Korea has a Nobel Prize for literature. Finally. And there was a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to former President Kim Dae-jung. But where are the other prizes?

If Korea were to win its second Nobel Prize, it would move from the 29 countries with one prize — countries like Yemen, Nigeria, Iceland and the Faroe Islands — to the group of 16 countries with two prizes — like East Timor, Saint Lucia and Liberia. This would move Korea up in the world, but it is still a third-world, underdeveloped country in its Nobel Prize standing.

This is painful for Korea. Korea prides itself on its standing in the world — the number 10 economy, or is it 11 or 12. Nonetheless, a great source of pride for a country that was once, clearly, the doormat of nations. After the Japanese occupation and the ravages of the Korean War, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world.

As it started to emerge in the world, as its standing climbed on various scales, from my point of view as one who has been studying Korea for 59 years, I started to call Korea the "Rodney Dangerfield of nations.” For younger people who don't remember Rodney Dangerfield on the Johnny Carson show and elsewhere, he was the comedian whose schtick was to say, “I tell ya, I get no respect.” And then he would joke about what people would do to disrespect him. Korea was somewhat like that. They didn't get any respect.

That's all changed now. Except for the Nobel Prizes. Korea does well in the Olympics, they compete in the marketplace. They have won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. Korean dramas are popular all over the world. And K-pop and the Korean wave are recognized everywhere. But for Nobel Prizes, they are still in the cellar. Why?

From my point of view, it's the educational system. The Korean educational system is at once the best in the world and the worst in the world. It is certainly the best in many regards. Graduation rates from high school and college are the envy of nations around the world. On a personal note, my students from Korea in my classes in America, were usually the top students in the class. The best educational system in the world. For memorization of facts.

But the system might be the worst in the world — with a bit of hyperbole, admittedly, in that it has not created a Nobel Prize winner in physics, medicine, or chemistry. And only one in literature — Japan has three. And Japan has 31 overall.

Is it a question of creativity? Is it an issue of overreliance on memorization? Is it a factor of education on facts more than education on exploration and discovery?

Readers of this column know of my interest in promoting "sijo" in America and around the world. But when I tell Korean friends I'm interested in sijo they will often say something like, “Oh sijo, poetry!, like a long time ago.” Thinking of sijo as a historic artifact, not a creative enterprise for students and adults in today's world.

And why is that? It's because sijo is taught in the schools as a dead art, something where you memorize one or two of the poems of the masters and then you forget about it. You don't write a sijo. You don't enter a sijo contest. It's a dead art form. A chance to foster creativity is lost by not teaching how to write your own sijo.

And what's true for my beloved sijo, is largely true for other forms of poetry and other forms of creative writing.

Korea is still stuck in the Joseon dynasty as far as education and testing are concerned, except that the Joseon dynasty testing was more creative. Today's bubble test sheets are not creative. However, to write an essay in response to a test question is highly creative. And that's what the Joseon dynasty testing was like. The tests were all essay exams. There were no bubble sheet exams in the Joseon dynasty!

I understand that there are some innovations in testing these days, but still, the focus of the exams is on facts. That's wonderful, as a beginning, but if it stops there, it shortchanges the student. The student is not creatively analyzing an issue necessarily. He is not exploring options or outcomes.

But Korea is innovative. Korea ranked No. 1 on the Bloomberg Innovation Index — yes, there is such a thing. And Korea ranks highly on patents and copyrights. And Korean movies and song productions are highly creative. But these things are long after finishing school.

The Korean educational system is excellent, yet, when a student graduates from college and goes into government or industry or business, they often go through a yearlong training program to learn how to do things in the government of business. Education after education. Or education for what was missed in college. This is rather a statement of the inadequacy of Korean education, no?

There's no postcollege training session for getting a Nobel Prize. And the lack of creativity in the educational process might be to blame for Korea's third-world status in Nobel Prizes.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.