A Day in the Life of a Korean

Ripley thought that Eric, the second person in which she was interviewing and following in their journey, had a very interesting background. He came from Minnetonka, Minnesota. A place where education was at very high standards along with very fancy high schools. His education and course load was similar to that of a college graduates. Eric wanted to challenge himself more, so he decided to move to a foreign country where Math, his favorite subject, would be taught in a different manner and also have a different meaning. Coming from a high school that ranked closely to Korea in Math performance, he decided to study abroad there for a year.

Eric didn’t really expect to surprise himself with what he was going to see in Korea. Stuffed subways, busy roads, overpopulation, and bad environmental conditions. He also expected the schools to be somewhat similar to the rest of the atmosphere. His host family tried as best they could to accommodate his needs. Eric was quickly situated to the atmosphere due to his expectations and preparedness. But he did not expect to see the totally different conditions of the students that were studying at the school itself.

About 70% of the class was sleeping when the teacher started class, Eric was baffled. He could not believe that this was what the students did in class to get such good math test grades and math skills. It simply did not make sense. He asked one of the Korean students how they pulled it off. They countered his question by asking him how many hours he spent at school. He was too dumbfounded to answer, so the Korean clarified his doubts by giving him a mind blowing number of hours that they had to stay in school… 16 hours. Unbelievable, all they did after school was finished, was study or go to special tutions for each subject. They would only come home to get a partial night’s rest, then it was back to school first thing in the morning. Kids in Korea practically lived at school.

The Later Years and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

        Jefferson left the post of president in the good hands of his close friend and long-time political ally, James Madison. Following his departure from the most powerful position in the government of the United States in 1809, Thomas Jefferson would spend the remainder of his life in Monticello, his manse in rural Charlottesville, Virginia that was an architectural representation of his character. Jefferson began the construction of Monticello in 1768 as his private home and finally finished it after the end of his presidency in 1809. Meacham described Monticello, stating that “the eleven-thousand-square-foot, thirty-three-room-house… in which he woke every morning was his joy,” and was filled with the “artifacts and emblems of America’s natural and political worlds.” The house contained numerous portraits, busts, statues, and artifacts of figures such as John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, and Jefferson himself. “Anything represented within Monticello was meaningful to Jefferson in some way to another.”          

          

          Jefferson’s final effort in his life was the founding of the University of Virginia. Meacham describes that for Jefferson, “education had been a perennial interest.” Jefferson further mentioned in a letter, “I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people,” further describing the importance he placed on education.  Jefferson began the construction of the University of Virginia in 1817 not far from his home, Monticello, where it would endure and education numerous generations of students into the present day.

          Over the course of his life, Thomas Jefferson accomplished a number of marvelous feats. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, served as Secretary of State, Vice President, and President. He doubled the size of the continental United States, kept the nation out of war, and founded a university. Yet, of all the great accomplishments that Jefferson is remembered for today, he listed three on his gravestone as what he believed to be his greatest accomplishments; those which he chose to be truly representative of his legacy. They include authorship of the Declaration of Independence, authorship of the Virginia bill of religious liberty, and founder of the University of Virginia. These listed accomplishments tell us a lot about what Jefferson chose to be remembered for. They tell us that Jefferson was a staunch supporter for individual rights, in both freedom and religion, and that he placed education at highest importance. In this manner Jefferson chose to perpetuate his legacy primarily with the importance of freedom and education, two of the qualities that have enabled him to reach his high status in early American society and have allowed him to make the weighty contributions in society and science that he had in his day. 

      

The Third President of the United States

         After a close election for the seat of the presidency in 1800, Thomas Jefferson was ultimately elected as the third President of the United States. Beginning his first term as president in 1801, Jefferson was at last at the helm of the American Experiment that he began. According to John Meacham's description of Jefferson's governing style, “Jefferson governed personally” and “preferred to project power without being showy about it.”

          During his tenure as President, Jefferson accomplished a number of notable feats, including the reducing federal taxes and spending, ending the uncouth practices of the Barbary pirates, funding the expedition of Lewis and Clark to explore the western region of the North American continent, and most notably doubling the size of the continental United States with the Louisiana Purchase as a result of his political maneuvers. Furthermore as president, Jefferson tried to redefine the balance of power between the state and federal governments, shifting power from the national government to the states, according his Democratic-Republican beliefs. Although not always true to his philosophy regarding strict adherence to the Constitution, as seen by his purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Thomas Jefferson was a visionary who sought to aggrandize the fame of the United States of America. The contradiction between Jefferson's actions and ideology can be further exculpated in light of the tense political climate at the time. During Jefferson’s presidency, there was intense partisan politics between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party. Moreover the Napoleonic Wars that were occurring in Europe complicated the foreign policy of the United States as relations with one European power would lead to antagonism from another. Jefferson, to keep his nation out of war, attempted to keep America neutral to the best of his ability.

          In this manner, Jefferson redefined politics in the United States. Jefferson, unlike the presidents before him, did a better job a placing the safety of his country ahead of his prestige as president. By viewing his country from a global picture, Jefferson was one of the first presidents who sought to solidify the United States at the international stage, as seen by his dealings with the Barbary Pirates, the Louisiana Purchase, and Neutrality. In doing so Jefferson developed a unique foreign policy that was continued by his successors. Furthermore, by accomplishing these feats, Jefferson reshaped the presidency of the United States into a position of both concealed power and effective leadership, an ideal that has been followed by numerous presidents since.

Jefferson at the National Stage

          In the years that followed the American Revolution, Jefferson held a number of political positions starting from delegate in the Continental Congress, to governor of Virginia, to ambassador to France under the Articles of Confederation government, to the Office of Secretary of State under the Constitutional government of George Washington, and later to the post of the Vice President under John Adams.  

          During the Articles of Confederation Government, Jefferson was appointed as the Ambassador to France. Required by his position to live in France in the five years following 1785, Jefferson naturally became a francophile and was enticed with French culture. According to Meacham, Jefferson “was a tireless advocate for things American while abroad, and a promoter of things European while at home,” and that “he created a role for himself as both intermediary and arbiter.”

          During his stay in France, Jefferson received from his colleague James Madison a draft of the newly written United States Constitution. Although Jefferson “did not like the omission of a declaration (bill) of rights,” Jefferson replied, “we must be contended to travel on towards perfection, step by step,” demonstrating his belief that reaching success in politics involved experimentation.

         Jefferson continued to practice this belief over the course of the following years, during his tenure in the positions of Secretary of State and Vice President. A strict adherent to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Jefferson was a firm believer in individual liberties and was wary of any hints of monarchical culture that tended to appear in politics. For this reason, Jefferson did not support the Federalist political views of the Presidents George Washington and John Adams, and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, which supported a strong national government with a national bank and the strengthening of relations with Great Britain. According to Meacham, Jefferson was unsettled by “the quasi-monarchical culture growing up around President Washington,” and saw Hamilton as “the embodiment of the deepest of republican fears: as a man who might be willing to sacrifice the American undertaking in liberty to the expediency of authority.” 

    

          Thus in order to prevent what he believed to be a potential threat of monarchy in the United States federal government, Jefferson conducted a revolutionary act by effectively establishing an opposition party of politicians, known as the Democratic-Republicans. Members of the Democratic-Republican Party, which included James Madison, Elbridge Gerry, and Jefferson himself, supported his view of strict adherence to Constitutional doctrine. In this manner, Jefferson altered the future of American politics and the American experiment by popularizing the opposition party, an institution still held in American politics today. This is yet another manner in which Thomas Jefferson has impacted the societal beliefs toward politics in the United States. 

Jefferson's Early Political Career

          As mentioned before, Jefferson consistently implemented the skills that he acquired in his education in his political career. Through contacts with members of the Virginia political circle in Williamsburg, such as royal governor Francis Faquier, Jefferson was soon elected as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. During this time period, however, tensions between the British and the Americans began to increase. Great Britain, incurring massive debts following the French and Indian War, began levying large taxes on commodities upon its American colonies to relieve themselves of the debt. The Americans, upset with the heavy taxation, began to protest against the British. The young Thomas Jefferson, speaking for the views of the American public, wrote the article, based on the Enlightenment ideas of individual liberty, which led him to fame. It was titled  A Summary View of the Rights of British America (or simply The Summary View). In it Jefferson mentioned, “ ‘… let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.’ ” According to Meacham, this work “moved Jefferson to the front ranks of the cause [of revolution], taking an advanced position.”

          As The Summary View circulated through the colonies, Jefferson quickly became a celebrity, and rose through the political hierarchy. By 1775, with the American Revolution underway following the battles of Lexington and Concord, Jefferson was elected a delegate to represent Virginia in the Second Continental Congress. By the year 1776, the war against taxation had transformed into a war for independence and the congressional delegates fostered a unanimous decision to break from the mother country. Jefferson, for his famed writing abilities, was assigned by his fellow members of congress to draft a Declaration of Independence. In this document, Jefferson utilized Enlightenment principles learned from his education, stating, “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and further mentioned that, “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”

          

          In using these words, Jefferson, reminiscent of a scientist, effectively initiated the American experiment, revolving around the creation of a democratic government under which all men would be created equal. However as no such form of government existed at that moment in time, it was left to Jefferson and his fellow Founding Fathers, by following the principles that he described in the Declaration of Independence, to conduct the American experiment through politics. Since his ideas were deeply embedded in the Declaration, Jefferson would develop a political ideology that practiced a strict observation of its principles. In this manner, Jefferson contributed to science by creating a new conservative American political ideology that was to be practiced for many years to come.   

           

The answer to our question

As I’ve previously hinted, George Johnson is a man that serves a very interesting purpose in helping draw some conclusions regarding how public figures and education can impact societal attitudes toward the sciences. He is a man that has a foot both inside and outside of the scientific community; he plays a role in both educating the public regarding cancer, and therefore building up societal respect of the sciences, while also uncovering some of the dirty secrets of statistics and those very same sciences; he is capable of writing a gripping story that conveys both information and emotion. He is therefore, in many ways, the ultimate answer to our question.

Through his book, Johnson conveys the story of Nancy’s survival of cancer as well as his own story of racing to uncover information about cancer so fluidly, combining the two in the method that is both interesting and easy to follow. He thereby appeals to countless audiences: those that are interested in the raw science, those who can relate to the horror of battling cancer, and those that enjoy a good story, to name just a few. He uses first-person emotions in a book laden with third-person style information, blending so many styles of writing together into one book. And the lasting impact is a book that few can put down, yet few can stop learning from.

            In doing so, Johnson clearly establishes himself as an important public figure, capable of educating a wide audience on a subject that is so central to numerous scientific debates at this time. He is capable of manipulating his platform, utilizing the talent and knowledge that he was blessed with, and greatly impacting his readers. And above all, answers our question. So, what impact can important political figures and education have on societal attitudes toward the sciences? Well, with the right techniques, just about any impact that is desired. In the case of Johnson, that lasting impact was the establishment of awe and mystique with regards to attitudes towards cancer, yet also resentment towards the crazy impacts that the sciences can have on a person’s life.

Johnson himself is the answer that we have sought throughout this entire project. He is a man that, through his literature, has made himself an impressive ambassador between literature and the sciences; he has crafted a book worthy of the New York Times’ attention, and in doing so, has modified the attitudes of society towards the sciences.

The truth about hospitals

Johnson provides us with an in-depth explanation of his experience at a local hospital, in which he described his encounters with doctors and nurses as rather unsettling, with many of these people clearly regarding Nancy’s life-or-death situation rather nonchalantly. Perhaps this is what occurs when one deals with numerous such situations on a day-to-day basis, but some things mentioned by these people are alarming and illogical, to say the least. For instance, Johnson and his wife “asked about a referral to an oncologist. That would be premature, the surgeon told us, until we knew what kind of cancer this was. She actually said that” (Johnson 36) and had an earlier experience with a doctor in which “she had been told by her doctor that she was experiencing unusually early menopause. The sign was irregular menstrual bleeding, and I still wonder why that was not taken as a warning…” (Johnson 36).

Such experiences in a hospital are downright puzzling, and unfortunately, do not seem to be all that uncommon in society. We are often told that a visit to the doctor will solve our problems, but in reality, there are not-so-infrequent lapses in those systems. As a result, the public gains a negative perception of hospitals, and concurrently, of the sciences.

And thus, Johnson presents another method in which perception can impact societal attitudes towards the sciences. People are naturally skeptical of things that they don’t understand; that is the reason why Johnson embarked on the journey of learning everything that he possibly could about cancer and wrote this book, as he said in preface of the book. As a result, those that are not involved in the sciences come to distrust it greatly, and a fair number leave hospitals with contempt for the medical bills they are forced to pay and the treatment that does not meet their expectations; Johnson and his wife were no different. Due to this fact, public opinion is greatly able to sway societal attitudes towards the sciences, often in a negative manner.

This idea, as well as some of those that were previously examined, help to illustrate the exclusiveness of the sciences. There are a very select group of individuals that understand them and a few more that respect them, but generally speaking, those that are outside of the scientific community tend to not trust them. As a result, we see a dichotomy of attitudes towards the sciences: overwhelmingly positive for those that are members of the scientific “community,” and skeptical for those that are not considered part of that same community. It is difficult to discern which community Johnson falls in; he is clearly very educated on the subject of cancer, but that only became the case as he excavated information as a result of his wife’s diagnosis. Perhaps Johnson is best described as a person that was not a member of the scientific community prior to writing this book, but his research for the literary work has clearly brought him into that community.