Education in Korea…. What do you think of it?
As someone who experienced elementary school education and western side of education, I know how it is different. I felt it through my skin.
To be simple, Korean education is fixed and western is not. Fixed means no creativeness. Korean education does not require any creativeness nor personal thought. It is rather based off from the textbook that was given from the school and study only from it. You don’t need to know why it is like that or how it became like this but rather memorize just because it is on textbook and what teacher said. It was just recently when they started to ask about personal opinions and ideas toward certain perspectives or facts but it is still lacking to show individual self. Of course it doesn’t mean students in Korea do not have their own perspectives and ideas toward what they are learning. Some do but not all of them. To me, when I was in elementary school in Korea. The way to study for the quiz or test was to memorize what is on the textbook and statistical number. For math, just memorizing equations so I could use them to solve problems.
For Western education, it is different. They do have some parts where you have to memorize some factual information but in class, teachers explain why it is like that through various activities that involve ourselves to experience or to show videos and others that is much easier to understand. In high school, doing science, we actually do dissection to see how and why the system is like and what is actually like. It is more intriguing, interesting and easy to memorize.
Not only from learning but also we know when communicating with teachers. In Korea, when you are to speak to teacher or the class is the time when teacher asks question to be answered from students. You do not just speak your ideas in but you raise your hands up to be picked to speak. Then you stand up to say it out loud. On the other hand, in western education, you are given any time to speak out loud about your ideas and freely interact with teacher and other students about the answer that you have. There is mostly not fixed answers but more of personal ideas and thoughts.
Even in university, this can be shown. Recently I saw interesting slideshow where it shows the difference in Korean and Western universities. When giving lectures, professors in Korea do not provoke questions but rather just say what he has to teach and facts that will be on test. For western universities, it is rather giving students questions or topics that will lead to natural conversation about the idea that students may have.
Both sides have advantages and disadvantages but these are main things that I felt was some what “Asianess” and basic knowledge on what I am going to write next.
What are some of your thoughts?
Asian education seems to be a frequent topic of discussion lately. I remember talking to my cousin in China about how much school consumes her life. Starting in high school, she would be at school from 8am to 5 or 5:30 pm every weekday. In her senior year, she would often stay until 10 or 11 pm to study with her classmates for the gaokao exam. This exam basically dictated the rest of their lives and a lot of emphasis is placed on it. The score they get on this exam determines what kind of university they can attend, which decides what careers and salaries they can land upon graduation. Based on my cousin’s observations, most students do not have the time to pursue hobbies, gain work experience, or even just to sit down with their families to have dinner during their high school years. It’s not that they don’t want to, it’s that they simply don’t have enough time to do anything outside of finishing homework and studying for the gaokao exam.
Based on my own observations of my parents’ friends and at work, I find that many families from Asia are bringing their children to be educated abroad so they do not lose their creativity and personality. One of my parents’ friend told me that in grade 4, she would actually pay (giving monetary gifts to teacher is common practice in China) her daughter’s teachers to be less strict and not pressure her as much because it was dampening her spirits. I heard similar messages in a documentary I watched on China’s gaokao system. Many parents told stories of how active and joyful their children were before they started higher grades of elementary school.
I think that the education system in Asia definitely has its merits. For example, students in Asia are often better at math and sciences because of the sheer volume of questions they do. China for example, placed first out of 65 nations on the PISA test. (See link: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-has-a-major-issue-with-its-educational-system-2015-5). However, although Asian countries often score higher on standardized tests, the education system does not produce innovated and creative workers. I think the education system needs to change to place more emphasis on creativity and less on rote memorization to produce healthier, happier, and more innovative adults.
There has been a long history between the comparison of Asian and Western education systems. I can personally relate to it as I have been through both systems. In our generation, the popular point of view is to promote democracy in school and let student to lead the class. However, is this the best education style? In my opinion, not necessarily. I think it depends on which field you work in. If you are planning to work in creative writing, filming and acting, then free imagination is the key to your job. Why do you need to memorize other people’s opinions when your job requires to produce unique opinions? However, if you work in a industry where there is only one right answer, like in mathematics and law, then too much creativity is unnecessary. However, it is never a clear cut between imagination and memorization. For example, many of the quiz,tests and finals we do in UBC require both memorization and imagination.