▶ Interview
Joon-ho Kang, Dean of the College of Education and a Member of the Olympism 365 Commission
Human growth results from challenges. If humans avoid challenges, they will be embroiled in familiarity and will not be able to achieve arete (excellence) in their pursuits. This is why Dean Joon-ho Kang of the College of Education emphasizes a departure from familiarity or challenge, who has been building his solid arete through his active engagement in various subfields of the sports world.
This may be because it is the year of the Paris Summer Olympic Games. We hear more than ever about Olympism, proclaimed by Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic
Games. Olympism, referring to the philosophy of the Olympic Games, emphasizes the roles of sports in contributing to the balanced development of the mind and body, enhancing
social solidarity, and promoting harmonious development and peace for humanity. This Olympism corresponds precisely to the goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
determined by the United Nations (UN) as its 2030 agenda at the 70th General Assembly in 2015. Under these circumstances, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most
authoritative international sports administrative body and host of the Olympic Games, newly added the Olympism 365 Commission in 2020 to help achieve the SDGs of the UN.
Considering these factors, we understand why the Olympism 365 Commission appointed Dean Kang as its member in late 2023.
This is because Dean Kang is the director of the Dream Together Master (DTM) project before the SDGs of the IOC Olympism 365 Commission and the UN were promoted. The DTM, which
was resolutely launched in 2013 by Dean Kang in collaboration with the government, is South Korea's representative national project for official development assistance (ODA) in
sports, which discovers and trains next-generation sports administrators in developing countries. It is an innovative global talent development project where next-generation
sports administrators from around the world and the global dream team faculty meet at the SNU platform. To date, 247 people from 57 countries have completed the DTM and
returned to their home countries to work in various fields as young and capable sports administrators.
“The most essential part of operating the DTM is integrity. Our primary goal is to provide practical assistance to the development of sports for developing countries based on
unilateral goodwill by training sports administration leaders. As a result, DTM graduates are truly grateful to South Korea and SNU, considering them their second hometown.
This unwittingly contributes significantly to the mid- to long-term interests and development of South Korea. For example, an executive officer from the Ministry of Youth and
Sports of Malaysia returned after graduation from the DTM and actively assisted South Korean screen golf companies in entering the local market. Moreover, a deputy director
from the Ministry of Health and Sports Mongolia took their time and expressed their sincere gratitude during their business trip to South Korea, saying, “Thank you so much for
effectively teaching our students.” After more than 10 years of solid provision, the DTM has become firmly established as a program that sports administrators from around the
world are eager to attend. The IOC is likely to recognize that the DTM project is appropriate for achieving the SDGs of the UN.”
Marking its fourth anniversary, the Olympism 365 Commission has just begun its activity period due to the COVID-19 situation and preparations for the Paris Olympics. For this
reason, this organization has yet to have its main agenda and direction of forthcoming activities, despite its genuine willingness to actively cooperate with DTM in the future.
Immediately after Dean Kang was appointed as a commission member, Auvita Rapilla, Chair of the Olympism 365 Commission, sent a letter to Dean Kang with the message, “I would
like to closely discuss ways to cooperate with DTM.” Afterward, Dean Kang held a video conference with the IOC and met with Chair Rapilla in Paris, where the Olympic Games were
held at the end of July, to detail the direction of cooperation.
“The past 10 years of experience and achievements could add up to the new challenge of the IOC in resolving various problems the world is confronting through sports. It is
highly rewarding and meaningful to me. This series of processes becomes a new challenge to me as well.”
Dean Kang emphasized that “challenge is a value that all people should pursue and practice throughout their lives, rather than a great virtue only for leading figures like Elon
Musk.” The essence of the challenge is a departure from familiarity, which is the starting point for me to grow and change this world.
“Familiarity includes customary practices, social conventions, and comfort zones. Although humans instinctively prefer familiarity and comfort, they also choose to depart from
familiarity by taking on challenges. A constant inquiry into “why” regarding oneself and the world and finding the answer is a challenge, and the result is growth. Arete, or
excellence, as Aristotle remarked, cannot be achieved without challenges. In this respect, all human growth and excellence, as well as that of their organizations, result from
their challenges. Moreover, challenges are a value interconnected with freedom, innovation, and growth in that they are an expression of free will that opposes familiarity. The
human endeavor where the value of challenge is the most prominent is sports. Sports, which push human limits, are an act that strives for the growth of the whole man through
the harmonious development between body and mind, beyond promoting
physical health or leisure activities.”
Just as the activities of the Olympism 365 Commission freely cross traditional boundaries of sports, Dean Kang is concurrently taking on challenges beyond the field of sports.
One typical example is his role as Dean at the College of Education. The challenge chosen by him, who has led the College of Education since the end of February 2022, is to
build a foundation for shifting the paradigms of future education from a teaching-centered mass education into a personally customized learning-centered education. To transform
the conventional education system, whose focus is on the efficient delivery of standardized knowledge to an unspecified number of students as goods are manufactured in a
factory, into personally customized education that considers the learning patterns and differences of individual students, he believes that there is an urgent need for a new
approach beyond traditional education sciences based mainly on humanities and social sciences. This is “learning science”.
Dean Kang selected learning science, which examines the learning phenomena of humans and explores brain sciences, data sciences, and artificial intelligence as well as
education sciences in a convergent and integrated manner as one of the future core research fields. He established the Learning Science Research Institute, the first of its
kind in South Korea, in September 2023. As Dean Kang began his second consecutive term as Dean of the College of Education in February 2024, he initiated yet another challenge.
“The SNU College of Education is required to create its empowered identity to actively respond to pivotal changes in the education environment due to the decline in the
school-age population and to be recognized for its unique value within this research-oriented university. Over the past 76 years, the College of Education has been faithful to
its role as a teacher-training college. However, despite a sea change in the National Teachers’ Qualification Exam in 1991, it is unfortunate that we have not taken any
practical measures. Fortunately, many professors at the College of Education shared this awareness of the problem, and via an in-depth deliberation process for a year and a
half, the general faculty meeting reached the final decision to establish learning science as an undergraduate major rather than a teacher training major.”
The challenges he faces as a sports scientist are also tough. Sensitive to terminology and concepts, he raises an issue with the term “physical education.”
“The term ‘physical education’ (體育) started with a translation of the subject ‘Physical Education’ as Japan accepted modern Western civilization, and its meaning has gradually
expanded. This term is based on the mind-body dualism, in which the body and mind are separate. However, this term may not be appropriate from the monistic view of man, in
which the human body and mind are different properties of the same entity and closely interact. The UN and Europe define “sports” as a broader term encompassing all acts
purposefully aimed at any physical activity, such as exercise and fitness. In East Asia, where the influence of Japan is dominant, “sports” is used identically to “physical
education.” As words such as media, computers, and design are used as foreign words without translation, sports in the globalization era is a term that requires no
translation.”
This is why Dean Kang introduces himself as a sports scholar rather than a physical education scholar. What results in the “challenge story” of Dean Kang, who endlessly faces
challenges in various fields, produces in the future? What is intelligible here is that his challenges contribute to the innovation of the sports world and the College of
Education.
