Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MegaMind]

Japer Kim, professor at the Graduate School of International Studies Ewha Woman's University Seoul, has an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal. He hashes out the usual subjects that those of us who teach in Korea face daily and to some extent help perpetuate, regardless of our stance on the issue.


What caught my eye while reading were the two following quotations:

An invisible caste system still prevails... Such upbringing naturally requires a great deal of time and money, which only the most well-positioned families can afford. Thus, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer under today's tiger education system.

As a tiger education insider, I can attest that throughout this cradle-to-cap-and-gown marathon of studying, very little actual learning occurs. South Korea's raw testing numbers, which look great on international education surveys, obscure the fact that students generally cannot engage a question with critical analysis.


So, is the Korean education system worth it? Some of you might smirk, but nonetheless it is hard to deny that Korea has made great strides. But the question is at what cost and what is the future cost and is this model truly the envy of the world? Is it the inevitable model in the "flat world"? These things can't be so easily determined, but at some point everyone makes a choice consciously or unconsciously. So what model do you want? The one that doesn't yet exist?

The reason that I post this article is that sometimes teaching in Korea is presented as a loser's game, which it may well could be for some, but really the "tiger-education" model is being held up as the exemplar to import into the West. So, those of us who teach here are in some sense on the front lines of the great, global education debate. Thus, it's food for thought, lest you think you take nothing away from your time in South Korea.

Article here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577245221715596672.html?mod=WSJAsia_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_Third

[andrewchon]

Korean students can't engage a question with critical analysis. Another words they suck at writing essays. That's fair enough. Another thing to bear in mind is that a nation of critical thinkers that the Choseun dynasty was, brought on the catastrophe of Japanese Colonization. What ever the short comings of the current system, it is not going to get replaced by all-talk-and-no-action Yang-ban-ta-ryung anytime soon.

[Panda]

well said

Korean education system aims at mass production of working machines who are good at discipline and following commands, the job to make critical thinkers ( decision makers) is left to the rich who send their children to America or Europe for education)

[happiness]

Everyone who lives here more than 6 months knows this.

God bless all my kids. I love them all to death, but I have no delusions, no critical skills at all, and if they somehow develop something akin to them, they get squashed out by the 1st year of HS.

I did get a giggle a few years back when I saw "creativity" hagwons start popping up. I dont think they got very widespread, because parents arent going to spend money on something that outside of the score/test realm.
As a creative artist (ha), I think its great they could learn all of my skills in a hagwon, just like going to a movie....

Remember, everything here, well almost EVERYTHING, relating to English Language Education, from English Kindies to Hackers, etc, is for those damn tests, and almost nothing is for English itself. Well, Id say 97%. Some people really like English and thats cool, because I like Korean...

There was some article today about a Korean who grew up in the US and worked there now as a translator. Her advice to all who asked how to speak English well was to read books, and she said most all were disappointed with her answer.

That, of course, is the main key, I feel. They have nothing but a superficial attraction or interest in English. I learned the 2 other langauges I speak by falling in love with something in them and their cultures. Here, however, a Korean is supposed to be a Korean thinking is the main thing that hampers them, I feel.

You can see it all around you, the young people around you aren't really interested in anything. Rampant capatalism isn't a motivator like in Japan or maybe the US. The hobbies they do have seem to stem from their school lives. It is good some guys like body building now, wasnt like this until maybe 06-07 (although I think they started just apeing Rain). Sports is always good and cheap, but beyond that. Not so much. Most people worth their art salt know how desperate the arts scene is here. Get alot of people just copying someone, and not even alot of that. I feel for them. I have alot of hobbies, and most Koreans only look at me why would I do that and why I dont spend every single moment on my cellphone, the only appropriate private activity I could have, it seems.

God bless them..

[jaj]

There's a lot of "research" going on here.

My adult students who work for fashion companies know little about fashion and are always doing research on Europe and the US that seems very frenzied and last minute. "Studying" the West is how they legitimize everything they do. Studying seems to involve very short trips to the US and Europe where smart phone pictures are collected and reports are written. One of my worst students manages a hagwon. She's on her way to the US to a conference for "genius student." Her English is unintelligible but she's going to write a report on the conference and present it to her company.

Recently another one of my students who works as an accountant for a failing American recruiting company told me his "boss" wanted him to do research on similarly structured companies in the US. I've never heard of an accountant being responsible for research but I notice that lots of my adult students don't have clear roles, just kind of show up every day at the offices to take random orders. A common issue is they can't leave the office before their bosses so they just sit and keep busy until the the boss leaves which can be quite late. I teach people who are sleep deprived or feel sick from the forced drinking rituals so many of them complain about.

Very little of of what I see here can possibly lead to the high efficiency we may be thinking we should also reach for in Western countries.

As for my younger students, they memorize. That's it. Because so many are confined to special study areas in their homes where there are only study materials and a computer, they have limited, if any knowledge of local or world current events. They can only talk about their scores. Everything they do is mediated by an academy.

If the US were to model themselves on South Korea, it would be the final nail in the coffin. Yes, American kids need to learn math and science better and the US needs greater discipline but don't look here for a road map. Please! Anyway, how can you imitate a country that's imitating you?

Globalization is chasing its own tail!!!

[Unposter]

I don't really have much to say other than Jasper (?) Kim is not the first person to note this. Education not just in Korea but throughout East Asia and even into Southeast Asia such as Thailand have been crticized for a lack of critical reasoning skills.

Some Asian-firsters, such as the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, criticize the West for our lack of discipline and social stability (as in people don't follow rules and laws).

There is that old joke: An American goes to India and becomes depressed by all the poverty and hunger he sees. He talks to his Indian friend: There is so much hunger, why don't people just eat all the cows that roam the streets? His Indian friend looks at him and replies: So many people in the U.S. die in car accidents, why don't Americans get rid of their cars?

Today, it might be so many children are shooting other children with guns, why don't you get rid of the guns?

The point is welcome to another part of the world. One person's desire is another person's poison. Of course, we can see similar differences within a country: Some Americans say Creationism should be taught; others say Evolution. Some say their should be sex education in the schools; others say you should start the school day with a prayer.

That said I do work on critical reasoning skills with my students. My students generally enjoy it and show some ability but it is nowhere near what I would expect from similar level students back home. Many of my students have told me that they are rarely asked to give an opinion. And, they have rarely been given time to think about things, much less forced to give reasons. Given some opportunity, my students generally can do these things, though.

I also like the idea of if you want to learn a language, start reading. The extensive reading approach has really grown strong in the ESL/EFL world these days. You may have to sell it more - explain why it actually works.

[Steelrails]

I have a question- If we have so much creativity and critical thinking, why are we the employees and they the employers?

[DIsbell]

[out of context]

The question isn't what children are capable of doing at any given point in their education. That's a red herring, albeit one that gets a lot of ink spilled over it. The question is what adults are capable of doing.

Most jobs don't require critical or creative thinking per se. It certainly can't hurt to have those skills (and things would probably be a lot more efficient overall if more people did), but the important thing with education is more to prepare young people to do the jobs that will be there when they finish. And, yeah, to artificially separate the wheat from the chaff, even when there's a lot of "chaff" that is actually wheat and a lot of "wheat" that is actually chaff.

But you choke off a lot of potential improvements when you don't develop those abilities. Critical/creative thinking isn't some kind of goal in itself; it's supposed to make you more adaptive. At the same time, you also have to be ready for the consequence of a more critical approach, which is that people notice how much energy is wasted on conventional practices and how much of the common wisdom is illusory.

And it's kind of a non-sequitur to say that if we're really "creative" or "critically minded," we shouldn't be working for people who (maybe) aren't. Are we all supposed to be entrepreneurs?

[Steelrails]

[DIsbell]

My god you set up a ton of strawmen and throw around red herrings like they're going out of style. You've got this lovely fantasy that anyone who agrees with this Korean university professor about a weakness in Korean education is some sad pseudo-intellectual narcissist Asia-hating Westerner who can't get a job back home. While people are discussing the issue, and some are even mentioning where Korea does well with math compared to the States, you basically call them all hypocrites for not being Steve Jobs. No one is talking about owning businesses, as we're talking about education and the lives/performance of students, but you're trying to make the discussion about job creators (you're not running in the primary back home, are you?).

I won't waste the space here to poke holes in your flimsy arguments about creativity, but for the love of god, could you quit derailing every topic that's critical of some part of Korean society? Even when a Korean professor starts the discussion you just can't let it go...

--------------------------------------

Anyway, back on topic... I think the author made a really strong point about how class-based the situation is. I've been working in Mokdong and getting a feel for how much these families are spending for 1-2 kids each month is nuts. Keep in mind the median income is something like 24 million won, so it's pretty easy to put 2 and 2 together and see that there's a large segment of the population that's not getting the extra help.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[pedrotaves]

[liveinkorea316]

Opening up a business that is the same as every other business down the street and around the corner (Hagwon/coffee shop) does not actually require alot of creativity.

Lets not get ourselves confused here.

Lets also not think that these business owners could properly teach an English course for a minute - which requires alot of creativity to do well.

Unfortunately entrepreneurship requires some things much more important than creativity to be successful - tenacity, confidence, contacts, skills, luck and access to capital. Being creative is not a requirement for alot of sucessful companies - they are built on hard work and the above things.

In Korea the people networks are more important as people have mentioned. There are also various statistics that come out about the furious rate at which shops open and close here because people have absolutely no idea what they are doing in business and they lose their entire investment in 6 months. The only person who wins being the person who they paid to fit out their shop or for the marketing etc.

Point is, many creative people find themselves in salaried positions and shy away from entrepreneurship because of its risks. Freelancing is not the same thing. Freelancers do not have employees.

There are actually alot of English teachers in Korea doing private or multiple jobs who could be called freelancers.

I consider myself a creative person but I judge that not by how many people work for me but HOW I do my job and how I influence my students. I operate extracurricular clubs that you might think are interesting and creative.... an Irish Celdhi Band, a Rugby Training Club and a Free English Free-talking Club. Not with my students, but my own personal hobby is learning salsa dancing. Each takes up a weeknight for me but I enjoy it immensely. I am giving of my own time when I am with my students but I get to interact with university students in a different setting and teach them about something cultural and creative at the same time. I love it. We can drink together too and have fun! My lessons have the same kind of interesting random components. I try to teach as I would like to be taught.

[Panda]