A Celestial Debate of Terrestrial Importance

Theological suspicions not withstanding, I propose Heaven to be a large coffee shop. More than this, a coffee shop in real Café du Monde style: white and blue tile, 15 foot ceilings, rod-iron tables scattered around huge round pillars. The beignets are always fresh and the weather perfect. On this day Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Emperor Hirohito share a pot of Café au lait and some of their thoughts. We enter the conversation as their discussion, strangely enough (and coincidentally a perfect topic for this blog), turns to English Teaching in South Korea……….

Masaryk: Are you really arguing that parents, who may or may not have any understanding of English and likely have no pedagogical experience, should be allowed to manipulate the goings on of a classroom at the behest of their own prejudices?

Hirohito: You know very well that I’m not saying that at all. I’m merely relaying to you the level of active participation that many East Asian parents consider natural. There are certain cultural differences that you should be aware of if you’re going to start criticizing an educational system.

Masaryk: So you admit it’s a problem?

Hirohito: I admit that most things involved with the very complex issue of education are capable of presenting any number of problems.

Masaryk: That’s a very Royal response, your majesty. But it doesn’t address the issue. Nor does it grapple with the clear social distinction made between a Korean teacher and a foreign “teacher.” You must understand that parents are bombarded daily with sensationalized stories of how western English teachers lack responsibility or training, are sexual deviant, addicted to drugs or worse. It doesn’t surprise me that parents who are inundated with this propagandistic nonsense feel they should act to preserve what they view as their child’s educational sanctity.

Hirohito: And what do you propose, dear president? Would you have the parents shipped off to “thought school” in Western countries to counter their own racial chauvinism? There are certain variables that simply have to be worked around. This may be one of them.

Masaryk: Exactly my point, oh enlightened one. It seems to me that the school administrators should act to thwart this kind of disruptive behavior. Yet they seem to encourage it by taking advantage of the lack of correspondence between English-speaking foreign teachers and Korean-speaking parents to make scapegoats out of teachers when problems inevitably arise.

Hirohito: You can’t really believe that these schools are purposely encouraging this? They have little to gain from tainting their instructors’ reputations just to quell the irrational reactions of some parents.

Masaryk: Well, I may have argued that last point a little over-zealously, but…..

--Both ghostly personalities are now focusing their attention on some elderly ghost stripping his robe off and pouring hot coffee over his chest.--

Hirohito: Who is that fool over there?

Masaryk: Oh, that’s the new guy, Kurt Vonnegut. He’s still in denial about the whole afterlife thing.

Hirohito/Masaryk: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…….

[I designed this post in flattering imitation of the scenes in Milan Kundera’s book Immortality where the late Goethe and Hemingway discuss the topic of their own remembrance. The topic has obviously been changed to suit a more current and practical interest.]