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Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:08 am Post subject: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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If you had a kid in Korea and you wanted to raise them here, would you send them to public schools in Korea? Or shell out a lot of money so they could go to an international school?
I've not been here an awful long time but I'd be happy to send my children to a public school.
I would be happy raising my kid in the public school system here. I love a lot of things about it. I love the fact that school year groups stay together forever. I love the way the older students teach and help the younger students. I love the fact that the kids aren't being monsters on the street after the sun sets. The young students I've taught here are *happy*. They're great.
Having met so many kids from public schools who are straight out awesome I don't feel like their lives are being ruined by being in a somewhat crappy educational system filled with rote learning, love sticks and heavy discipine. Children here invariably give off the impression of being happy and content.
Awesome kids always do well. Less-than-brilliant-kids with parents who really help them out do well too.
I obviously see the downfalls of the Hagwan system in which children are almost expected to be participated in. But I can't see any negatives in a child who is publically educated with help from parents rather than entering the hagwan system. A lot of Korean parents feel obliged by society to enroll their children in often worthless classes, but as a westerner I wouldn't feel that obligation.
In fact the best students I've met are the ones who are school + home educated rather than school + hagwan educated. I think this might be one of the best places in the world to supplement school learning with home learning.
I honestly believe that if i was to have a child here then I'd happily send them to public schools here, and suplement their education at home. If they wanted to they'd go to taekwando or whatever classes outside of school to hang out with their friends, but I wouldn't force any 'hagwan'style classes.
The fact that children here are busy being children (when they're not busy studying) rather than hanging out on the streets sniffing glue/causing trouble/mugging people/etc is awesome. They still get to run around and be maniacs; but it is at their taekwando/hapkido/gumdo.. class in which they do it rather than out on the streets.
The whole education-oriented society (which would allow me to educate my children outside of school and still have them finish earlier than other children) makes me think that this is a great place to raise a child.
I haven't experienced the inner cities of Korea, but the children I've seen here so far have been the most well mannered and best behaved children I've seen. I'd love to raise kids in which this is the norm rather than the exception.
Would you send your child to public school in Korea or to an international school? Why/Why Not? |
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Njord
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:40 am Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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I do agree with you that Korean children are mostly happy and after they run the gauntlet of hagwons and insane hours in public high schools they end up with an acceptable education. I also agree that they should only take after school classes that they are really interested in. However, I disagree with most of the rest of your post, particularly this:
| Hyeon Een wrote: |
| The fact that children here are busy being children (when they're not busy studying) rather than hanging out on the streets sniffing glue/causing trouble/mugging people/etc is awesome. They still get to run around and be maniacs; but it is at their taekwando/hapkido/gumdo.. class in which they do it rather than out on the streets. |
Where do you get the idea that children raised in English-speaking countries spend their time sniffing glue, causing trouble, and mugging people? Well, causing trouble, maybe, I guess all children do some of that. But mugging people?
In any case, the reason I wouldn't want my hypothetical children to study in Korean public schools has nothing to do with this. I wouldn't want my children to learn conformity in school. In English-speaking countries, we learn the opposite. Children are rewarded for speaking up, arguing with their teacher, and taking risks. Children learn (increasingly with age) that they need to question authority and take responsibility for their own education. What happens if they don't learn this? |
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Hyeon Een
Joined: 24 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:56 am Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Njord wrote: |
I do agree with you that Korean children are mostly happy and after they run the gauntlet of hagwons and insane hours in public high schools they end up with an acceptable education. I also agree that they should only take after school classes that they are really interested in. However, I disagree with most of the rest of your post, particularly this:
| Hyeon Een wrote: |
| The fact that children here are busy being children (when they're not busy studying) rather than hanging out on the streets sniffing glue/causing trouble/mugging people/etc is awesome. They still get to run around and be maniacs; but it is at their taekwando/hapkido/gumdo.. class in which they do it rather than out on the streets. |
Where do you get the idea that children raised in English-speaking countries spend their time sniffing glue, causing trouble, and mugging people? Well, causing trouble, maybe, I guess all children do some of that. But mugging people? |
To much time spent in my home country (the UK) in the place I went to school (Croydon, in South London)
| Njord wrote: |
In any case, the reason I wouldn't want my hypothetical children to study in Korean public schools has nothing to do with this. I wouldn't want my children to learn conformity in school. In English-speaking countries, we learn the opposite. Children are rewarded for speaking up, arguing with their teacher, and taking risks. Children learn (increasingly with age) that they need to question authority and take responsibility for their own education. What happens if they don't learn this? |
Well I agree with you to some extent. But if you think that children DON'T question authority you haven't spent enough time in hagwans =)
I believe the qualities you mentioned could be taught quite well by a Western parent at home at the same time the other children are attending a hagwan. As in simply asking your child "Why is this the case?", "Why do you think that?" etc. whilst helping them with their homework.
I agree that Korean parents on the whole don't do this, but my point was about a Western parent raising their child in Korea. I think a Western parent could provide this kind of analytical stimulus in conjunction with the Korean school system.
I'm arguing that a Westerner I could supplement the Korean educational model with my own tainted Western teaching to provide a well rounded education. (Or rather what in my opinion is a well-rounded education). Instead of sending my children to the typical all-in Hagwan (which supplements their english hagwan) I could provide a bit of parent-oriented teaching in the Western model which would provide the stimulus both you and I agree are lacking in the public school system. |
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Zoidberg
Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Location: Somewhere too hot for my delicate marine constitution
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:16 pm Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Njord wrote: |
| Hyeon Een wrote: |
| The fact that children here are busy being children (when they're not busy studying) rather than hanging out on the streets sniffing glue/causing trouble/mugging people/etc is awesome. They still get to run around and be maniacs; but it is at their taekwando/hapkido/gumdo.. class in which they do it rather than out on the streets. |
Where do you get the idea that children raised in English-speaking countries spend their time sniffing glue, causing trouble, and mugging people? Well, causing trouble, maybe, I guess all children do some of that. But mugging people? |
The two times I've been mugged in Sydney, both times was high school students. I've seen students get on a train and beat the crap out of a guy with no provocation whatsoever. The other weekend some high school girls were smoking on the train and cussing out some old dude when he asked them to stop. Two of them had their kids with them. A 16 year old kid bashed a middle aged guy with his scooter because he (the adult) tried to stop him (the kid) from harrassing a school girl on the train.
For all it's faults, kids in Korea are still kids, a phenomenon that seems to be going out of style in the West (well, in Australia at least, can't generalise  ) |
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bluelake
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Hyeon Een wrote: |
| If you had a kid in Korea and you wanted to raise them here, would you send them to public schools in Korea? Or shell out a lot of money so they could go to an international school? |
Been there, done that. My son went to Korean elementary school, from beginning to end. He had a good experience there, as he was quite popular--class prez every year and student body prez in his final year.
However, after that, my wife and I decided he would not go to Korean middle and high schools, as 50% of the time is wasted. Students are only studying towards exams and, when they're not doing that, they are being punished for infractions real or imagined. Instead, my wife homeschooled him, and then he took and passed proficiency exams (검정고시) for both middle and high school. He then took a university entrance exam, becoming the [then] youngest person to pass the test, at the age of fourteen. He received his BA at seventeen, and is now finishing his MA in linguistics at the age of nineteen. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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2 kids, both in public school.
No problems for us as parents or the kids. Sports day is a riot!
I have to say that we spend a lot of time finding alternative education for them. Not in terms of hagwons, but internet schooling, books and a lot of time with them on the basic subjects.
As bluelake said, the kids have a lot of wasted time in school here generally, and I think this extends from elementary to university. |
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rawiri
Joined: 01 Jun 2003
Location: Lovely day for a fire drill.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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Bluelake,
Congratulations!, that's an awesome achievement. When he finishes his masters why not hook him up a university job! |
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ajgeddes
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Location: Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:32 pm Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Zoidberg wrote: |
| Njord wrote: |
| Hyeon Een wrote: |
| The fact that children here are busy being children (when they're not busy studying) rather than hanging out on the streets sniffing glue/causing trouble/mugging people/etc is awesome. They still get to run around and be maniacs; but it is at their taekwando/hapkido/gumdo.. class in which they do it rather than out on the streets. |
Where do you get the idea that children raised in English-speaking countries spend their time sniffing glue, causing trouble, and mugging people? Well, causing trouble, maybe, I guess all children do some of that. But mugging people? |
The two times I've been mugged in Sydney, both times was high school students. I've seen students get on a train and beat the crap out of a guy with no provocation whatsoever. The other weekend some high school girls were smoking on the train and cussing out some old dude when he asked them to stop. Two of them had their kids with them. A 16 year old kid bashed a middle aged guy with his scooter because he (the adult) tried to stop him (the kid) from harrassing a school girl on the train.
For all it's faults, kids in Korea are still kids, a phenomenon that seems to be going out of style in the West (well, in Australia at least, can't generalise ) |
While, I do agree with most of what you are saying, kids do bad things here too. At my old elementary school, groups of boys would normally go over to the other school near ours to fight, and it became such a problem that the principals had to get seriously involved. At my elementary school now, a group of about 11 grade 6 students were caught smoking and drinking by the teachers. |
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seoulsucker
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: The Land of the Hesitant Cutoff
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I think keeping the students together in every class, every day, every year seriously hinders their social development. |
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jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Njord wrote: |
Where do you get the idea that children raised in English-speaking countries spend their time sniffing glue, causing trouble, and mugging people? Well, causing trouble, maybe, I guess all children do some of that. But mugging people?
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Can you ever see a Korean equivalent to this? 
http://www.chavscum.com/ |
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Zoidberg
Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Location: Somewhere too hot for my delicate marine constitution
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| Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:46 pm Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| ajgeddes wrote: |
| While, I do agree with most of what you are saying, kids do bad things here too. At my old elementary school, groups of boys would normally go over to the other school near ours to fight, and it became such a problem that the principals had to get seriously involved. At my elementary school now, a group of about 11 grade 6 students were caught smoking and drinking by the teachers. |
Oh of course Korean kids do bad things, they're not saints. But unless things have changed in the last couple of years, I don't recall there being roaming gangs of 16 year olds looking for people to bash. It's more a matter of degree then anything else. It just seems that Korean kids are much more... "kid", than they are here. |
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bluelake
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:34 am Post subject: |
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| rawiri wrote: |
Bluelake,
Congratulations!, that's an awesome achievement. When he finishes his masters why not hook him up a university job! |
I doubt I'd have to do much hooking up, as he's pretty resourceful on his own and has a good track record. Heck, he'll probably pass me up in no time... |
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Natalia
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:10 am Post subject: Re: Raising a kid with public schools in Korea |
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| Hyeon Een wrote: |
I haven't experienced the inner cities of Korea, but the children I've seen here so far have been the most well mannered and best behaved children I've seen. I'd love to raise kids in which this is the norm rather than the exception.
Would you send your child to public school in Korea or to an international school? Why/Why Not? |
Have you ever even SEEN a child in another country?!!!!!
Korean children are some of the worst behaved children I have ever encountered. They are raised with the expectations adults will do everything for them ("Pick up my pencil!" "Write my speech!" "Stand there while I kick you!")
I have worked with children in a number of countries, and so coming to Korea was eye-opening. That's not to say all of the children are awful, just that the idea of discipline here is so ineffective it raises a society of children who never take any responsibility for their actions. Cheating and the belief it is okay to do things like hit teachers and parents being two examples.
I teach a number of (Korean) children who were born and partially raised overseas. They really help to illustrate the difference in the behaviour of children in other countries to the behaviour of children raised in Korea. And it is not a positive difference for the Koreans.
Korean children don't understand that no means NO. I have not seen children in any English-speaking country I have worked in try something over and over and over with a big grin on their face when they have specifically been told by an authority figure not to do it.
And, I have to say I have never seen, nor heard of, a child where I come from sniffing glue after school. |
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