The one about Venus and stuff

Several years ago, in 2004, I started a search for solar filters for my binoculars so that I could watch the transit of Venus.  It was not easy!  If you live in Korea, you know how nearly impossible it is to get specialized items, so you can imagine that in 2004 it was even harder.  However, I eventually found a little astronomy club in Seoul that ran a shop for that sort of thing and I got my lens filters.  They worked great!

Unfortunately, the transit of Venus took place for us in Korea late in the day, so it would be visible only during sunset.  It was also on a work day.  I told the hagwon owner where I worked what was going on, that the transit was a rare event we would probably only see once more in our lifetimes.  I also suggested that since I had the binoculars and the filters, the middle school children might be interested in the phenomenon, too.  We could talk about it and then maybe look up information about Venus.  Hagwon owners are notoriously anti-education, and lest you think that it is strange for educational institutions to be anti-education, let me remind you that hagwons are for-profit businesses and are run as such.  Not only did the hagwon owner say no, emphatically, he forbade me to go outside during work to see the transit of Venus.  Of course, I went outside anyway, and some of the students came with me to see this rare event for themselves.  I'm a teacher; I'm not a businessman specializing in education for profit.  The business of education in Korea gets in the way of education all the time here.  This was just one example that I experienced, a rather glaring example of why Koreans don't learn anything.  They are some of the most ignorant and ill-informed people on the face of earth.  They start out with curiosity just like anyone else, but the business of education, that reach for the almighty won, squashes curiosity in favor of the ruts that lead to company jobs and million-dollar apartments in Gangnam.  Don't ever tell me that Koreans are better learners than Americans.  The only thing Koreans do better is memorize formulas, equations, and facts.  Americans go outside and see the world, experience the universe, learn for the sheer joy of learning whether it makes them rich or not.