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Len8
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Location: Kyungju
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 Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: Korean parental pressure on their children to excel |
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I was talking to one of my highschool students about the coming end of the year exams. Students are really working, because their future is dependent on these exams.
One student expressed her dissenchantment with a culture that allows parents and grandparents to threaten to disown their offspring if they don't excell on their end of year exams. I thought she was joking, but she said that as ridiculous as it sounds, it is still part of the culture
Couldn't believe it, and I expressed my feelings about parental love being uncontional and not contingent upon one's exam results.
Manipulation which is frowned on byall studies in Psychology is a big part of Korean culture |
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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 11:21 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, generally the pressure's big but "threaten to disown their offspring" sounds over-the-top if that doesn't contain any sarcasm. This again proves some Koreans are poor at explaining their things properly. I shake my head. Some may know what I mean.
Personally speaking, my parents didn't care all that much. I didn't even go to any hagwon during high school (or maybe several months in high school grade 1 as far as I can vaguely remember) and never got any private tutor. |
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Ozabout7or8
Joined: 04 May 2007
Location: NZ
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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Try living in a country with no social safety net to speak of and you will go a little way to understanding the Korean culture for pressure on their children to succeed.
They try and put huge amounts of pressure in the children to excel because if they don't their life may be very difficult when they are older.
Rather than choosing between different degrees of a living difficulty when they are older they are choosing between basically starvation and success which is much more of a pressure to be under.
The first thing to do to eliminate this problem is to introduce a social safety net so people are not scared $hitless into forcing their children to be super study machines in the hope of getting a good job and therefore being able to put food on the table.
Threaten anyone with death and they will do almost anything... |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Try living in a country with no social safety net to speak of and you will go a little way to understanding the Korean culture for pressure on their children to succeed. |
When I was in high school, I had a good friend whose grandparents fled North Korea during the Korean War to Canada. He often told me about the immense pressure put on him by his parents and grandparents. Canada definately has a social safety net and the family was fairly well off. Perhaps it is partially that and partially status in the ultra competitive Korean mind. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| doggyji wrote: |
| This again proves some Koreans are poor at explaining their things properly. I shake my head. Some may know what I mean. |
In 2003 a Korean man I know, who had spent ten years in New York and had recently moved back to Korea for good, said he liked English because it's hard to say what you mean in Korean, that it was too 'vague' a language. I chalked that comment up to either his New York attitude or else his difficulty adjusting back to his old language.
But then in 2006 I had a Korean adult student who has never been out of this country and yet he said basically the same thing! His said that the more he learned English the better he liked being able to express things he can't say in Korean, that Korean was 'not clear'.
Now I wish I'd gotten examples out of them!
What's with that? |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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My cousin's son is in the US studying in high school. His GPA is about 3.5, however, he brought home a C in chemistry. My cousin was very worried kept asking me, "My son got a C, will he be able to go to College in the US?"
I told her with a 3.5, he can go to a great Univeristy, even with 1 C. She couldn't believe it. |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
My cousin's son is in the US studying in high school. His GPA is about 3.5, however, he brought home a C in chemistry. My cousin was very worried kept asking me, "My son got a C, will he be able to go to College in the US?"
I told her with a 3.5, he can go to a great Univeristy, even with 1 C. She couldn't believe it. |
In the states, and Americans correct me if I'm wrong, but a 4.0 or higher GPA is not uncommon anymore, when it's for spots in above average colleges. In Calgary, Canada, the entrance requirements have gone through the roof as the number of people competiting to get in has skyrocketed over the last 5 years. You can't get into any decent program with less than a 90 average.
The thing about the U.S. system is they look at personal interviews, SATs, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, ethnicity, and family ties when considering applicants. Tell your friend to get her child a tutor. Can't afford too many of those on the transcript. |
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