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orosee
Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Location: Hannam-dong, Seoul
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 Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Personally I find it amusing that people who marry Koreans are so quick to slam public schools. I mean, your spouse is a product of that system... right? So... they are mindless morons with no creativity who melted away in hagwons... and you married AND procreated with them...? 
No one can deny that the K schools have their problems, but they also have their high points as well. As with all things related to children, IMO, it comes back to the parents. Absentee parenting + fantastic schools = terrible kids. Fantastic parents + horrific schools = great kids.
Any parent who trusts ANY education system blindly with the education of their children is a fool. |
Great post. |
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fosterman
Joined: 16 Nov 2011
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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Id rather my child in a Korean school than a school back home.
Korean schools are not what you all think, endless studying, tests, mountains of homework etc..
none of that really, I would know my daughter went 7 years through it all. the work she did was far less than my sisters kids are doing back home.
don't confuse Korean schools with HAKWON culture.
Korean mothers give their children more work to do hakwons, private lessons internet lessons etc.
but the Korean education curriculum is very lax!
and the school environment is a safe place.
don't knock it before you have tried it.
sure there is pressure to win, but that is from the mothers, you have the choice to force your kid to stay up till 2am studying so he can get 100% of his 2nd grade math test or not.
but the class environment is not what you all think it is. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Personally I find it amusing that people who marry Koreans are so quick to slam public schools. I mean, your spouse is a product of that system... right? So... they are mindless morons with no creativity who melted away in hagwons... and you married AND procreated with them...?
No one can deny that the K schools have their problems, but they also have their high points as well. As with all things related to children, IMO, it comes back to the parents. Absentee parenting + fantastic schools = terrible kids. Fantastic parents + horrific schools = great kids.
Any parent who trusts ANY education system blindly with the education of their children is a fool. |
I've heard FAR MORE Koreans slamming the system here than I have foreigners.
Perhaps it's the Korean spouses that are not wanting their kids in the system? |
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etopkorea
Joined: 20 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:25 am Post subject: |
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Yep. My wife's Korean (a product of this country's education system) and since having kids, she is the driving force behind our move from Korea to the US.
She's the one who doesn't want our kids growing up where they will have no friends to play with after school because all those kids will be at hagwon.
She wants our kids to play school sports, do extra curricular activities, go to prom, work part-time jobs, and all the other things kids in the US do outside of school hours.
Not all Koreans have unassailable faith in their system. |
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DIsbell
Joined: 15 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:02 am Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Personally I find it amusing that people who marry Koreans are so quick to slam public schools. I mean, your spouse is a product of that system... right? So... they are mindless morons with no creativity who melted away in hagwons... and you married AND procreated with them...?
No one can deny that the K schools have their problems, but they also have their high points as well. As with all things related to children, IMO, it comes back to the parents. Absentee parenting + fantastic schools = terrible kids. Fantastic parents + horrific schools = great kids.
Any parent who trusts ANY education system blindly with the education of their children is a fool. |
OR....
My wife regaled me with horror stories of high school (at school by 8 am, not coming home until nearly 12- this was before the 10 o'clock law) and has expressed she'd rather not put kids through the school system here. Meanwhile I tell her about my schooling experience and she was kinda blown away, especially as we had, respective to our countries, similar academic outcomes.
So if anything, I probably bash Korean schooling more as a result of having a Korean partner than anything else.
I find that the biggest tragedy isn't the lack of creativity (though I personally find that yes, NA/European school systems generally yield a bit more, on average), but the excessive, unnecessary volume of study in Korea. Obviously some Westerners, especially Americans (my countrymen), need a bit more volume and support-wise, but I think that Koreans are overdoing it and then the competitive zeal leads to stuff we read about like widescale cheating on English tests (recent TOEIC and past TOEFL) and bribery in the public schools. |
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motiontodismiss
Joined: 18 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| T-J wrote: |
By putting school in quotes the OP obviously has some preconceived ideas about the Korean PS system. Yet backhandedly yields to the fact that Korean students outperform their western counterparts in mathematics.
As a parent of a student in the PS system I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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Dude, Korean schools are not schools. There's a reason hagwons do so well here, it's because the public education system is incompetent.
Thing is, most Koreans have no faith whatsoever in the public education system here which is why hagwons exist. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| motiontodismiss wrote: |
| T-J wrote: |
By putting school in quotes the OP obviously has some preconceived ideas about the Korean PS system. Yet backhandedly yields to the fact that Korean students outperform their western counterparts in mathematics.
As a parent of a student in the PS system I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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Dude, Korean schools are not schools. There's a reason hagwons do so well here, it's because the public education system is incompetent.
Thing is, most Koreans have no faith whatsoever in the public education system here which is why hagwons exist. |
Wow...generalize much?
Seriously Korean schools ARE SCHOOLS. They have their good points and bad points and the "system" (nice catch all term there) is not incompetent. In fact a system cannot be incompetent, some people can be however.
I wil say this, when I compare Canada and Korea's education system I see that the best or ideal system lies smack in the middle between them. Korea could learn a lesson of two from the Canadian system and the Canadian system could sure use some of the attributes of the Korean system.
Lets keep an even keel here, as stupid generalisations help no one.
Last edited by PatrickGHBusan on Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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etopkorea
Joined: 20 Sep 2011
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| Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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While on the topic of generalizations Patrick, perhaps you could actually be specific about what Canada can learn from Korea and what Korea can learn from Canada... rather than using a "stupid generalization" like "lessons."
Just saying... everyone generalizes dude. |
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pegasus64128
Joined: 20 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| orosee wrote: |
| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Personally I find it amusing that people who marry Koreans are so quick to slam public schools. I mean, your spouse is a product of that system... right? So... they are mindless morons with no creativity who melted away in hagwons... and you married AND procreated with them...?
No one can deny that the K schools have their problems, but they also have their high points as well. As with all things related to children, IMO, it comes back to the parents. Absentee parenting + fantastic schools = terrible kids. Fantastic parents + horrific schools = great kids.
Any parent who trusts ANY education system blindly with the education of their children is a fool. |
Great post. |
Yes. Having read this thread, I find this to be the smartest post, imo - someone who can see the big picture.
Korean schools are hardly that bad. We live in a capitalist system, where people are expected to be human resources. As well as not getting that they married a product of that system, these same people often rant on about how capitalism is the only real way to go..
As I said before, I really think NT's that are from education systems that are at least remotely competitive with Korea - Canada, Australia, NZ - are the only ones in a position to appraise the Korean education system as a whole.
Now, if you want to discuss how Korean schools size up in terms of producing students that are well rounded human beings, you might want to return to the 18th. century when that actually mattered. But to be honest, going by that metric, I would still put Korean, Canadian, NZ, and Aussie students ahead of the others native English speaking countries' students.
Last edited by pegasus64128 on Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| DIsbell wrote: |
| I find that the biggest tragedy isn't the lack of creativity (though I personally find that yes, NA/European school systems generally yield a bit more, on average), but the excessive, unnecessary volume of study in Korea. Obviously some Westerners, especially Americans (my countrymen), need a bit more volume and support-wise, but I think that Koreans are overdoing it and then the competitive zeal leads to stuff we read about like widescale cheating on English tests (recent TOEIC and past TOEFL) and bribery in the public schools. |
Yeah, there seems to be very little understanding of the law of diminishing returns. I remember some of the Korean kids I went to high school with would do their reading standing up so as not to fall asleep after studying for twelve hours straight. There's a point at which one ceases to be productive. |
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pegasus64128
Joined: 20 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| DIsbell wrote: |
| I find that the biggest tragedy isn't the lack of creativity (though I personally find that yes, NA/European school systems generally yield a bit more, on average), but the excessive, unnecessary volume of study in Korea. Obviously some Westerners, especially Americans (my countrymen), need a bit more volume and support-wise, but I think that Koreans are overdoing it and then the competitive zeal leads to stuff we read about like widescale cheating on English tests (recent TOEIC and past TOEFL) and bribery in the public schools. |
Yeah, there seems to be very little understanding of the law of diminishing returns. I remember some of the Korean kids I went to high school with would do their reading standing up so as not to fall asleep after studying for twelve hours straight. There's a point at which one ceases to be productive. |
I think you'll find that in this world, companies want to hire the guy that was standing up. lol |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| pegasus64128 wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
| DIsbell wrote: |
| I find that the biggest tragedy isn't the lack of creativity (though I personally find that yes, NA/European school systems generally yield a bit more, on average), but the excessive, unnecessary volume of study in Korea. Obviously some Westerners, especially Americans (my countrymen), need a bit more volume and support-wise, but I think that Koreans are overdoing it and then the competitive zeal leads to stuff we read about like widescale cheating on English tests (recent TOEIC and past TOEFL) and bribery in the public schools. |
Yeah, there seems to be very little understanding of the law of diminishing returns. I remember some of the Korean kids I went to high school with would do their reading standing up so as not to fall asleep after studying for twelve hours straight. There's a point at which one ceases to be productive. |
I think you'll find that in this world, companies want to hire the guy that was standing up. lol |
Quite possibly, but that doesn't mean it's a productive exercise. |
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fermentation
Joined: 22 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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If you know what you're doing, I would say homeschooling is the way to go. I wouldn't trust the public school system of almost any country. I do think people are confusing the educational culture with the system. I actually like idea of hagwons and the privatization of education, although I do not like it how Koreans go about it.
From what I hear, schools in Seoul nowadays are nothing like when I was a kid. No more daily beatings, better facilities and better extracurricular activities.
However, student violence is apparently still rampant or worse. And like any school system, you do have to worry about the system and teachers indoctrinating your kids with things you don't agree with. |
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minos
Joined: 01 Dec 2010
Location: kOREA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| fermentation wrote: |
| If you know what you're doing, I would say homeschooling is the way to go. I wouldn't trust the public school system of almost any country. |
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GJoeM
Joined: 05 Oct 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:27 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by GJoeM on Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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