▲ Success Competence Lab / Director Minah Oh

It has been quite a while that ‘self-directed learning’ took the center stage of the Korean education industry. The longtime practiced ‘rote-learning’ exhausted both students and teachers and they have been thirst for understanding, creative and logical learning methods. As always has been a case, private academies and institutes took the initiative and they are exerting to offer better and more efficient ways of self-directed learning. Among them, Success Competence Lab seems to be running ahead.

“Memorizing is an important part of learning. What we’ve missed here is understanding. Memorizing comes effective when accompanied understanding. And understanding motivates self-directed learning because they want to know more since they have understood. Also important is grasping one’s aptitude and talent. This is especially crucial for parents and teachers as understanding comes nothing at the end without them” says Oh.

Rote-learning does not necessarily means memorizing knowledge, continues Oh, but copying the successful. “Each one has each different way of doing things. We must not force one to follow the way the successful has walked through. That’s more like a process of stamping out rings from metal sheets.”

Below are four things Oh points out for parents:

Find out what your children are good at or what things they like.
Find out possible jobs they might like to do in the future.
Take them to the places of their interest on a regular basis.
Support their learning.

Alongside self-directed learning, Oh emphasizes on the three core competences that are needed for the impending age of the 4th Industrial Revolution. First of all, it is ‘cognitive competency’ to discern helpful information from not helpful. Secondly, it is ‘relations competency’ to engage with people more efficiently. Lastly, it is ‘execution competency’ to put ideas and plans into practice. These three core competences are especially important when it comes to startups.  

Below are three efficient ways to make your startup a success:

Gather A to Z information for your business idea.
Study how the successful made a success.
Brand your business.

Currently, Oh is on her master’s degree at Korea University. Some say to her “you’re already a successful career woman and why do you need that degree?” Then she answers “learning is a life-long process and I got to get deeper for what I want to know.” She added “Life is like a marathon. You have no choice but to push yourself as far as you can run once you are on the track.”