Americans love to talk about American exceptionalism, and mask their fears of being conquered by being ‘sorry for’ all the little kids that have to work hard, while at the same time finding it quite easy to be contemptuous of adults in any non-American society who are not making it and who are not rich and powerful. 

I guess the much vaunted American Dream is the same dream everyone else in the world has..to make sure that no one steps on their child’s head!  So Koreans, and Indians, and Chinese are trying to ensure that no one turns their nose up at their kids!  Yes, the kids may be tired, but they sure as heck will be happy when they own that hotel chain that Mom worked in as Chambermaid!

I attended all levels of required schooling in both South Korea and the U.S., as in, I moved back and forth every couple of years from age 3 until 12th grade, so I am intimately familiar with both educational systems, the flaws and all. It would take hours for me explain what I perceive to be the the pros and cons of each system but I just wanted to share another perspective with you.

I think Koreans in generally are aware that there are deep flaws in the education system and there are certainly education experts who are more aware of the flaws than others (my own mother being one such expert who’s been advocating a chance for a long time). However, change will be slow to come by because of a combination of the following factors (and of course this isn’t an exhaustive list at all, just things on top of my head at the moment) – intense competition driven by limited opportunities (i.e. simple supply and demand in terms of work and marriage prospects down the road in a fairly closed society), a tradition of great emphasis on education since centuries ago (and academic excellence is usually most easily displayed in pedigree of the schools one attends), a shorter tradition of intense education established since the war (i.e. recent generations have seen how those who studied hard were able to pull themselves and their families out of post-war poverty into prosperity).

I am the first to point out that this is a very single-track mentality that feeds into a vicious cycle. I believe that children should have free time to play. I have sat next to Korea classmates who routinely fell asleep in class because they were so tired from the hakwons. The methods most certainly should change to encourage more creativity and free thinking. There are deep, deep flaws and I wouldn’t subject my own child to such a routine.
I enjoyed reading your article both because i can relate to your perspective and because I can tell your sympathy for your students is genuine.

I attended all levels of required schooling in both South Korea and the U.S., as in, I moved back and forth every couple of years from age 3 until 12th grade, so I am intimately familiar with both educational systems, the flaws and all. It would take hours for me explain what I perceive to be the the pros and cons of each system but I just wanted to share another perspective with you.

I think Koreans in generally are aware that there are deep flaws in the education system and there are certainly education experts who are more aware of the flaws than others (my own mother being one such expert who’s been advocating a chance for a long time). However, change will be slow to come by because of a combination of the following factors (and of course this isn’t an exhaustive list at all, just things on top of my head at the moment) – intense competition driven by limited opportunities (i.e. simple supply and demand in terms of work and marriage prospects down the road in a fairly closed society), a tradition of great emphasis on education since centuries ago (and academic excellence is usually most easily displayed in pedigree of the schools one attends), a shorter tradition of intense education established since the war (i.e. recent generations have seen how those who studied hard were able to pull themselves and their families out of post-war poverty into prosperity). Even the emphasis on memorization probably stemmed from (I’m guessing since I’m not expert) having to teach large numbers of students when they built the schools from scratch post-war and also probably influenced by Japanese methods since the Japanese were quicker to adopt everything western, after which they quickly seized Korea under colonial rule for a few decades.

I am the first to point out that this intense competition and pressure is a very single-track mentality that feeds into a vicious cycle. I believe that children should have free time to play. I have sat next to Korea classmates who routinely fell asleep in class because they were so tired from the hakwons. However, the Korean system (and methods – I’m not being precise enough here but that’s because I am just a lay person, not an education expert) is not without merits. It works well in most disciplines, if one were to make a strictly test-based comparison against American students. From my years of Korean schooling, I learned diligence and unsurpassed work ethic – the kind of work ethic I did not witness again until I saw workers at cream of the crop institutions in corporate America 10 years after leaving my Korean high school (I am in my late 20s now). My inflexibly standard Korean textbook education EXPOSED me to a wide range of topics that are generally known to ‘educated’ people that have received a classical education in the west, and speaking from experience, in terms of simple exposure, I am confident that a standard Korean public education was several notches above standard public education in the U.S. (I remain impressed by specialty and certain private prep schools in the U.S.) The reason I emphasize the word ‘exposure’ is because in many cases the Korean textbooks only introduced me to concepts or great works of art of buzzwords, and it was up to me to have enough intellectual curiosity to follow up on my own and/or recall those concepts when they came up again my future education or reading. In other words, what began with an enormous amount of rote memory paid greater dividends down the road.

I apologize if I am all over the place but I really only meant to make a few points. Yes, the system is deeply flawed, 1) but it became that way due to a great number of cultural, economical and historical reasons, so although hopefully change is on its way those changes will be slow, 2) and although better methods certainly exist, Korea is doing a fairly good job as compared to other countries, given that no country has mastered this really, 3) because of cultural factors coming into play, such as simply a higher tolerance/emphasis/acceptance of/on extremely hard work, one cannot view what’s going on with a western perspective and 4) most importantly (and really, this was why I started writing this reply in the first place), believe it or not, a vast majority of your students will survive just fine and even look back upon their school years fondly. Like I said, I can feel your genuine sympathy for your students, so hopefully knowing that they will grow up mostly unscathed (and at least there’s zero gun violence in Korea) will unburden you a little bit.