Korean Job Discussion Forums

[luvnpeas]

"One of the most incredible phenomenons is hagwons..."

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/52955/Back-to-School-Korean-Kids-Never-Leave?tickers=KEF,KF,MAKOX,XKFDX

P.S. "Phenomenon" is an odd word: I learned the plural form before the singular. Some people never learned it at all!
P.P.S. 80% of stories about Korea published in the West are about academic competetiveness. You get a picture of Korea as full of serious, hard-working, ultra-discplined kids. Still, I believe everything I read about Iraq.

[sojourner1]

I read that at lunch time today and found it a funny set of words to describe hagwons. I say it's a phenomenal tragedy, but not incredible phenomenon.

[gotte00]

after just watching that piece i didn't come away surprised at all at the answers or how the piece was put together. the interviewer works for yahoo finance, one of the subjects interviewed is ceo of yahoo korea and two of the kids interviewed are the sons of said ceo. of course they are going to talk about the positives of the hagwon system. also talking to the owner of the the largest hagwon system in korea also provided with positive answers. that dude is laughing all the way to the bank. why not talk about how poor the public school system instead of the success of the hagwons? maybe the future will prove me and other doubters wrong, but over educating children is dangerous. my mom was a public and private school teacher for 30 years and people are shocked when they hear i didn't have to study for hours on end when i was 7. i was actually allowed to be a kid. what i learned at 7 didn't prepare me for my university and beyond. in my eyes grade 10/11/12 and university prepare us far better for the future than anything learned in elementary/middle school.

while the u.s. school system isn't the best, they prepare us far better for our future as thinkers than anything in korea does. if the public schools didn't prepare us well enough, then explain why we have more than 100 elite universites(as yahoo states). it's not all international students that are making harvard, princeton, yale, michigan, cal, and other schools that are the best of the best. it seems to me that the u.s. is still producing a few quality students without a hagwon system.

[spliff]

Strange thread, indeed.

[jdog2050]

Stupid article and story.

Investigates absolutely nothing. SUNSHINE YAYYYYY.

If I didn't live here, I'd have just had so much smoke blown up my ass.!

[markhan]

[Starla]

You also should keep in mind that in the U.S., even though Asian students make up a huge sector of the student body in most elite universities, there's a quota for how many Asians they can accept. So there are many Asian students with better grades and qualifications than non-Asians who don't get accepted into the universities because of these racial quotas. If they didn't exist, there would be even more Asian students in the elite universities.

[gotte00]

markhan : You are mistaken if you believe that students in America do not get tutoring, similar to Hagwon, outside the school. There are many SAT cramming institutes in large cities like NY and LA. And from the testimony of many students, including my niece, their programs do help improve scores in a very short time.

American kids do get tutoring, the difference is it's one on one tutoring. They are getting help with their school work. They don't go to additional school to have additional work assigned. And alot of the SAT institutes in the U.S. teach test taking and the best ways to do well on the SAT. They don't only reinforce what was learned. It's totally different from the hagwon system in place here. The U.S. isn't a perfect system, but if I had kids I'd rather them educated in the States than in Korea.

I recently spoke with a Korean who now lives and teaches in the U.S. She is an Education Professor at William and Mary. She left Korea 15 years and only returns to see family. She wouldn't educate her kids here at all. and said the Korean system, while good, doesn't compare the those of western socities because they don't prepare the kids for life. They prepare kids to cram/study to pass a test.Parents don't have faith within themselves to help teach their children, parents don't have faith in the corrupt public system anymore so they turn to the hagwons.

[luvnpeas]