Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Lucas]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/02/181_151914.html

[faeriehazel]

This is stupid. Most students do their "pre-studying" in hakwons and with private tutors anyway, so banning it from schools is going to accomplish exactly nothing.

[YTMND]

They are trying to even the playing field so financially poor students can compete alongside rich students.

[candy bar]

[YTMND]

[Rockhard]

If you really want it to be fair, just draw names from a hat. You can't get any more fair than completely random.

Or just give everyone IQ tests and completely ignore any material that requires memorization.

Short of that, you aren't going to break the current cycle.

[schwa]

It might make some students less inclined to be bored or sleepy in regular classes.

[faeriehazel]

Banning it from public schools isn't going to stop kids from "pre-studying." It's just going to widen the gap, so that only kids who can afford private education will be able to stay ahead.

I've been tutoring a little girl for the past two years. When I started, she was five, and she was attending an English kindergarten. Her mom wanted her to get into a "better" English kindergarten (mostly because all of her friends had already transferred, so she was feeling left out). I had to help this five-year-old prepare for a kindergarten entrance exam.

She managed to get in, and then our tutoring sessions changed to focus on her homework - mostly vocab. These kids are forced to memorize words like "myriad" (I'm not exaggerating, that was an actual word on her vocab list). The kindergarten assigns their children level-inappropriate words because the moms want to know that their kids are "getting ahead." So the kids perfect the art of rote memorization at an early age, but can't answer a critical-thinking question to save their lives.

Some other examples of ridiculous homework: the kid had to prepare a presentation about art. One option was to visit an art gallery and answer the following question: "How does the physical experience of art differ from seeing a copy in a textbook?" Keep in mind, these kids are six.

Another example - the kids were asked to memorize two-minute excerpts from famous speeches (like the "I Have a Dream Speech). The mom asked me to help the kid practice and sound more natural because "she sounds like she's just reciting without understanding."

Anyway, my point is that this stupid "pre-studying" business is not going to be solved by banning it from public schools. It needs to be banned from private institutions, but how is the government going to regulate the curricula of every academy in Seoul, let alone Korea? What REALLY needs to happen is an overhaul of the system, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

[dairyairy]

Isn't this really aimed at the Korean PS teachers who are paid to leak the material to the hagwons? The government doesn't want PS material covered in hagwons.

[lowpo]

At my school I tutor low level students.

[greasylake]

They have been trying to "fix" this "problem" for 10 - 20 years now. They often use hagwons and after-school programs as scapegoats. However, this is an unavoidable problem when you have life-altering tests in middle school.This is the result of standardized tests that decided every aspect of the job culture in a country.