Korean Job Discussion Forums

[benohare]

[Xuanzang]

[neandergirl]

I would think that it would depend on the school, rather than the country per se. I went to school in 3 Canadian provinces have no complaints about the education I received. My classmates and I certainly were drilled in the basics like times tables in the lower grades, all the while being progressively more and more challenged as the grades went by. My better half went to schools in 1 province and 1 spot in the UK - he feels the time in the UK was an utter waste and the majority of his time in school overall not particularly productive.

[Easter Clark]

Does anyone know if the international school in Songdo is open, or when it will BE open? Their website (http://www.issongdo.com/) has no information.

[fermentation]

[Lolimahro]

I went to some pretty good schools in the U.S. as well as a couple of fairly worthless ones. Still, I managed to get a decent education. I think that the support of my parents made me a successful student. Based on my own personal and very unscientific observations, this might be a big difference between Korean education and education in some other countries - the amount of pressure and influence parents put on their children to value education, study hard and get good scores (which are considered the result of how hard one has worked).

My mother might as well have been a Korean mother with the way she made me do my homework, marching around the living room saying my times tables until I remembered all of them. While it's true that some parents go to the extreme in pushing their children to learn, I think that support - and sometimes a little bit of pressure - from parents is necessary for students to excel.

No matter where my son goes to school, I plan to give him lots of support in his education and emphasize how important it is for him to learn. Of course in life my main goal is for my son to be happy, but I hope I can teach him to try his best at everything he does and that education has real value that will benefit him through his whole life. I know many, many people in the U.S. that never got such a message from their parents and I believe that is why they never excelled in school - all the way through college - even though they are all intelligent people that I have had some really insightful conversations with.

[GJoeM]

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[GJoeM]

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[fermentation]

[Captain Corea]

[GJoeM]

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[Who's Your Daddy?]

Homeschooling? Would you home school your kids if you lived in your home country? If not, what is so important that it is worth staying in Korea for?

On topic a bit: Live in an expensive area, or a farm area. I've taught in a factory area, pretty bad students. Taught in a farm area; good students. Expensive area, great students. The expensive area kids were competitive, the farm kids were not, but had a lot of fun playing outside, pretty normal kids. But the factory area was terrible, kids fighting, Gr. 6's smoking.

I grew up in a good area, schooling was good. But in some parts of my town, the other students were scary. The bad schools there were much worse than the bad schools here. When I consider moving home, I'd only consider the wealthy areas. You have to compare apples with apples.

[thebearofbundang]

I've aleays wondered how kids who are Homeschooled are able to make up the lost time in terms of social interactions with other children (not just family and best friends)..

The way I see it, kids interact and learn important social skills at school (conflict resolution, compromise, sharing etc.). After school most go Tae Kwon Do, soccer, swimming and hogwons with their classmates. I'm sure home schooled children do these after school activities also, but would be concerned with the play/socializing time that was lost from 8-2 everyday..

My kid's too young for school yet, but I would be nervous keeping them out of a traditional school could give them a complex of some sort.. They're already different enough (mixed race).

Final thought, most of my best friends to this day are one's I went to school with at a young age. I've made lots of friends through sports, and other things, but there's something about going to school everyday with the same friends that makes that bond stronger than the others.

[Jimskins]

I constantly agonize over the education question. The wife(Korean) and I are 50/50 on whether to have kids because of this. I have taught at every level of the korean education system from kindergarden to university and it simply gets worse at every stage.

I looked into international schools but to send two kids(it's 0 or 2 for us) to one I would have to be earning the best part of 10 million a month to have any reasonable standard if living, and even then id have no time to spend with my kids so what would be the point?

The key stages i want to avoid are high school and above all university, so i was planning to take them back to the UK after middle school and (hopefully) get them into my local grammar school. But im in no way convinced they'll learn the critical reasoning skills they need in a Korean middle school so it looks like we will have to decamp to the UK as soon as elementary school is finished (or perhaps a year earlier just to bed them in).

My wife's two cents-she was 일등 (top) in her class throughout elementary school ( at a good school in Gangnam,no mean feat) , loved school. She said middle school just sucked the life out of her, crushed any joy of learning, not to mention high school. Until recently she was a middle school teacher and she says nothing has changed except the good kids are more stressed out and the bad kids are getting more and more out of control.

[GJoeM]

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