Can euthanasia be justified or not?

     About couple months ago, one news article about Euthanasia controversy was published on New York Times. Mainly, it was about Ms. Nyirahabiyambere, an African living in U.S. as a foreigner, who had to rely on a plastic tube for nutrition after she became a human vegetable by a sudden stroke. Although no improvements were made by the treatment using a plastic tube, the family including Mr. Ndayishimiye strongly disagreed to remove plastic tube from Ms. Nyirahabiyambere. There were ongoing conflicts between the court and her family, on whether plastic tube should be remained or removed. After several clashes, the tube was finally removed. This case is a typical example of issue regarding euthanasia, which is the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering. Regarding this, the news mentioned above can be generalized into whether euthanasia can be legalized or not. In fact, this topic has been a controversial issue for a very long period of time and ongoing clashes about euthanasia are still taking place in many countries, including Korea. In my opinion, Euthanasia should be legalized by the law, considering the fact that its benefits further outweigh its drawbacks and problems.

     First and foremost, legalizing euthanasia can remove financial burden for families who take care of patients relying on life-extending apparatus. In many cases, patients have to pay extreme amount of money on retaining such tubes and equipment. Also, it is not sure whether patients will revive from vegetation status, with a very low probability. If removing these equipment although patients are not likely to get recovered is not allowed, families have to pay tremendous amounts of finances for a long time. In other words, families have to waste their money on tasks that are almost impossible to be solved. Therefore, by legalizing euthanasia, families of these patients can get out of serious financial burdens. Some opponents might raise a question about the possibilities of abusing euthanasia in sinister purposes. They claim that the concept of human life can get severely devaluated and as a result, practicing euthanasia can be related with illegal organ trafficking, which is selling person’s organ illegally in order to make a profit. Not only that, doctors can order to operate euthanasia without careful examination, because of the nuisance process. However, this problem can be solved by strengthening the supervision of the process. Providing rigorous standards on hospital and prohibiting the access to the process of euthanasia, except doctors and medical agencies would be a plausible solution.

     In addition, euthanasia fully ensures patient’s right to die comfortably and keep out of pain. Patients are exposed to severe pains when their life is artificially extended by medical equipment. If the purpose of these medications is merely a life extension, it is very meaningless considering all the pains patients can receive. Also, patients have rights to decide whether to die or remain their life by life-extending medication, since it is their life, not doctors’ or families’. Maybe, some will argue that it is not clear whether patients want to give up their life or not, after they are in a state of vegetable. Because patients are in a state where it is impossible for them to communicate, it is obviously impossible to know their choice. Again, this statement can be rebutted by a possible solution; making it mandatory for citizens to sign up for agreements on euthanasia. When signing up for medical insurance or becoming an adult, governments can have every citizen to agree with documents stating that euthanasia would be practiced when they are in a vegetal state and have almost no possibility of revival.

           To sum up, it is absolutely reasonable to legalize euthanasia by the law without any shadow of doubt. As it is mentioned above, euthanasia removes the financial burden for patients’ families and provides patients right to die comfortable without any pain. Although there is still an ongoing conflict, nations that have not yet legalized euthanasia should be urged to allow it, which can both help patients and the whole society.

Our education in crisis

     There is one boy in the class, who is well-rounded, gets a good score on school exams, but is so sick of the pressuring school environment. What he sees in his ordinary school life is students penalized and hit by teachers and teachers giving out offensive comments to students. He is not interested in asking questions, or giving out his opinion, since a fear of making mistakes surrounds him. His interests only lie on getting a good score on tests and not getting recognized as a troublemaker by teachers.

     This is how I was used to be when I was a middle school student, even until 1 year ago. The coercive boys-only school environment was what made me afraid of talking to teachers and presenting my opinions. I totally sympathized with my heart when Robinson said “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not be original”. I actually was afraid to be wrong during my middle school life since I would get penalized or hit, and this really prevented me from giving out my own personal opinions which could have been creative. In fact, when I came to KMLA, where there are a lot of ongoing interactions between students and teachers, I was somewhat reluctant to share my opinions or ask questions freely.

Unfortunately, this is a reality in many ordinary Korean schools, although my middle school was more serious. There is no such environment suited for enriching student’s creativity; especially in high schools in Korea, teachers are only interested in making students enter top-level universities. When going down streets, people can easily notice big banners where high schools show off their students’ successful college admission results. This is how education is like in vast majority of Korean schools. Creativity is not required; students must succeed on admission tests, without making mistakes and fallacies. Parents are also what exacerbate this situation. They are desperately interested in what sort of universities their kids enter. In short words, nobody who is engaged in the whole system of education is interested in raising student’s creativity.

Most important reason, however, lies on Korean society as a whole, not on individuals such as parents and teachers. Korean society had experience such a great and unprecedented development in economy, during 1960s to 1990s. A skilled worker was in great need, as mass production of goods was significant to economic development. As Robinson claimed “industrial development gave an importance to subjects such as math”, Korea was of no difference. Plus, uniformity and standardization, which are concepts directly opposite to raising creativity, were highlight. Considering opinions of individuals are useless for mass production, it is obvious that creativity was shadowed by the need to implant unified knowledge to students. Some people claim that this social development is a universal phenomenon that took places all around the world. However, Korea went through this stage very rapidly and recently unlike any other countries. Therefore, our society tends to neglect the importance of creativity more seriously.

Now, what is the importance of creativity? We should bear in our mind that 21^st century is when service industry is the main industry of a whole society. Fashion, advertisement, arts and tourism, which all needs creativity is some examples of service industry. Nobody likes to wear clothes that are ordinary and banal. Nobody is attracted to such a dull advertisement. A lot of important jobs in contemporary society require one to have a creativeness, an ability to create new things that possesses value. Some people would wonder if their children is not going to enter any design schools or apply for auditions, getting a good score on mid-term exam is the most important task. However, let’s say there is a professor who teaches biology at university. If his lectures are boring and repetitious without any stimulus that interests students, he would become unpopular among them. Also, if his researches are not novel, then his papers would fail to attract any interests in the field of biology, where numerous theses are presented day by day. This just elaborates how creativity does work in most jobs of 21^st century.

Luckily, I believe KMLA’s situation is much better than any other ordinary schools of Korea. Most importantly, the ratio of teacher to students is much lower than normal Korean schools, where 40 students are sitting in single classroom. In other words, students have more chance of communicating with instructors, which can lead students to develop their creative opinion. Also, teachers in KMLA are ready to listen to students’ own opinion, whereas in many Korean schools, teachers are just busy at finishing the assigned pages. For students, they can find themselves engaged in diverse club activities, which is related to sports and arts. These activities are not just nominal, but help student learn who they are and find their own individuality. It is true that KMLA students, or KMLAnians face a wall of university entrance just like ordinary Korean students. Nevertheless, I think life in KMLA is much more suited to enhance students’ creativity.

From a young student’s view, a lot of things seemed so different when I first attended Canadian school. Entering the classroom for the first time with a bit of tension, I noticed that tables are all in different shapes and arranged in a position which makes it easier for students to have discussions and communications. It was contrary to what I had seen in Korea, where all schools are designed same with gray-colored and square-shaped classrooms which have 40 identical chairs and desks. The classroom itself isn’t yet sufficient to encourage students think creatively. These trivial things directly show how creativity is devaluated in Korean education. Without any shadow of hesitation, I strongly believe if Korean society does not seek its way to raise students’ creativity, its future is hopeless without any competitiveness.

A controversy on KMLA’s new meal time policy

     From beginning of this new semester, KMLA’s disciplinary office had changed its policy on student’s meal time. Traditionally, the 3^rd graders who are the oldest among students, had a privilege of eating lunch and dinner first, and then the younger students including the 2^nd and the 1^st graders could get their meal. This policy had taken its place solidly in KMLA until the last semester, but it is now changed. Since the 3^rd graders seem to abuse their privilege in order to get much food regardless of the amount, the head of the student disciplinary office, Mr. Sung, had claimed on reformation.

     A new meal time policy is that the order of getting meals will be rotated with an interval. Also, younger students will get their meal prior to older students in the first few days of the 2^nd semester. After one interval ends, students who previously ate earliest will be placed last in the order. For example, 1^st graders ate lunch and dinner first, then 2^nd graders, and then 3^rd graders were allowed to come to cafeteria for their meals until September 7^th. After September 7^th, when one interval ends, 2^nd graders can eat first and 1^st graders are the last to eat their lunch and dinner.

     As expected, the new policy has stimulated a controversy over many students. Seniors, of course, were the ones who fiercely disagreed with this modification. Since they had previously obtained priority on getting meals, they somewhat felt that they have lost one of their privileges which they should naturally receive as the oldest among all students. A senior Kim Bum-Soo has claimed that there is no such reason for changing previous meal time policy. He said “no differences are made by changing the orders of receiving meals, and for showing a respect towards older students, previous meal policy should be reinstalled”.

     There are a lot of different opinions among sophomores and freshmen. A sophomore Kim Chan-Jung said, “there seem to be a lot of complains regarding this new rule. If the purpose of this policy is to make every person get proper amount of food, school should rather make every student not take food more than the proper amount”. However, one of the 1^st graders Kim Seung-Min insisted “seniors should definitely be respected, but it is not logical that they should be exempt from the rule just because they are busy”.

     About two weeks have passed since the installment of new policy regarding meal order of students. Although a large proportion of students show disagreement, Mr. Sung seems to advocate this policy, saying it would be observed unless the 3^rd graders change their attitudes and consider other students who may have not gotten proper amount of food because of them. At this point, whether the new policy will remain solidly is quite unsure. Above all, however, it is true that all students need to think of others, and respect cafeteria etiquettes so that everyone can get proper amount of meals.

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     This is what I have submitted for applying Harbinger, an English newspaper club which is mainly organized by students of special-purpose high school (it's a kind of high school like KMLA). Since articles in newspaper have to remain objective, I excluded my personal opinions, except saying "Above all, however, it is true that all students need to think of others, and respect cafeteria etiquettes so that everyone can get proper amount of meals". Personally, I like this new policy because it feels like everyone is being equal; but as mentioned above, who knows this policy will be continued or not?