Korean Job Discussion Forums

[markhan]

1. From Financial Time
Geneva-based Wipo, a UN agency, ranked Japan top of the world�s patent league, followed by the US, South Korea, China and the European Patent Office. These five patent offices accounted for three-quarters of all patents filed in 2004, the latest year for which comprehensive figures are available. Germany, a traditional source of patent applications, ranked sixth.
Yes you heard that right, South Korea ranked third just after the US.

2. Koreans students usually rank top 1-3 in the international academic competition.

3. Major companies like Samsung Electronics, LG, Hyundai Motors are doing well in foreign countries.

4. There are disportionate number of Koreans in top universities in the US.

So the question is, if Korean Education suck so bad as most of you guys attest to, why do above happen?

[R-Seoul]

Foreign teachers...?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[hellofaniceguy]

I don't think it has anything to do with korean education; as pointed out, many koreans go to other countries for education and advanced degrees. I think it has to do with ones ability and wanting to do better than someone else. Some people just want to excel at something in particular. You spend enough time learning one certain thing, studying, reading up on it, etc...and you'll get good at it.
Are koreans smarter than other nationalities, of course not. They just think that the rest of the world does not have a brain.
Face it, how many countries' students are beating down the doors wanting to learn in korea? Very very few. Would you want a korean degree vs one from a well known school elsewhere?
Many koreans, as we well know, spend unusual amounts of time studying...or at least give the appearance as such.
It just depends on how bad one wants to succeed and how much ambition....perhaps, those from the west are lacking in motivation or are becoming complacent with having had it good for so long?

[mercury]

[robot]

[SeoulnPepe]

This is from the US Government:

Until the 1950s required courses were many, electives few. In the 1960s and 1970s, the trend was to give students more choices. By the 1980s, however, parents and educators were taking a second look at this practice. The primary reason for their concern was the possible connection between the growth of electives and the slow but steady decline of American students' average scores on standardized tests of mathematics, reading, and science.

At the same time, college administrators and business executives began to complain that some high school graduates needed remedial courses in the so-called three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic. About 99 percent of American adults reported in the 1980 census that they could read and write. But critics claimed that about 13 percent of America's 17-year-olds were "functionally illiterate." That is, they were unable to carry out such everyday tasks as understanding printed instructions and filling out a job application.

Experts scrutinized every conceivable cause for the decline in average scores in the early 1980s. One target was television, which was accused of producing mediocre programs. And American children, critics said, watched too much TV, an average of 25 hours a week. School boards were criticized for paying teachers too little, with the result that good ones tended to leave the field of education, and for giving students easier material to work with so that all of them could get a diploma -- a phenomenon known as "dumbing down" the curriculum.

No single cause was identified for what ailed American secondary education. Similarly, there was no one solution. The U.S. Department of Education established a national commission to examine the question. In 1983 the commission made several recommendations: lengthen the school day and year, formulate a new core curriculum for all students (four years of English; three years each of math, science, and social studies; a half-year of computer science), and raise the standards of performance in each subject. As a result, many schools have tightened their requirements, and test scores for American children have been rising.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/factover/ch6.htm

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I think one of Korea's advantages is their curriculum. Their curriculum is often one textbook for one subject, and the only expectation is to complete it. Their textbooks also ignore multiple intelligence approaches (i.e. a math text strictly deals with math, and there's no poetry, or games, or songs thrown in).

North America's disadvantage (yes, this includes Canada) is the curriculum. It's often a set of standards and expectations that must be met without any real guidance of how they should be met. Teachers are free to decide how their children will learn those expectations. There is no direct link between the teachers, the textbook, and the curriculum expectations.

Rote memory versus analytical (what some call authentic) learning...

Each has its benefits, and they can often complement each other in certain fields.

Just adding my two cents to this issue...

[laogaiguk]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[....]

[Qinella]

The OP wasn't thought out very well.

I think American education sucks miserably. But.. Americans make a lot of patents, win lots of prizes and contests (as Alyssa so brilliantly demonstrated), go to the top colleges in the world, and have really successful companies.

NONE of this disproves the fact that America's public education system is in miserable condition.

Markhan is making Korea's education system a thing to be defended as though it means defending national pride. It's the same as those idiots who held a candle light vigil for Dr. Hwang. Let's get real.. problems must be addressed. Ignoring them and highlighting accomplishments instead is self-defeating.

[JeJuJitsu]

[hellofaniceguy]

Not flaming...but...if korea is so great...why has the rest of the world come up with the majority of inventions? Korea had a 5000 year old head start on the U.S....surly they could have invented the auto, glass, computers, guns, indoor plumbing, the telephone, etc...thousands of years ago.

[Satori]

I agree with Quinella. And all I really have to say about the OP is that he is probably Korean.

[Octavius Hite]

[dmbfan]

Hmmm.....well, I do have a degree of respect for how hard Korean students seem to work. I do also agree that the education system in the U.S. does need some work, however...........

.....at least I learned how to read music, play sports, interact with people from other countries and cultures, played in a marching band/drum and bugle corps, was never punished for saying "Teacher, I don't know/understand", developed a personality, learned by actual learning not mimiking (did I spell that right?), worked a job while I was in high school (teaching me independence), went to parties, smoked weed (not too proud of that though, but it was an experience), learned about other countries, learned some world history, and above all..........learned that music is a universal language and truly the greatest of the arts.

cheers.

dmbfan