An email turned blog entry about education in Korea:
School "lets out" at 6:00 for a one hour dinner (which most of the boys spend playing computer games at an Internet cafe) and then at 7 it's back to school for study hall. The Korean teachers supervise the students but don't teach--though I think they do a lot of helping. Most kids go home after 10 but a lot of them go to the library for extra studying--one of my girls told me on Tuesday that sometimes she sleeps at the school library because it's open 24 hours. Ridiculous!! The ones who go home stay up until 12 or 1 doing homework and then go to back to school at 8 am (but the first class doesn't start until 9 am)
It's not in the least bit effective. The Korean education system is seriously flawed. The kids are always falling asleep in class and the teachers (understandably) let them sleep because they know the kids are up all night studying. However, it's a very negative cycle. The students would learn much more if they paid attention and stayed awake in class where a professional in that field can help them rather than staying up all night doing misguided self study. But you should know, they aren't purely doing study. A lot of them take naps during study hall, secretly send text or chat on their phones, draw, read books, or pass notes. Supervising teachers are more like the noise police--study hall must be absolutely quiet with no talking at all. So, as you can see, the study hall system is actually detrimental. Students are too tired to really internalize the things they read, disciplined study is not enforced which breeds bad habits for their college careers, and when learning is most important (during class) the kids are sleeping which the sympathetic teachers allow. Myself and my fellow foreigners maintain that if the kids simply stayed awake in class with maybe a couple hours of disciplined and structured study hall, the kids could live happier, healthier lives with a good amount of sleep each night.
But the issue goes deeper.
First, in Korea, teaching is becoming almost unnecessary because most concentration is focused on self study and Korean teachers do little more than read from the text book which the kids are already doing on their own. It's an odd facet of contradiction within Korean culture when Confucianism designates the teacher as the most respected person in society--a value still held by many people today--yet the teacher is doing the least respectable work. Why should society have teachers if students can just learn everything from a book?
Second, Korean high schools have departed from their traditional roots which maintained that education for the sake of education is a valuable pursuit. Today, the only reason for education in Korea is to enter a university. Every month, classes (but not school) are cancelled for three days so that the students can practice the University Entrance Exam (like the SAT). All students in high school take this test each month, not just the seniors. While I do think that this could be a very valuable addition to our own education system at home (because so many people are unprepared for the SAT or any standardize), I think that once every month breeches the confines of reason and is rather excessive. When schools allow testing to take place so frequently, the students stop focusing on actually learning. They get stressed out with the pressure to improve their score, with the pressure to make their school look good, and with the pressure from their parents and society to enter the best university possible. Being well-read in literature isn't important--only comprehension and vocabulary. Reasoning and problem solving isn't valued--only facts and statistics. That's partly why math and science have become so important in Korean culture. They don't require students to think critically, only to plug in data and apply equations--not that this is bad, but it makes one's education incomplete and flawed. So when the whole system is only based on passing a test, it makes students complacent and unmotivated to acquire new skills and knowledge for their own benefit or the benefit of others. Perhaps you could say that the education system has become goal-driven to a flaw.
When it comes time to enter a university, students are tired of studying. They don't want to work hard and they don't. It's only about the name of the school in Korea--not the quality of education. But that's not unique to colleges and universities. The same thing can be said of high schools which are also ranked and competed for in a similar fashion. I teach at a second rate school where as my friend Courtney teaches at the number one school in our city. However, I actually teach at my school and she just plays games, and it's not the difference in our teaching styles--her school really doesn't expect teachers to teach because their students are fast learners and can do self-study with decent exam results. At any rate, once you've made it to college, the goal has been reached--there's nothing left to motivate to excellence. As a result, university expectations are ridiculously low and few students actually graduate with satisfactory skills/knowledge. But I guess I can't say that about all professions--the computer geeks are amazing here. Korea is the world leader in information technology but it's no wonder where their interest in cyber land comes from--who would want to live in reality when you can make your own world and control it however you want?
That's a whole 'nother black-hole-of-a-topic.
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