Korean Job Discussion Forums

[I-am-me]

[Draz]

Depends on the grade. In Canada, you spend the same amount of time at school in grade 1 as grade 12 (mostly). In Korea first graders go home at lunch time, and seniors stay at school until 10pm studying.

[dharma bum]

agreed. they were selective about which information they used when doing their "fact checking" - looking at only eighth graders and not at exhausted high schoolers - although i'm not sure that all of the time high schoolers spend at school would count as "instructional hours," which just makes it a term that misleads people as to the reality of education here. i also don't see any mention of hagwons in there...

[RACETRAITOR]

Doesn't take into account academies.

I'm surprised the numbers are even close, with the American three-month summer holiday.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Then why don't they say 'instructional hours'? You can get slightly less instructional hours but still spend / waste far more time at school.

BTW, I don't think the average US 8th-grader is 30 scheduled lesson hours plus after-school classes plus CA classes plus zero-block study / EBS time.

[phoneboothface]

Koreans might get less instructional hours but then the total hours they spend in class copying crap / writing the same thing a bunch of times and doing rote memorization is nuts. Then they go to academy after school for more of the same.

[Adventurer]

[crossmr]

[Robot_Teacher]

Agree. The school calendar is not what it used to be back home as I was looking at this. They're starting on August 6th and letting out for only 9 days over Christmas to return on January 2nd and then going to the 1st of June, but taking 1 week of Spring like college students have done. When I went to high school, I started around August 25th, Christmas break was 3 weeks, and we got out for the Summer around the middle of May, but no 1 week Spring break. Also, there is much more curriculum today as well as Summer school. Many districts have uped the annie on standards since we graduated in the 90's. I get the gist that it's not an easy teaching job, but a rather hard one.

[Ultimo Hombre]

I agree. Well, to an extent. They may go to more "institutes" and stay up late "studying" at these places, but as far as public school is concerned they don't go to school more. Also, sitting in a classroom asking a teacher to play hangman with you, whining about being hungry, tired, or actually falling asleep does not count as studying.

[jkelly80]

The US has 100 times the population of Estonia. Taking averaged test scores means diddly.

[Biblethumper]

Obviously Koreans spend more time in school since they go to other schools than public school.

[Insomnia]

[jackson7]

In the US, our students live a fun childhood filled with free time, sleeping in, sports, and other activities. Responsibilities and privileges grow as students get older, with a final slap in the face of reality when students reach their junior and senior year(s) of university study. Here university years are a 4-year break from the terrible hagwon-ridden hell of "childhood" before starting an alcohol-soaked nightmare of avoiding family responsibilities by hanging out at work all day.

Korean students spend more time "studying" just like Korean workers spend more time "working." Even the best students I have talked to have told me that the hours and hours they spend in the study rooms are divided mostly between texting and sleeping, but that it's a welcome break from being at home or at hagwons. It's a fact that Koreans are working more than 500 hours more than Americans per year (that's an extra 12 weeks!) but that they are less than 40% as productive. Welcome to the land of speed and quantity over quality every time. Two more months to go before I bathe in logic and common sense once again.

[chevro1et]