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eslwriter
Joined: 15 Sep 2010
Location: A dot on the planet with an exaggerated sense of importance.
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 Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 3:03 am Post subject: Laughable WSJ Piece on Korean Education |
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Here is a link to a story about Korean hagwon teacher who makes $4.0 million US per year. That part of the story was interesting.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324635904578639780253571520.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
The last part of the piece, written by Amanda Ripley - investigative journalist, is quite funny. She seems to suggest that hagwons, the free market prong of the Korean education, encourage students to become agile critical thinkers in math, science and reading because the public education system can't prepare kids in these ways.
Except for her interviews witha few politicians and ministry of education bingo callers, I wonder if she has any idea. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 10:23 am Post subject: |
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In South Korea, most education takes place in hogwans, with private teachers at home, or dedicated students who teach themselves outside of school. The government schools are useless:
| the article wrote: |
... according to the kids. In a 2010 survey of 6,600 students at 116 high schools conducted by the Korean Educational Development Institute, Korean teenagers gave their hagwon teachers higher scores across the board than their regular schoolteachers:
Hagwon teachers were better prepared, more devoted to teaching and more respectful of students' opinions, the teenagers said. Interestingly, the hagwon teachers rated best of all when it came to treating all students fairly, regardless of the students' academic performance. |
This is especially true with learning English where the poor quality of government education combines with the incompetence of Korean English teachers. If the government schools would just give up, fire the Korean English teachers and stop teaching English altogether, they could just give tests and watch as the overall level of English education and the average English level of the students would rise dramatically. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
This is especially true with learning English where the poor quality of government education combines with the incompetence of Korean English teachers. If the government schools would just give up, fire the Korean English teachers and stop teaching English altogether, they could just give tests and watch as the overall level of English education and the average English level of the students would rise dramatically. |
Public school classes are much bigger and mixed level. A lot of public school English teachers are very hard working and great at what they do. I've also met a lot of Korean students with high levels of English who never went to hagwans or studied abroad.
As far as the article is concerned this is the country of the self help book and short cut. I'll read this book by Steve Jobs and suddenly become a successful
business man. I'll have lessons from the 'best' English teacher (which I assume consist of mostly grammar explanations in Korean) and magically get a TOEIC/SAT score of whatever it is. Even though I can't string a coherent sentence together. We all know getting good at a language is a slow process involving mostly self study and motivation. Well done to him for being successful at what he does, though I think the fact that he teaches for 60 hours a week shows that for him, greed is a stronger motivation than wanting to provide a good service. I think the article just shows up Koreans for being a bit gullible, more than anything else. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| If the government schools would just give up |
Are you saying give up completely or just in English? Either way you do realize not every student can afford to go to a hagwon. Do you really want a larger pool of uneducated masses?
Public schools are there to provide an basic education for everyone, the rich and the poor. Otherwise you'll be back to the 1850's where only the rich are able to read and the remaining 75% can barely read. |
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andrewchon
Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Location: Back in Oz. Living in ISIS Aust.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:11 am Post subject: |
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He's an on-line tutor. If he makes 4 mil a year good on him. All it says is that he's found a teaching method that is popular. Doesn't say he's effective. Although one-on-one can be effective, it isn't for all. Rock-star for the groupies, he's preaching to the converted.  |
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transmogrifier
Joined: 02 Jan 2012
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:13 am Post subject: |
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| andrewchon wrote: |
| He's an on-line tutor. If he makes 4 mil a year good on him. All it says is that he's found a teaching method that is popular. Doesn't say he's effective. Although one-on-one can be effective, it isn't for all. Rock-star for the groupies, he's preaching to the converted. |
He makes a significant amount of his money from on-line videos and his books, rather than one-on-one teaching, I would guess. He makes the videos once and then gets a cut based on how many people watch them. Not a bad deal, really. And he'll be rich enough now that I doubt he writes any of his books any more. |
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optik404
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:21 am Post subject: |
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| I'm surprised nobody has ripped the videos from his site and uploaded them to youtube. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:20 pm Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
| If the government schools would just give up |
Are you saying give up completely or just in English? Either way you do realize not every student can afford to go to a hagwon. Do you really want a larger pool of uneducated masses?
Public schools are there to provide an basic education for everyone, the rich and the poor. Otherwise you'll be back to the 1850's where only the rich are able to read and the remaining 75% can barely read. |
The article accurately reported that 3/4 of Korean children go to hogwans. There are scholarships available at many good hogwans for those who come from poor families. Further, in many cases the best hogwans actually have the lowest tuition fees. If the government cut back on education and closed the schools, spent less, and taxed less, there would be even more competition and low cost schools available and the people would have more of their own money and be able to spend more on the better private education.
There are good teachers within the failed government educational system. They could be even better in a private setting, and by leaving the current bureaucracy behind they would be able to produce far better results and earn more money; many founding or managing their own schools.
If the government would deregulate private schools and hogwans the quality would improve even more, and costs would be lower than current public schools for better educational outcomes. In fact, there is already a small but growing segment of the population that has dropped out of the government schools altogether; parents and children, including public school teachers, who have given up on the government supported and heavily regulated private schools and only attend hogwans.
But, yeah, I was only calling for the immediate abolition of English education in the government schools. It is beyond their willingness to change to what they need and beyond their ability to fix what they have. |
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andrewchon
Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Location: Back in Oz. Living in ISIS Aust.
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| optik404 wrote: |
| I'm surprised nobody has ripped the videos from his site and uploaded them to youtube. |
The feedback from him is what helps the students. Video rip-offs don't get you that. |
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NohopeSeriously
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Location: The Christian Right-Wing Educational Republic of Korea
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:00 am Post subject: |
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I said this often before in real life to those "obviously" helpless Koreans. The public education system should simply emphasize less on math just like in the West. It's a good thing that I convinced them with my mad Korean speaking ability. I strongly believe that 1/3 of the problem with the public education system comes from the difficult math requirement.
I would rather see a Korean kid who fails completely in math than a zombie-like Korean kid who is a math genius.
| ontheway wrote: |
| But, yeah, I was only calling for the immediate abolition of English education in the government schools. It is beyond their willingness to change to what they need and beyond their ability to fix what they have. |
And same goes for math. The best math teachers in South Korea are not public school teachers. Hence the high school students' preferences for home-visiting math tutors or special lecturers shown in the annual math suneung specials from EBS. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| The article accurately reported that 3/4 of Korean children go to hogwans. |
This may be true for Seoul, and area, and some of the large cities. However, in the smaller cities, 3/4 is way to high. Remember just under half the Korean population lives outside of the capital region.
So if you privatized education, how do expect people who aren't 'lucky' enough to live near Seoul to get educated? And how about the 25% in the Seoul area? That's 5 million people, so maybe 1.5 million people under the age of 20. You want a bunch of shanty towns filled with illiterate masses making a return to Korea? Will a privatized education system really give 1.5 million kids 'free' scholarships?
Even a 100% privatized system will still create tiers, based on the attitudes of Korean parents. This time, only the elite of the money-class will send their kids to 'elite' private schools. While the rest of the people with money will go to 'regular' private schools. We just end up with a very similar problem, difference is the bottom 25% don't get educated at all. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 7:29 am Post subject: |
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[quote="edwardcatflap"]
| Quote: |
Public school classes are much bigger and mixed level. A lot of public school English teachers are very hard working and great at what they do. I've also met a lot of Korean students with high levels of English who never went to hagwans or studied abroad.
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So private lessons then? If you expect us to believe that they learned
English just in PS classes I have to call BS. No Chancy Mr. Whelen.
They aren't telling you the whole story. |
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NohopeSeriously
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Location: The Christian Right-Wing Educational Republic of Korea
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:13 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| Even a 100% privatized system will still create tiers, based on the attitudes of Korean parents. This time, only the elite of the money-class will send their kids to 'elite' private schools. While the rest of the people with money will go to 'regular' private schools. We just end up with a very similar problem, difference is the bottom 25% don't get educated at all. |
Eh, but the good thing about this is that it'll bring some balance to the government finances. The education-related budgets put forward by the government have always been a gigantic financial black hole ever since South Korea's 5th Republic (제5공화국). And as for the bottom 25%? There are religious outreaches for the poor kids and especially South Korea's Presbyterian churches are rather famous for their non-academic after-school activities these days. But yes, privatizing the education system would benefit the Christian communities in the country.
IMO, if you want to privatize South Korea's educational system, then at least 25-35% of the schools must be Christian-funded. After all, Jesus Christ is a native English speaker among some Koreans.  (Seriously, some do think like that since not many Koreans actually understand Classical Western history well) |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:20 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
| The article accurately reported that 3/4 of Korean children go to hogwans. |
This may be true for Seoul, and area, and some of the large cities. However, in the smaller cities, 3/4 is way to high. Remember just under half the Korean population lives outside of the capital region.
So if you privatized education, how do expect people who aren't 'lucky' enough to live near Seoul to get educated? And how about the 25% in the Seoul area? That's 5 million people, so maybe 1.5 million people under the age of 20. You want a bunch of shanty towns filled with illiterate masses making a return to Korea? Will a privatized education system really give 1.5 million kids 'free' scholarships?
Even a 100% privatized system will still create tiers, based on the attitudes of Korean parents. This time, only the elite of the money-class will send their kids to 'elite' private schools. While the rest of the people with money will go to 'regular' private schools. We just end up with a very similar problem, difference is the bottom 25% don't get educated at all. |
For $200 per month per student, 25 kids per class, if the government would get out of the way, I could set up private schools that would give Korean elementary school students a year-round education that is far better than they get today with scholarship slots for the truly poor. The government is spending far more with bigger classes and doing a crappy job.
Get rid of the taxes and there would be far fewer than 25% who couldn't pay.
Throw in some religious education funded by believers, and religious groups could do it even cheaper also with scholarships for the truly poor. |
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Who's Your Daddy?
Joined: 30 May 2010
Location: Victoria, Canada.
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| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
In fact, there is already a small but growing segment of the population that has dropped out of the government schools altogether
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I thought the government required school age students to go to school?
My understanding of "Home Schooling" was it was supplementary to regular schooling, not a replacement. |
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