All men can not be talked about without talking about their past. Likewise, all school system can not be talked about without its past: the aspirations and efforts have been made for progression of it. Much positive results have been brought upon the society, which started off with from the few to many since the modern education was established; however, the questions regarding quality of education over the past twenty or thirty years in Korea has been a success is still looming in the dark cloud. Nowadays, more and more people are questioning quality of education in Korea particularily in improving quality of living. Education is no longer considered for selected few, encompassing wider spectrum in socioeconomic in the society.. However, like a flower needing good soil to grow, the questions arise that whether the environment on which children can grow healthy and wholesome. To me, for education is to succeed, the old soil needs to be changed. The biggest challenge of Korean education is changing the soil. In other word, the mores of educating children that has been adopted for centuries need to be changed. The Korean education system reflects that of Yi dynasty, which exudes images of scholars studying ethics in Confucianism, emphasizing obedience to authoritarian rules and respect for teachers, If ideal adaptation and evolution had been made into the modern era in pursuit of reasoning instead, Korea would have achieved best of its kind winning a dozen of Nobel prizes by now. Due to emphasis of obeying and respecting authoritarian rules and teachers as mores dictates in Confucianism, Korean students would be left at the mercy of inefficient system instead of getting ahead and being competitive. As a result, it exhibits inability filling up the gap between mores and thinking of the past and that of newly adapted political system, democracy, in modern era. Certainly, modern Korean education system can be characterized as superimposing western style educational elements unto old Yi dynasty's educational system, lacking qualities of educating holistic and humanistic approaches without much revisions, which resulted in creating environment that lack qualities of equality, justice and freedom of speech and fostering such treats among students. Korean education falter from its beginning. Despite the influx of western culture that emphasizes individuality and humanity, the educational system has been moulded and shaped without much of those qualities are nurtured and developing. As results, its impacts have been clearly palpable: lackluster performance of students with respect to amount of work put in by the students, huge waste of time, money and energy, and ill-effects on students' health with over stress in competition as results.
What is the main reason goal of educating people? Isn't education help to foster environment to communicate one another and bring good to society? These are the questions, perhaps, that need to be asked to all Korean teachers and evaluate with respect to their conviction for teaching.
Education to me is a double edged sword, helping to grow a person emotionally, intellectually and socially, and learning materials to become a doctor, an engineer whatever to gain skills for living.
Korean education system does not stand in line with pursuing lofty goals of education.
The Korean school system is largely characterized by focusing on gaining material goods or making a climbing up the social ladder for the people. It doesn't have any holistic approaches in which every students are accounted for; it's more like a group of people at a running stand all vying for reaching the goal first. For that purposes, it is like a spinning target to which people throw darts to get the good prizes, some of the darts hit the target in bull's eye and some don't, some of the darts do not go far hitting the target and fall short, and some darts hit the edge and bounce off. Another analogy might be pushing people into a swimming pool; some people gain skills immediately, and some don't, and some have never had any knowledge and some get drown thrown into a pool. Among the people managed to learn to swim and become a good swimmer. It's a system where there is no lifeguard, and there is no contingency plan regarding for those who get drown. Another analogy would be that of a driver of a bus keep focusing on getting to the destination with no regards for anything happening in or out of the bus, regardless of any passengers are vomiting or any abnormal symptoms of malfunctioning on the bus occurs.
One of the most primary example of this is the way English is taught in secondary schools; there is no accumulated knowledge of teaching English that can be used to fine tuning of further teachings in terms of implementing policies and teaching methods in order to suit the needs of the society; the society demands its people for its proficiency but old archaic methods are used over and over again with no improvements producing generation after generation with lackluster skills as they are mainly taught for picking up an answer in multiple choices in exams without laying the ground works for interests in learning and further studying.
The soundness of Korean education system has been sugar coated with the students' achievements in international test results given for science and mathematics. Using the test scores as a statoscope to detect the heartbeat of the system has been representatives of the country's needs for fast economic development in post war era, as main driving force to drive the country out from poverty. However, in 21st century, as world becomes more diverse and complicated, this simply approach would not help to keep up with educational qualities that 21 century calls for; it is rudimentary and demoralizing the philosophy of education. Why? It's because soundness of education can not be measured in very simplistic terms; it would only impede development of true sense of educational outcomes.
The heavy reliance on the test results to determine successes of of education system poses questions how good the education system is. As the evidences shows from its past history, the Korean education system has shown plenty of signs in its shoddy construction, like a foundation got sizable cracks and layers of brick are laid with no mortar and harnesses in between in shaky disposition. It's fair to say Korean education system, in retrospect, after decades of its implementation, appears like with no firm foundation on its educational philosophy nor having not shown solid commitments from the teachers. If there is any the talks on the educational changes and reforms, they are most likely be artificial and superfluous, going through vicious cycle of producing students in shoddy factories.
What are the most prime attributes come into mind measuring the quality of a education system? I would think that it lies in keeping a relatively small class size, where primary and secondary students are taught by highly qualified teachers who mainly focus on boosting children's confidence and motivation for building many aspects of their growth in terms of their characters, strengthening them to adopt well in meeting future endeavors for their learning. At least, for the six years in primary education be set aside with goals of achieving this educational objectives with firm conviction that the teachers' main responsibilities fall under this category. The environment should give rise to raising happy and bouncy children making the students feel that the society has done something good for them. The failure of Korean education can be summed up with one characterization: hastiness of raising children with lack of and misconstrued notion of education and teachers' inability with taking the responsibilities. In simple terms, it's virtually impossible to see in Korean educational environment where students pursuit their career goals getting inspired by their teachers.
I would regard "education" as a "gift" from any society, at least to primary through secondary schooling. That "gift" should contain lots of things including fostering of free thinkers. Yes, if society is doing well, its boon should be falling in the hands of its children in their education with teachers' generosity. In such environment, their generosity in kindness and willingness to help students would be the prolific soil to nature their growth emotionally and mentally. It's a gift of love from the society, prepared and packaged by the teachers. Any nation with good economic standing would produce good education. However, in Korea with years of poverty after the war, too many teachers have been interested in taking bribes and neglect teaching with complaints that the class size is too large to handle, nothing remotely close in bringing free thinkers of society came about with lack of benefits from generous love of their teachers, but instead too many students fell victims of teachers' greed and egocentric demeanors, treating students unequal terms depending upon the amount of bribes from parents and years of neglects and their incompetence. Korean school system would fail because it lacks guiding principles that dictate employing teachers and keeping of them: love of children and honesty. With lack of such principles, the Korean education system is well reflective of underdeveloped country, and that such characterization would persist even in the 21st century with unwillingness to look at themselves perpetuating without reforms. Due to failure in creating the environments that foster learning and building characters for students, the Korean education system is not and has not been working properly.
There are multi-faceted aspects that need to be looked at, starting from philosophical question such as "Do Korean educators really understand human nature?" "What is true meaning of education?" "What are their rights?" Korean education system started without addressing these questions. After all, it was started without proper design in the first place. And in light of progresses have been made in politics and economy, a design is needed, and to design, the Korean educators need to be really brave enough to build a new foundation.
The current Korean educational system is outdated. If you were to think that in terms of in the progression of computer processors development, it's comparable to Intel 286 which is not compatible running new apps.
The Korean education system emulates outdated educational system of Yi dynasty, which exudes images of scholars studying ethics in Confucianism. If ideal adaptation and evolvement had been made into the modern era in pursuit of reasoning instead, Korea would have achieved best of its kind winning a dozen of Nobel prizes by now. Due to emphasis of obeying and respecting authoritarian rules and teachers as mores dictates in Confucianism, Korean students would be left at the mercy of inefficient system instead of getting ahead and being competitive. As a result, it exhibits inability filling up the gap between mores and thinking of the past and that of newly adapted political system, democracy, in modern era. Certainly, modern Korean education system can be characterized as superimposing western style educational elements unto old Yi dynasty's educational system, lacking qualities of educating holistic and humanistic approaches without much revisions, which resulted in creating environment that lack qualities of equality, justice and freedom of speech and fostering such treats among students. Korean education falter from its beginning. Despite the influx of western culture that emphasizes individuality and humanity, the educational system has been moulded and shaped without much of those qualities are nurtured and developing. As results, its impacts have been clearly palpable: lackluster performance of students with respect to amount of work put in by the students, huge waste of time, money and energy, and ill-effects on students' health with over stress in competition as results.
Reforming Korean educational system entails having an honest look at its ill impacts to the society, which may requires reshaping people's thinking, changing of their educational philosophy, understanding depth of humanity in light of democracy that values human lives. Korea has achieved democracy, but its birth of democracy is not achieved through a major revolution and affirmations, lacking humanistic values, still governed by remnants of Yi Dynasty values.
Many of its staunch supporters have rosy pictures that their education system is working in order being tied down in old thinking ignoring its ill-effects, resisting to give proper treatments and to make reforms, and thus fundamental changes have not occurred yet. Korean education is crude in a sense that it's main functionality is focused on government's needs, not on individuals; It has strong flavor of old Yi dynasty's way of electing government officials; that is whoever writes a best poem or prose after years of studying alone in a test given once a year gets elected. It does not exude aura of either investigative qualities in finding talents of students and communicating with them to guide in right directions or flexibility in meeting the needs of students to reach their fullest potentials for students' sake, but rather tries to harvest hastily fruits that get ripened first without giving proper fertilizer and pruning in absence of educational principles and philosophy. This outdated archaic model has been employed even post Korean War era as a tool to elect people for government and to drive the country out from poverty. As a result of this rather crude system, the poverty has been driven out in fast pace and the country was put on fast track for economic development. However, Korea has long past its juncture to take a harsh look at its educational system and come up with something else because the system is not sustainable to meet challenges of 21st century. The old system has caused many side-effects; You can also see the ill impacts of this system on every sectors in the society, i.e. graduate of military academy or elite schools form social mafias have been charged with corruption and nepotism. The notion that education largely revolves around the sphere of narrowly defined term of one's "success" has been rather crude, not sophisticated way of defining totality of one's success. It is unfit to democratic society where each and every individual is to be respected and regarded as contributing member of society with knowledge, creativity and civility. The old education system may be snubbed off as having served its intended purposes for decades producing workers to work in fast pace, to develop the country from the devastation of the war; however, the realization that the system is deplorably outdated has not fully come to people's consciousness despite that it is no longer viable means to meet the challenges of the 21st century - a radical change in defining what education is needed, upon which new education system be made.
Couple of years ago, Mr. Obama, in his State of Union, praised Korean educators for their dedication in teaching. He seemed as though implying that U.S. needs to emulate Korean education system to get high scores in science and math for its middle and high school students. Hearing his statement, I could not help but getting an impression that he provided Koreans a lip service after failing to find areas to which he would give compliments. Many Koreans would probably have felt his statement rather gay. Koreans are not proud of their own educational system; Korea has not yet won a single Nobel prize in science nor in par with other developed countries in publishing mathematical journals. Maybe, Mr. Obama has probably made a lip service to nudge ratification of FTA to be passed in Korean congress at that time, and it was a poor choice. However, it sparked another debate amongst Koreans for their education system. What Mr. Obama's statement makes so superficial is that it overlooks enormous prices that the Korean students have to pay: growth of individuality, compassion, emotional quality and cultivation of cooperativeness that are essential in 21st century. These qualities are treated as "not so important" in Koreans education system. Like the old system, the Korean education system serves no other purpose other than assigning students in social strata based on academic performances in crude way. Once every year, hundred thousands of students are vying for a handful of colleges. It is aspiration for the students to enter good colleges to secure their jobs in the future; however, no one made into one of these colleges would say that he successfully made into college because of his good educational environment. It is the game "despite of" bad educational environments. Every students come through a dark tunnel, and some are relieved and some are not to repeat the process for another chance in the next year.
Why then Korean educational system is in such deplorable state? I think that the fundamental problem lies on lack of understanding of humanity that can aide in establishing educational philosophy which can be planted for growth with strong root. In such environments there is elements of having inabilities and lack of flexibility for shifting between individuality and collectiveness and fostering of them. For instance, we define "car" having multiple functions like gearshifts to go forward and backward. What if you have a car only go forward, or only backward? Korean education problem is deeply rooted in its mismanagement and lack of pursuit of excellence, which doesn't procure its culture and tradition in light of evolving modernity. Korean culture has largely been based on neo-confucianism which mainly dictates mores of relationships in hierarchical manners, which may be classified as subset of mores that gives totality of such in the Western culture like in old Korean music governed by 5 notes as opposed to 14 notes in Western music. In Korean history, the movements toward achieving individuality and inception of concept of it has been a recent history and it has not succeeded to fully developed until the arrival of Christianity. Even after arrival of Christianity, it took a long time to shed remnants of Neo-Confucianistism to achieve true sense of equality among humans. For Korean, achieving success in education entails shedding neo-confucianistic mores in the society that keeps people from achieving individuality. To be able to become a success in education for any country is to be able to look far ahead and read what's lies ahead in the future. Seoul is known for blending old buildings and modern buildings in harmony, but Korean education has not made leap forward due to old Yi dynasty's thinking that keep from proactively creating or pursuing more advanced system.
The lack of awareness of these elements in education amongst parents and educators plus prematurely intercepted by foul plays of parents and educators led to chaos in Korean education. These are the two elements that they have to shed lights asking themselves fundamentals of education: what is education? After all, the triumph of education is to make individuals to experience satisfaction of learning. What can I do to help achieve my children/students to fit as a contributing members of the society in collective way? How can we create education system that can produce good citizens for the society? Is our education system is in line with fostering qualities of students meeting the challenges of the new global world? Am I, as an educator, fit for teaching students in school? These are very simple questions that all teachers and educators should ask to themselves and able to answer them in their own mind. To me, the ideal primary school education is laying foundation for producing good citizens who cooperate each other through democratic ways, and to support in building character and to help the students getting motivated for learning and to compete in fair opportunities. Also, the system should play the role as a conduit discovering talents not just in academics but also in sports and arts, and foster their physical and mental growth. The philosophy and principles that all children deserve good education with good care with conviction that the educators are primarily responsible for creating and maintaining environments in which foster learning for them. They should also realize that the educational environment should be designed to emulate the society in which the students will join in the future. I believe that Korean educators attend symposiums trying to grasp general idea what the nature of current Korean education system of its weakness and strength. However, there seems to be no driving force to push forward with reforms.
In order to understand current standing of education system in Korea, we need to trace back where the education starts; primary school. The Korean education fails from its start with no guiding principles and priorities. Main problem in early Korean education stems from lack of ideas how to go about filling up the lives of students. Ideally, the objectives of the education are to achieve the aforementioned goals, but lacking such elements lead to filling up the vacuum with harmful things first. The Korea school system fails because the timing of competition gets introduced is much early among students. In other word, the timing of competition is not well orchestrated as part of elements to have general sense of academic achievements and reaching civility, but educators let the ball lose, neither to raise students getting the general senses. As a result of the educators shoving students into competitions hastily, creativity is not well nurtured. Addressing teacher's ability is never questioned inheriting old colonial concept demanding unquestionable piety to the authority. There is no pride and no struggle within the society making the educational foundation to be universally accepted largely due to educators incompetency and lack of care. Most of educators and even parents have wrong notion about education. The truth of matter is that neither educators nor parents are really concerned of raising kids well; they are basically interested in raising kids with hope of satisfying their ego, which would end up producing adults who are not well-rounded. Korea has been a poor country, and correlating education with one's meeting material success-getting their pieces of taffy- is introduced in much too early stage of one's education robbing them chances to cultivate emotional, cultural and social growth, which leads to lacking in basic social skills as we have seen rampant occurrences with bullying in Korean schools. In other words, the foreground work of cultivating fine citizenry is severely negated and neglected in primary education which drive students into premature competitions that harm the students' emotional well being, ending up going into middle school and high school with lack of social skills and organizational skills that lay the groundwork to be successful students and happy human beings.
To this end, the chaos in Korean education can be thought of as multitude of people all trying to go through one small door and they are getting stampeded. It's because Korean has notion of higher education largely related to getting a key to a good white color position with high salaries and good job security. Such jobs are much sought after as they are essential thing one to possess in the society where social strata is coarsely defined. Korean education is strongly revolves around assigning one's social standing based on academic successes that is defined in Korean term, which is through one's achievement on examination. In the environment where examinations are strongly correlated with one's social standing, true sense of learning can be distorted in many forms in various stages of one's schooling. To Korean, the definition for education is series of examination, nothing correlates to one's cultivation of character and achieving skills for developing team work.
To be blunt, Korean education system is providing mere functionality; it is not like a sophisticated machine with hundreds of parts working seamlessly, but rather an old car with basic parts working, waiting to fall apart. The education ministry has been mandating rules without planing out of necessity to react to quell public outcries, which resulted in many side-effects. The ministry, instead making a major reform with new designs, often opted to making revisions trapped in old style of rigid thinking and indecisiveness, on top of old system. The ministry does not have blue prints to make the people to fit in 21 century, only repeating the old system making minor tweak every time when something goes wrong or parents complain....it has been going that way over forty years of modern Korean education. It's like an old house that needs a major renovation which has been deferred and put in patch works instead. The only thing that educators are suggesting is learning at your means; they wear nice suits visiting schools pretending they are doing something big for improving the system.
It's true, through this means, that all Korean students gain somewhat superior reading and math skills upon graduating from high school; every young citizen would know how to solve Calculus problems and Trigonometry. However, the skills are achieved at the sacrifice of something far greater, deveopement of creativity, individuality, critical thinking, personality, and capability of individual autonomy. After all, what are the tradeoffs with the current education system? What are we hoping for students to students have achieved graduating from high schools or colleges? Isn't it better off to have equipped to become a citizen of modern world rather than being able to solve problems of trigonometry or calculus?
The problem with Korean education -like any country with problem in educating students-stems from the fact that the notion of "cultivating motivation" as primary learning tool for students is void. Voiding this notion, the education is bounded to fail from the start. The teachers have no notion what children means; they simply think that they are small size adults. The teachers come to first class holding a stick for corporal punishment exuding fear amongst the students. It's not through negotiation throughout the course which teachers carry the stick, but rather at the same time when students meet teacher on their first classes as early as when students are seven years old, without students' permission, totally undemocratic, in quite authoritarian way. Boys get educated in an environment that is similar in military in certain aspects; all students wear uniform. The teachers are allowed to carry a stick and use them whenever necessary. The teachers carry them, and students see the teachers in fear of sticks ever be used on them even if it would never be used. In this environment, students try to keep distance from their teachers with some strange notion as if they are some sort of an entity in higher power, never to criticize but to obey all time. To young students, the teachers are the mostly frequently encountered adults, and they come largely as mystified figures, holding sticks, not in same category of human race.
In this environment, learning can't be fun activities, but potentially would make oneself feeling like a horse driven by a lousy master. In this environment, education doesn't have an aura of excitements and fun to students, but something of baggage that has to be carried. In this environment, there can be lots of finger pointing between the parents and teachers, but parents have to concede to the way things are. When education fails, the first thing that the educator should look into is whether the students are well motivated to learning and whether the teachers are doing the good job putting them on the right track, motivating the students, but probing into and monitoring academic and personality growth are severely crippled by teachers because teachers themselves are not well fit for the posts. To succeed in educating students in school systems, there have to be several factors that are crucial: mindset of teachers, good curriculum, and cooperations from parents.
Taking occupation as an educator is something not to be taken lightly; educators are drawn with so many aspects; depth of understanding on human development with his or her own positive experiences, integrity, fairness, positive views of the world, educational philosophy that he or she is dedicated himself/herself for the mission of making children into decent citizens of the society, who foster and encourage learning trough discussion and cooperations and with competitions combined. Likewise in many countries would have problems, the sure symptoms of failure of education in Korea can easily be attributed to the educators; you can see rampant violence and bullying occur even in primary schools.
Sustainability of motivation for students is often abused and neglected largely by irresponsibility of teachers who constantly seek bribes from parents. Basically Korean educators are evasive of their responsibility, aching to line them up for examinations to load off their tasks and to finger point others, like bettors on horse race tracks. Once every examination is conducted, no efforts on the teachers are made to make improvements; no suggestions, no feedback and no praises are made. Children at young age are already go through primary school taking myriad of tests. Even more, they are given more tests at home through Kumon to enhance their test skills. Their Kumon tests are returned in their mail boxes, and sometimes, it gets delivered wrong in neighbors' mailbox.
[The problems with elementary school]
One may argue that one learns well would do well on the tests, so getting good test scores sort of justifies of good learning. This is true in a sense; without good learning, test scores won't be good. However, true sense of "learning" is negated at the very start of educating a child in Korea. The most important thing in early child education is to inspire them that learning is fun, which entails teachers utmost efforts in trying to spur up their curiosity. Curiosity is fuel for learning; that's how great achiever achieved. There should be no emphasis on fostering curiosity of learning in early stage. Each and every children should be given ample time for fostering curiosity and thus setting good stage for driving up their motivation for learning in later stage. However, the skills of teachers spurring up curiosity in child's mind are severely lacking. Furthermore, the regards for this aspect is severely crippled in Korean administrators. Korean elementary school teachers want the students succeed, but they don't know what it takes and how to make learning happen; Korea teachers like to count them and line them up first in height, or ranking them first based on their test results. The teachers would like to a session in early in the morning, all line them up in the front field.
In American school system, giving grades in A,B, C's are deferred until 5th or 6th grade, giving general sense that educators are not in hurry branding students. American primary school educators are not in hurry lining up the students in the classrooms or in any meeting with students. American students go through their primary school having sense of interacting with each other and with teachers academically and socially. American students, upon graduating primary school, would have sense of map drawn in their mind what bricks to be laid in order to make their mind bigger. Their minds are already germinated with inspiration from teachers and through their hand-on practices in educating their mind. They get this sense of start of blooming through their teachers giving ample praises and encouragements. American teachers know that they major role as a teacher is to motivate students and pay attention to the students who fall behind. During this time, in principle, the American teachers lay the groundwork for students ready to meet the challenges they will meet in their middle school years or high school. However, in Korean school system, such time for laying groundwork is not omitted due to lack of concern and motivation from the teachers. It's not that Korean teachers have lack of time, but they spent time rather weeding out students who are not motivated instead of putting efforts into help them. In Korea, teaching is an easy job. There is no phase for setting up the arsenals; the teachers simply do not know how to spend their time effectively helping students in this aspect.
The Korean education fails in this aspect; lack of qualification and skills of teachers is the biggest problem. Because lack of understanding and goals of this on the teachers in this regard, the Korean education tends go stray in very early stage; basically, lots of children lose interest in learning by the time they finish their elementary education. For them, they acquire notion that education is a baggage in their primary school years. Teachers may then say,"What about parents? Wouldn't the burden of spurring curiosity for leaning be responsibility of parents first?" Yes, they may be. However, there maybe students who are not juiced up, but they would avoid their responsibility as a serious educator doing something about them. The Korean educators, in general, are much interested in teaching (or pretend teaching) children who are already good, instead rolling off their sleeves and really educating students. The students are asked to perform well, but they can't be inspired by the teachers.
[The problems with Middle School]
Then, by the time when they graduate primary school, a new concept that had been hidden surges up; it's called "competition." Competition for college entrance exam is slowly introduced. From then on, the teachers, who still lack of skills motivating students, have excuses for their lack of talents in teaching; they attribute everything to the students for lack of their motivation. The ball that was in their hands have suddenly tossed over to students; the students have to perform. For students, learning is a "must," and they would do whatever necessary to shove in with rot memorization with sole purpose of preparing for the entrance examination to a college that they want. By the time when students enter high school, the ideal driving force for learning, curiosity and fun, has long been gone; the only fun part of studying is that their examination scored higher than their classmates. Koreans learn for the purpose of getting good results on exams, molding one's learning style in early stage of their education. Even the school does not deviate from this norm; teachers help students guiding what would be expected of in the examinations and spend less time covering the depth or making sure that students are learning the subject. The tests are given in predefined pattern, so students learn the stuff what is expected on the examination. The examinations are made with mostly in multiple choices so that luck can play into it. The crippling effect of this type of learning is depriving the growth of students' creativity at the time when it needs to be fostered in their education. Students are not learning with trial and error in the environment where natural learning based on curiosity, motivation and through cooperation, but rather in an environment of apprehension, pressure and extreme competition void of fun of learning. In such environment, crucial elements of learning is not taken off. We all know that for learning to take place, a certain level of pressure is needed.
[Cultural Predisposition]
Why Korean students, teachers and parents are so uptight of the test results? It's because Korea is a hierarchical society. where people are categorically viewed with one's occupation. For Korean, occupation is regarded as fluid and changing over one's life span, but rather fixed and rigid, a sort of viewed as one's status in the society as in old days. In Choson Dynasty, government official jobs were regarded highest of honor, and business people was regarded as lowly status of the social stratification. That classification still remain in 21st century intertwined with old concept based on one's age, only that it has become more diverse and reached wider population. The old concept of taking one examination leading into a honorable government job still applies in terms of national college entrance examination; those who performed well in the examination will go to high ranking colleges, which allows them to be put on fast track for promotion in government or private company positions. The difference between old and new is that once social status is not predisposed; anyone can work hard and climb up social strata and become powerful, even a president. Unlike the Western world where long history of people fighting for freedom and individual rights and thus have arrived to the point that individual rights are established, Korean individualism is based on accepting one another with one's achievements. The society sets the mores who would be accepted and who are not as individuals; people with only high school diplomas are tended to be looked down, and people who don't understand English can be looked down, and etc. In this environment, Korean have to strive to achieve in many things. The society impose high standard on many aspects, not to make the system better or to achieve something as a whole, but rather to make oneself feel superior over the other. Setting high standard for its citizen have many negative impacts; the citizens develop the notion that major reason of academic achievements is to make one to position himself/herself on social strata, not as a means to further persuit of career development. That's why there are so much haughtiness among the good college graduates; their tickets to position themselves in high social strata have been acquired, and they feel at easy, not having to further develop their abilities. For instance, the society set high standard that everybody should be able to read, write and speak well in English. Korean language is one of least language that share commonality with English; it is much too difficult for any Korean to achieve high level of English; Korean society, instead having its citizen to read books to become better citizens, would impose spending time on learning English that they would never have chance to speak in or write to except in time learning. In other words, Koreans generally tend to think that they are not O.K. by inherent dignity as inalienable right as a human, but rather it is something that should be attained during the course of academic years. Therefore, passing the college entrance examination is reaffirmation of O.K., which is to remain, and they finally feel that they have joined the goodness of mankind. They feel relieved, and their celebration last well into middle party of their college years. As results, the education is largely based on getting good scores on examination, instead of focusing on learning.
[Coexistence]
Korean schools is not close come to being the true reflection of the society in gender makeup; boys are separated from girls in their early stage of their education, starting from 3rd grades. The boys don't meet girls in school setting for next 10 years to come. Their channels for broadening their mind in social skills is blocked completely. The skills for interacting with opposite six is so retarded, and they would have to catch up when they go to colleges through artificial meetings.
[Lack of praises and attentions]
In western countries, or at least in the U.S., the education system is such that merits are given to those students work hard and demerits are given when the students do not perform well. Ample praises are given to those students who perform well, through the comments on the report cards and awards. When students do not perform well, the educator intervene discussing it with the students and with their parents. The teachers do not ignore the students performing well; the teachers do not hesitate becoming a whistle blower. However, in Korean education system, the teachers are very stingy in giving praises to the students perform well; they do not contribute making the students work hard to achieve more. Furthermore, they do not become a good whistle blowers paying attention to the low achieving students; the teachers DO NOT HAVE NOTION OF EDUCATION AS A JOURNEY FOR STUDENTS, WHICH NEED STRADEGY AND GUIDANCE FROM TEACHERS. The teacher are not real time players, who have no general notion of education as ever evolving and dynamic state that requires much caring of students.
In Korean school system, There are debates whether to separate classes based on student academic abilities; some teachers say that separating classes based on students' academic abilities are desirable and some teachers say otherwise. The debates are there because teachers have notions what help the students to learn. However, the platform which such debates occur is different among Korean educators. There are many factors involved that can affect the students' academic performance; large class size, unqualified teachers, pressures, overloaded work, lack of guidance, peer pressures, lack of physical activities and etc. The teachers are not good whistle blower. The teachers are not very sensitive about students' need. They want to focus on students who are very good, no willingness to offer help other students. In other word, the teachers do not see education as a whole, not striving to motivate students. The teachers are mainly interested in keeping status quo; they seldom offer help outside the classes that teach. They seldom encourage students to catch up, or give extra time to help. The teachers say that they are overloaded with many tasks at school.
[RESPECT for STUDENTS]
The Korean education system has evolved from deeply rooted neo-Confucian in Choson Dynasty; the scholastic people who were called "Sunbi" traveled to the capitol city to take an examination for electing government positions after years of preparation. To do much weight fall on the shoulder for the Sunbi and passing the government examination for them was considered a highest honor for himself and his the family. When a Sunbi passed the examination, the whole family celebrates and the joy of it would be extended to its relative as a bigger family. The status of the family is upgraded and his honor will be recorded permanently in the genealogy book called "Jokbo." The aristocratic people hired teacher to mentor their children for the preparation of the examination to follow the footsteps of their fathers. Much of that sentiments have been transpired over centuries. In such society, "teachers" were given high authority over students. When a student is viewed as "unfit" to the eyes of a teacher, it's very hard for the student to thrive in the classroom especially when they are young in primary school. In such environment, students learn to adapt to the environment to please teacher, instead of putting great efforts in growing in his or her own thinking or fostering creativity. In such educational system, a notion that "teacher" is omniscient and some sort of supernatural human is fostered, neglecting pupil's individuality and respect. The teachers don't have notion how to treat students fairly and humanly as corporal punishments is routinely exercised. When much respects are given to teacher, the vector of pendulum would swing toward robbing respects for the students and corrupting the system.
[FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION]
Students are not encouraged to speak up in the classroom. The teachers have notion that discussing would lead to damaging their authority and they have to guard it at any cost, and thus teachers do not foster environment for learning through discussion. The teachers do not encourage students to ask questions. The desks are always laid to face the front where teachers stand conducting classes, and it never get changed to a circle for discussion. The teachers are obsessed with looking super human being who never go to bathroom.
[Environment that does not foster individualism and creativity]
The lack of creativity in Korean education system can be correlated with the variety of modes in which students listen and interact amongst students and teachers. The desks are arranged always in one way facing teach and students always sit on chairs; there are no class does otherwise not even 5 minutes. There should be a variety of ways students have chances to sit in circle, even on desk to be able to interact with environment. Academic growth can increase with creativity. This is one aspect that really hamper the growth of students academically. Learning should be fun. Most of parents let the teachers do the good job. Korean students still find themselves difficult to express themselves even after graduating from a college. Their long education have been solely dedicated to preparing for college entrance examination, that retards growth of personalities.
[Fairness]
Teachers treat students differentially. The notion of fairness is rather loose; teacher takes bribes from students' parents and give differential treatments to students. Students will perceive the notion of unfairness, and it does not correlate to the society that they will be joining in the future. The teachers do not think that their unfairness is extension to the society that the student will be joining in the future.
[diabolical turnaround]
The Korean education system is not geared for achieving higher learning but rather to sort out who is superior of learning given a period of time. Korean society doesn't really much care about what comes after individuals achieving up to 20 years old in their lives. Korean will often ask to each other "What school did you graduate from?" with no hesitation or restriction from social mores, and Koreans would often say "When I was in college..." to let other people know that he is a graduate of a college, a man who has achieved higher learning. Because there is too much weight on the examination, much growing up gets sacrified. Even in the primary school, there are students who boast for studying until 12 O'clock midnight. In such environment, childhood would get lost. While the time of their childhood should be spent for the growth of many facets of one's personality, the students are not encouraged to speak up nor foster growth of their character. Basically, time is wasted at the hands of teachers, the reality comes slowly and it becomes a monster upon entering high school. Even at the middle school, one can feel the heat rising. The school hold the students until late on some nights as practices for what would be coming in their high school as a way for them to experience the lifestyle they will run into. The kids who have been preparing well for mentally would survive this diabolical turnaround. The elementary education is not geared for raising good citizens nor spurring up children's curiosity for learning, but instead they graduate with no clear satisfaction of learning something so important, and as ill-educated children at the hands of mostly unqualified teachers.
[TEACHER'S QUALIFICATION]
People become teachers with not much thinking in their aptitude for teachers. They think that they are qualified to become teachers despite their lack of aptitude for it and when they have little passion and what it takes to become a teacher. The system also support producing many unqualified teachers. The teachers are not often highly trained. Korean teachers are paid with top salaries, and yet they often shout to students exhibiting poor skills in teaching. Teachers often show not much respect for students. After all, good teachers should know how to motivate students and bring their highest potentials for learning. In Korea, becoming a primary school teacher is not tough, more than half of the teachers came from bottom quarter of college bodies. Even though teachers who teach at middle schools and high schools, they often spent enjoying Soju sessions with colleagues after work getting drunken and come to work in the morning to teach; some of the teachers had hard time staying awake. Their motivation to stay awake during the class is strongly dictated by not to damage their authority and tarnish the perception. They good at image control; they would not come near to students in classrooms if any hit that students would notice them of drinking on fortnight. You would rarely come across math teachers making mistakes since they would have practiced the questions and answers hundred time teaching the previous classes over their career, so it is hard for them not to look bad in front of students.
[Adoption of Japanese School System]
The modern Korean School System developed from two sources: the system that was instituted by Japanese occupiers and the influences of western education that was instituted from that were founded by American missionaries in early last century. The higher education has largely been adopted by the latter, but secondary school system is largely from the former. It is the intermix of these two influences with lack of forces to push toward achieving a complete western style education system results in loss of competitive edge. The remnants of Japanese style education during the colonial time would cease to exist; the mandates of wearing uniforms to students during the colonial time still persisted well into 80's, some forty years after the country gain its independence in 1945. The rot memorization that is indispensable tool in Japanese education to memorize Kanji and Kana, has been indiscreetly adopted leading to lack of critical thinking, allowing to set wrong foot for studying math and science for many students.
Because of this social mores put high respect for teaching, the teachers would not foster environment for discussions to take place in classes. The students are mainly put on LISTEN ONLY mode, not encouraging to ask questions and thus creating grounds for discussing challenging ideas ; this is Korean students weakest aspect. It's like a fish put in a bowl with expectation is to stay in the bowl, but the society expectation is much different outside of the school. Much angst is developed when the students go to high school. It is fair to say that high school education in Korea is not for developing one's character. Character development is so crucial at this stage, but it is deferred until college. The Korean schools put so much weight on college entrance and neglect all others.
Unlike students in the U.S., there can be up to 60 students in a class. The classroom was packed with desks and chairs. The teachers were not highly trained often shouted to students with not much respect. That class size pretty stayed the same in high schools. After all, good teachers know how to motivate students and bring their highest potentials for learning. In Korea, becoming a primary is not tough, more than half of the teachers came from bottom quarter of college bodies. Even though teachers who teach at middle schools and high schools, they often spent enjoying Soju sessions with colleagues after work getting drunken and come to work in the morning to teach; some of the teachers had hard time staying awake. If the motivation to stay awake is strongly inclined as social mores putting high respect to teachers and regard them not fallible. You would rarely come across teachers making mistakes not to look bad in front of students.
[Neo-Confucianism]
Korea is a country where Neo-Confucianism dictated over five hundred years ever since Lee Sung-gye founded the Choson Dynasty. Buddhism that flourished proceeding to Koryo dynasty was declining during the dynasty, making the governance dictated by Confucianism transpired all aspects of society. The one prominent aspect of Confucianism is hierarchical order in human relationship and ordinance of government officials. The social stratification was divided by four classes, honoring scholars and disrespecting butchers and discrimination based on occupations. The concept of this social cast system was untouchable and good portion of the dynasty was ruled by strong influences from aristocrats who want to keep the mores persists. However, toward the last several decades of the dynasty, and protests occurred and the system was getting eroded. Some lowly people bought the "Yangban" status going though changing their last names and falsifying their status. After the liberation from the colonial rules and the Korean war, much of this social system was broken; the country no longer ruled by king or queen or relative of loyal family, and no distinction and discrimination could be made. However, metamorphosis of the caste system emerged, that no longer dictated by birth to an aristocrat family, but instead one's achievements on school performance, especially that of high school. In U.S., there is still a second chance even one wreck the havoc of his/her high school years. However, in Korea, this is not possible. Passing the college entrance examination for a good college allows one to join in a good company setting one's career path with high earning salaries. In this environment, students can't feel that learning can be fun, but rather to work hard at all cost. Korean society expects a certain level of academic proficiency. It's a pressure that drive students, not the motivation, such that the society expect everybody know how to read and write and certain level of math.
[Lack of Communication]
The social mores is such that puts high respect for teachers, the teachers don't often engage in conversations with students in discussing academic topics. The students are put on LISTEN ONLY
mode. The students are not encouraged to ask questions, challenge thoughts. This is Korean students weakest aspect. This lack of interaction or discussion being a faculty for learning made them to be very good with knowing many things, but instead they become severely handicapped in critical thinking. The thing is that the primary school and middle school are in quese state. These are the years when students are still far from the date for taking the college entrance examination, and yet the education system is such that not fostering the students to acquire basic skills in critical thinking. What I mean by this is that the methodology adopted for learning is not for learning sake, but rather following the pattern of high school learning geared for college examination; no books were asked to read and no followup discussions would be conducted-- if it happen, it would be such a rare instance. After the class over, students would have foul mouths after spending most of the days without talking.
It's like a fish put in a bowl with expectation to stay in the bowl. However, the society's expectation has been changed drastically, and much angst rises by the time students go to high school. It is fair to say that high school education in Korea is not geared for developing student's character. Character development that is so crucial for our lives gets deferred until students go to college. The Korean society put so much weight on college entrance and negate all others. Teachers are inapt interacting with students, and students spend most of their time in school busy doing rot memorization having less time talking and cooperating with their peers. Because of so much peer pressure, In this environment, there is not much satisfaction pursuing for personal fulfillment doing the hard work, but rather being overly competitive unnecessarily. Unlike students in the U.S., the student's social life is virtually non-existing. The society does not let young people to freely. At the time, when the youngsters enjoy burgeoning youth, so much peer pressure and high academic expectation are put on, and the challenges of making successful high school lives is hinged on apt characteristics that have been developed or environment which they were born is well suited to engaging in the challenges. So, when you see the students have made successful pass the college entrance examinations, they have certain attributes of super kid.
[Governance of Education]
You would never see any administrator treating educational aspect of the country as something to nature and care for. You would never see politicians mention about caring education as if they are taking care of plants; something that they need to put efforts in order to grow and become wholesome. You would never seem them talking about quality of education in class size and teacher's qualification that should be at the top of the list. The administrators and politicians treat education as if it is a static being or like a wild flower that will somehow grow into a beautiful flower with no or minimum efforts. They never envision and have goals for the education of the country; they would treat it as a dead horse instead of a live one that needs constant attention. You would never see a politicians mentioning that such and such "reading" and "mathematical skills" are important for the society, or we need to focus on creating environment for high quality education in engineering in order to produce good engineers. The politicians and engineers are like the teachers who are only interested in looking at the end results instead of thinking what they can contribute to the growth of the educational system.
[Lack of Interoperability]
Like as I pointed out earlier, Korean education system is based on getting good results on examinations, which could negate depth of learning process. If an analogy is applied to eating an delicious apple, the Korean education system would score how many apples have been eaten, as opposed to, perhaps, Americans would savor the tastes of different apples have eaten. This is a huge difference in educational philosophy. Many Koreans students come to the U.S. to study, but they are faced with huge obstacles not realizing this differences. Many students return back to Korea without getting the diplomas and degrees feeling dejected-the doors that manufactures in Korea should be able to fit in the U.S. with little bit of twig, but it needs to be made start from the scratch- that they would have to soul searching on the methodology of learning that they acquired in Korea.
[Conclusion]
The problem with Korean education system lies on imbalance of two forces on a seesaw: educating students for its own sake and setting and educating them for their career path. The overall quality of education is not only hinges on the quality of education that the students receive, but also where the tipping point is set at and at what stage of their education. To be able to set at right position to maximize growth of majority instead of selected few as principle and collective efforts is lacking.
In order to achieve greater quality of education in Korea, the society has to cut down on giving too much merits are given based on one's academic successes and promote "strike-out" policies.
Three pillars that help to shape individual characters and mental strength in
any society are education, religion and role
models. Korean society has
failed in all three categories.
5. Failure of
education
Korean education has served well in teaching knowledge by memorization
(rather than rationalization). This is an
unmitigated failure in
helping to shape the character of individuals. In other words, a person should
be educated
fostering "solid citizenry" as the first order of
educational priority.
6. Failure of
religion
[That's the game]
For Koreans, going to universities have special meaning other than merely as a means to making a living. In Korean relationships, one way or the other, knowing the name of which college (it used to be high school) one has graduated is the primary concern because through which relationships form and one live evolves. Koreans do not much care what one majored in a college or has graduated or not, but rather concerned of which school one has entered as one's college entrance examination results is the only criterion being used to evaluate one's academic achievements for acceptance to a good college one desires to go.
Many middle school and high school Korean students come to the U.S. to go to good schools. Some people want to go to good schools in Korea and thy come to the U.S. to transfer to the Korean schools.
Most of Korean students come to the U.S. without understanding the U.S. school system. Most of Korean students do not understand that the game is different in the U.S. They have to understand the game. In Korea, there is a game to go to a good college. However, same methodologies can't be applied to going to comparable colleges and universities in the U.S.: IT"S A DIFFERENT GAME. Without understanding the game, it is harder. The American schools see two things, and merits are given to those who have covered both when choosing two candidates with equal academic achievements. Even if they understand the concept, it may be hard for Korean students to adopt to the game; it's another different game. Applying the same methods to the rules of game are different is a hallmark of not being able to achieve the colleges one want to go. Korean students just study hard, and they might feel more comfortable doing that because that's what they used to do in Korea. When Korean students first come to the U.S., they might be surprised by fewer number of classes and subjects and faced with ample free time; they may find happy to have more free time, and yet they feel frustrated not knowing how to spend their free time. American students' life can be view as juggling number of balls, not just one : studying.
