What is the most fundamental function of education? This question should be differentiated from asking “what is the purpose of learning,” because of the different scale each word covers. “Learning” is usually used to describe the tasks of students – the act of accumulating knowledge and storing it in the brain. This is important, since no one can grow up properly without proper learning. However, “Education” has even more importance than “Learning,” due to the fact that a wise teacher is more crucial in society than wise children. True education should be able to respect each student’s different ability, and strengthen it through diversified teaching. True education should not be a system which abandons the students at the bottom. Therefore, it is important to let children experience and enjoy life, raise their diverse creativity, and most importantly, give them inspiration - both academic and living - over the simple knowledge books offer.
Like this, the concept of education contains so many crucial things that influence children to ‘grow up.’ However, the education system in South Korea tends to see children just as imperfect beings which need to become finished products as fast as possible. Recently, many video clips depicting harsh school life made by South Korean students have increased greatly in number. They directly show how heavy the education system is on this small peninsula. From elementary school to high school, the 12 years of education before university seems only as the preparation for KSAT - the ‘one-shot’ entrance examination for domestic colleges.[1] Due to this regime, there are barely any teachers in public schools who successfully do what a teacher should do. Instead of encouraging critical thinking or engaging in creative thought, students are forced to cram for exams. From the very start of school life, children are mostly evaluated only according to their scores and grades.
There are some differences in private schools, but only the “social bourgeoisies” in South Korea can make enough money for tuition, in a nation where there is not much educational welfare. Perhaps that’s why every parent and kid makes excessive efforts to get into high quality universities - which somehow guarantee high social position. Basically, this vicious circle of college degree, social position, and future income make parents and students obsessed with numerical results, therefore losing sight of meaningful learning from school. One phenomenal example of the fierce educational competition in South Korea is the “gireogi appa,” literally a "goose dad" whose kids go abroad and live with their mother for learning a foreign language. These dads live alone in South Korea, just earning money for the education of their children.[2]
In this education system, South Korean students are easily exhausted. The system is mostly focusing on results and ignoring the procedure of each student’s unique creativity development. Naturally, the students who are not accustomed to choosing the right answers should be seen as the poor ones. Only the “correct answer pickers” can grab the decent position of honor students in South Korea. However, this method has a significant risk (or maybe a wrong presupposition): every child does not have the same ability. Depending on characteristics, dispositions, and many other factors, the strong points of each student are obviously different. But the current system in South Korea mandates that students follow one standardized path. Sir Kenneth Robinson, a British author, speaker, and international advisor on education, once spoke about human creativity: “[…] life is not linear, it's organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help to create for us.”[3] As he mentioned in the later part of the speech, human communities “Depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability.”[4]
Contrary to Robinson’s words, the South Korean public education sorts out every “mutant student” from its territory - which is quite an old-fashioned style, not encouraging students to find individual aptitude. Instead this system is manufacturing them through a conveyor belt for the needs of society. Mr. Robinson talked about this problem as well, warning about the danger of “cramming education”: “[…] If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. […] We are now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.”[5]
Considering the current situation, there needs to be a total reform of education in South Korea. First and foremost, the social view on the purpose of education should be changed. The purpose should not be to make students desirable stereotypes of society, but to let them have life and talents, and find their own reason for studying. Like Anatole France, a French novelist, once said, we should acknowledge that “‘the errors of enthusiasm’” are more preferable than “‘the indifference of wisdom.’” in today’s society.[6] Only from diversified thinking without the fear of being wrong can we expect extended creativity; and only from this extensive creativeness can the students have a nutritious environment for their talents in schools.
One possible alternative is a system “Waldorf education,” which is a humanistic approach to pedagogy. This interdisciplinary approach concentrates on integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements of learning, and emphasizes the role of the imagination (creativity) within it. Schools and teachers are given considerable freedom to define curricula under the arch of Waldorf education.[7] Secondly, the social support for the education should be enlarged. The education in Finland gives an effective answer for this matter. Finland requires no tuition fees for full-time students in its main educational system. Before the age for college, there are two lines of school: upper secondary, which focuses on academic, and vocational, which provides occupation training. Finnish people don’t think one is superior over the other. The Finnish society opens the door for each different talent. Finnish politicians set their education’s purpose to educate the vast majority of Finns to a higher degree - leaving no stragglers behind.[8] In contrast to the education in South Korea, in Finland we can find a system which guarantees good quality teaching for every students.
We should ask one more time: “What is the main goal of education?” Nobody can deny the long history of antiquated education in South Korea. Now it’s time for changing fixed concept with new paradigm - teaching not for the sake of high scores, but for the sake of the individual child. Every student should have the right to expand personal talents and creativity, which include the possible capacities to change our society in various ways. To accomplish this, both the common viewpoint on teaching and current social support for schools and teachers should be changed simultaneously. Finally, we should know our children are raw stones - which can be polished into precious jewels with soft care. Accordingly, they can also be left as useless stones if not treated properly. The future of education in South Korea should be reinvented as a system which lets its students spread their wings freely.
References
[1] Video Clip: An Issue of Concern: Korean Education - Raising Dragons URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMwUwIi8a5s&feature=fvsr
[2] Wikipedia Article: Education in South Korea URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Korea
[3] Sir Ken Robinson on TED, “Bring on the Learning Revolution” URL
[4] ibid
[5] Sir Ken Robinson on TED, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
[7] Wikipedia Article: Waldorf Education URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education
[8] Wikipedia Article: Education in Finland URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland04 21 2011 Chang Woo Jung
AP Lang at KMLA
