History of this Project!!
Si jak e ban e da! -- Starting is half!!
This site and the work below are the result of a semester-long odyssey by three high-school juniors and a teacher. We had varying degrees of expertise in the subject matter: two of the students are Koreans who are studying here in America, one student is from Belarus, and the teacher is American with a new passion for and commitment to Korean Culture but without a degree in the subject. So this fall we set out together to study Korean Culture and History and found, to our dismay, that there was not an appropriate textbook for us to use – one that was sufficiently thorough and easy to use for our work level. So we did the only thing we could think of . . . we set out to create our own.
Along the way, in addition to learning about Korean Culture and History, we learned a lot about what can and should go into a text book and how complex the process in and of itself is. Clearly we were in over our heads . . . at least with only a semester to work. We are all amateurs in this respect and this became less of a traditional “class” and more of an interesting, exciting and innovative “academic adventure.” The complexities both of the topic and of the process were both exciting and daunting, and we want to stress that this work is a “Living Draft” put together caringly and thoughtfully but also inexpertly by people who are simultaneously students and teachers.
What we have done instead is to create two things in one big project:
a) An annotated outline of what that textbook would look like if we had had more time and resources. This set of documents can also double as a detailed syllabus for a class that is created in the model of ours. We based it on a 15 week semester so the work is divided into 13 chapters leaving 2 weeks for flexibility, review, projects, etc.
b) Created “KACENet” – the Korean American Cultural Exchange Network. It is a living social-network that we will use to share our syllabus / outline with others and to create a 21st Century platform for all those interested in working on making the experience for schools richer by harnessing the synergy of the two cultures.
We are not done . . . . we still have the dream of writing the actual text book for the class and one day will be able to share that with you. For now, please look this over, send us your comments, suggestions, ideas, corrections, edits and anything else you would like that may contribute to this work. We will be sure to keep up our efforts and hope to make this a truly communal work.
Sincerely,
Mr. Mitchell’s “KCH” Class
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