018 Global Forum Camp Essay Writing'

topic: Educational institution of Goryeo and current educational institution

As It was my second participation for global camp, I was on seventh heaven to think about what we are gonna do in this time camp. But also a bit worried to meet our new team members and new teacher. But soon after meeting them I realized that my worries are foolish; especially since I saw our team teacher with big smile and also when team members introducing each other, I got to know that our team will have the best achievement among all other teams.

As this year is 1100th anniversary of Goryeo Kingdom, I have been curious about how Goryeo higher education have been organized itself. What was the management system, or people of which status could enter that school,....and what is more important, whether there were also typical math test which made students get sick of it.

So I suggested to team what if we investigate about Goryeo Education policies and university, and thankfully our team has accepted this idea. So after short discussion we decided on the topic; to compare the Education of Goryeo with Modern Education.

The part that I was in charge of in the team was a vice leader. My responsibility was to help leader and other students with research and try to answer all the questions that other members were confused about. And I was also in charge of entire steps with team leader so I tried to work hard until late night checking wrong information from other members’reports with leader. Well, even though It was very hard to stay late night(seriously, my eyes became red like a vampire.) But I could handle it as there were some funny weird translation from other members' reports. For example, someone translated team leader into 'sister-in-law'! what a weird translation system she used.

I also tried to be more responsible with my research. I looked for some information about Goryeo non-public education foundation ‘Mun hun gong do’ established by scholar Choi-chong and some major education policies related with them.

If I explain 'Mun hun gong do' easily, It could be called 'private academy'. what we normally could see on the street in Korea. Korean students mostly like to call it 'the place that we most hate to go after school.'. And during research, I started to get interested in this private academy's education system more and more.

I also conducted an investigation into how‘Mun hun gong do’ was operated, the educational system management, and the reputation of this education business at that time. And also some policies that Goryeo government operated to bring 'Guk ja gam' into life as‘Mun hun gong do’ became much popular than national school ’Guk ja gam’.

And I also wrote about the limitations of Goryeo education system during that age. It was quite difficult to find and compare each education policies. There are some differences between modern and past but it was very worthy to learn strengths and weaknesses of Goryeo Education system. it was also happy to imagine if I was a student of Goryeo to write those parts.

The most hard part was to translate old books and metaphysical subjects. As there were some old books which Goryeo students studied at 'Guk ja-gam' As I wasn’t an expert about old studies, it took long time to investigate all studies and organize my writing to make others to understand easily.

While doing this research I could learn there was also well-settled education system during Goryeo dynasty and it was very interesting to compare with today’s education system. For me it was very unique to see each Goryeo kings’ Education policies, especially king Seong-jong who established Guk-ja-gam, and this fact made me to respect them for their effort. In order to raise Confucian scholars and fine lieges’s support for the king was able to reign through this education system. And I was very lucky to compare two big education systems and it also amazed me that Goryeo which was a kingdom existed more than thousand years ago, has lots of coincidences with today advanced education system. Through this I could learn our ancestors’ knowledge. Also I started to think that I should keep working on for my dream to become the one who also invent creative education system for students and contribute to the future of Korean Education.