The Korean education system and me.
The Korean education system is well different. Different certainly from home. The public school system is fairly uniform. The kids start at 9am and finish around 2.3opm. They study Korean, English, Maths, Social studies and Science. Nothing unusual so far. However, unlike the tiddlywinks from Scotland, or most of the Western World they do not then head home for an hour or two of homework, some x-box, dinner and bed. Oh no, at this time they enter the realm of the hagwons.
Hagowns are essentially private academies that teach or tutor the kids in a variety of different disciplines. It's mostly English, Science, Math and Korean, however they also teach things like Piano or ping-pong. I teach at two of the hagwons. The first is a more of a typical example of a Korean hagwon. It's areas of expertise is in Math and Science but is now running an English program. The specific hook of our program is that we teach through debate. We go through arguments and we explain the topics to begin. The students then come back again with prepared speeches, where go through some rebuttals, do exercises and finally they have a debate. The other place I teach at is also a hagwon or an academy. It has been set up as pure debating academy, with less emphasis on English per se and more on debate development. (Well it was but that is another kettle of fish...)
Now I would like to say that the only hagwons that my students go to is mine. However, that is certainly not the case. Most students will attend a variety of these hagwons in a normal week. A student might go to a Math hagown after school, grab som dinner and then go to an English hagwon. They will then get out around Ten O'Clock. Some students then go to more late, late hagwons and work until after midnight. Others will often recieve some private tuition at home around midnight. This schedule is fairly routine for a middle schooler, i.e they do not have any formalised exams that I understand. However, when they go to High School and have exams, then really turn the amps to eleven. Students will usually have a hagwon before school starts and many do personal study and complete their homework until three or four in the morning. At Daewon, we had student assistants who had finished and were waiting to graduate in March. She told me that for many high school students, three hours of sleep was not out of the ordinary. Three hours! Now I can appreciate that students should study hard for exams. However, there are limitations and I cannot help but think that those limits have been completely exceeded. These schedules are not merely intense, but they are brutal. Children going to educational institutions for fifteen hours a day is not acceptable. Grown men and women in the West would balk at this, yet its somehow the normal life for many Korean teenagers. Unless you are Margaret Thatcher or a Universal Soldier, I think you deserve a nights sleep longer than The Return of the King. Does it suprise you to know the rates of suicide amongst Korean students are amongst the highest in the world? And it is not as if everyone is bound for Harvard after all of of this. Korean children are on the whole very bright and display really impressive levels of natural intelligence. However, some of them are window lickers and all the education in the world cannot change that.
Now I did not create the Korean education system, but I do work in it. My presence does not change what it is or is not. I would like to think as well that the time my students spend with me is not the most mundane or gruelling that they experience. There is usually a lot of humour in my classes and I am sure most of them enjoy that at least. However, something that I am having a hard time dealing with, is the fact I am ultimately complicit in a system that I have fundamental moral problems with. Kids studying as much as they do here, is in my opinion just wrong. Its the robbery of their childhoods. For many of us, the narrative of our day to day existences is one grinding, repetitive and disheartening drudgery. Alas, that is life. However, I think the one thing we can do is at least give children the opportunity to be children. And I do not believe this society does this adequately.
One thought that may spring to the minds of the thousands of readers that I have is: "Did you not know this before I went." Erm, well yes actually. However, I sort of glossed over that as I imagined a perfect year extolling the virtues of debating for a year whilst I had an incredible cultural experience. Also, just as there is a difference between reading about inhuman conditions in a prison and actually smelling the shit bucket in a cell, there is a difference in reading about sleep deprivation and seeing kids fall asleep in class. I am not a perfectly principled person as all of you will know. However, I like to think that on the whole I am a pretty sound guy. I think when we make choices and decisions in our lives, we take the responsibility for them. I choose to go work in this system every day. I think that choice is a bit of a shitty one.
I know I promised more positivity in the blog, but well it seems I lied. Sorry Alex.
The Korean education system is well different. Different certainly from home. The public school system is fairly uniform. The kids start at 9am and finish around 2.3opm. They study Korean, English, Maths, Social studies and Science. Nothing unusual so far. However, unlike the tiddlywinks from Scotland, or most of the Western World they do not then head home for an hour or two of homework, some x-box, dinner and bed. Oh no, at this time they enter the realm of the hagwons.
Hagowns are essentially private academies that teach or tutor the kids in a variety of different disciplines. It's mostly English, Science, Math and Korean, however they also teach things like Piano or ping-pong. I teach at two of the hagwons. The first is a more of a typical example of a Korean hagwon. It's areas of expertise is in Math and Science but is now running an English program. The specific hook of our program is that we teach through debate. We go through arguments and we explain the topics to begin. The students then come back again with prepared speeches, where go through some rebuttals, do exercises and finally they have a debate. The other place I teach at is also a hagwon or an academy. It has been set up as pure debating academy, with less emphasis on English per se and more on debate development. (Well it was but that is another kettle of fish...)
Now I would like to say that the only hagwons that my students go to is mine. However, that is certainly not the case. Most students will attend a variety of these hagwons in a normal week. A student might go to a Math hagown after school, grab som dinner and then go to an English hagwon. They will then get out around Ten O'Clock. Some students then go to more late, late hagwons and work until after midnight. Others will often recieve some private tuition at home around midnight. This schedule is fairly routine for a middle schooler, i.e they do not have any formalised exams that I understand. However, when they go to High School and have exams, then really turn the amps to eleven. Students will usually have a hagwon before school starts and many do personal study and complete their homework until three or four in the morning. At Daewon, we had student assistants who had finished and were waiting to graduate in March. She told me that for many high school students, three hours of sleep was not out of the ordinary. Three hours! Now I can appreciate that students should study hard for exams. However, there are limitations and I cannot help but think that those limits have been completely exceeded. These schedules are not merely intense, but they are brutal. Children going to educational institutions for fifteen hours a day is not acceptable. Grown men and women in the West would balk at this, yet its somehow the normal life for many Korean teenagers. Unless you are Margaret Thatcher or a Universal Soldier, I think you deserve a nights sleep longer than The Return of the King. Does it suprise you to know the rates of suicide amongst Korean students are amongst the highest in the world? And it is not as if everyone is bound for Harvard after all of of this. Korean children are on the whole very bright and display really impressive levels of natural intelligence. However, some of them are window lickers and all the education in the world cannot change that.
Now I did not create the Korean education system, but I do work in it. My presence does not change what it is or is not. I would like to think as well that the time my students spend with me is not the most mundane or gruelling that they experience. There is usually a lot of humour in my classes and I am sure most of them enjoy that at least. However, something that I am having a hard time dealing with, is the fact I am ultimately complicit in a system that I have fundamental moral problems with. Kids studying as much as they do here, is in my opinion just wrong. Its the robbery of their childhoods. For many of us, the narrative of our day to day existences is one grinding, repetitive and disheartening drudgery. Alas, that is life. However, I think the one thing we can do is at least give children the opportunity to be children. And I do not believe this society does this adequately.
One thought that may spring to the minds of the thousands of readers that I have is: "Did you not know this before I went." Erm, well yes actually. However, I sort of glossed over that as I imagined a perfect year extolling the virtues of debating for a year whilst I had an incredible cultural experience. Also, just as there is a difference between reading about inhuman conditions in a prison and actually smelling the shit bucket in a cell, there is a difference in reading about sleep deprivation and seeing kids fall asleep in class. I am not a perfectly principled person as all of you will know. However, I like to think that on the whole I am a pretty sound guy. I think when we make choices and decisions in our lives, we take the responsibility for them. I choose to go work in this system every day. I think that choice is a bit of a shitty one.
I know I promised more positivity in the blog, but well it seems I lied. Sorry Alex.
posted by Special_K at 8:51 AM
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