To where is the South Korean education system going?

             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 cover. ‘Learning’ is usually used in the perspective of students-somebody who need to take knowledge and put it in their brains. This is important, since nobody can grow up properly without proper learning. However, ‘Education’ has even more importance than ‘Learning’ just has, due to the fact that wise teacher is more crucial in society than wise children. Everybody becomes a student in some time, but not each one of them can become a teacher. Without teachers, there are no education of kids and thus no learning in school-which is seriously damaging in today’s world, where schools are quite common. The need of teacher, which can be substituted by the need of education, is based on this formula: teacher (same as educator, or education itself) is someone who can provide more than books can. Back to the first question, this is the most basic function of education: 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 have.

             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 the imperfect beings which need to be finished products as fast as possible. Lots of video clips on harsh school life made by South Korean students, recently increased greatly in its number, directly show how heavy the education in this small peninsular is. In South Korea, from the elementary school kids in age 7 to the high school students in age 18, 12 years of school life before university seems only as the preparation for KSAT, the one-shot entrance examination for domestic colleges.[1] There are barely no teachers in public schools who successfully do what a teacher should do-no critical thinking but only cram for exams. From the very start of school life, children are mostly evaluated only by their scores and grades. There are some differences in private schools, but only ‘social bourgeoisies’ in South Korea can make enough money for tuition. There is not much educational welfare in the country. Perhaps that’s why every parents and kids in South Korea make excessive efforts to get into renowned universities-which somehow guarantee the abundant life after graduation, so allow them to send their children to high quality private school. Basically, this vicious circle of college degree, social position, and future income make parents and students go mad only at ‘numerical results’-no middle process of any meaningful learning from school. One phenomenal example of the fierce educational competition in South Korea is “gireogi appa,” literally a "goose dad" whose kids go abroad and live with mother for learning foreign language. These dads live alone in South Korea, earning money only 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 right answers should be seen as 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 features. Depend on characteristic, disposition, and many other factors, the strong points of each student must be different. But current system in South Korea mandates to its students to follow one standardized path. Sir Ken Robinson once talked 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…human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability.”[3] However, unlike what he said, the South Korean public education sorts out every “mutant student” from its territory-which is quite old-fashioned style, not encouraging students to find individual aptitude but manufacturing them through conveyor belt for the needs of society. Mr. Robinson talked about this problem too, warning 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.”[4]

             Considering current situation, there needs a total reform in education scene of South Korea. First and foremost, the social view on the purpose of education should be changed. It is not to make the cohorts of student desirable stereotype of society, but to let them have life and talents, find their own reason for studying. Like Anatole France, a French novelist, once said, we should acknowledge that “the errors of enthusiasm” is more preferable than “the indifference of wisdom.” in today’s society.[5] Only from diversified thinking without the fear for being wrong we can expect extended creativity, and only from this extensive creativeness the students can have nutritious environment for their talents in schools. One possible alternative is the “Waldorf education,” a humanistic approach to pedagogy. This approach concentrates on the interdisciplinary, integrating practical, artistic, and conceptual elements of learning, and emphasizes the role of the imagination (creativity) in it. Schools and teachers are given considerable freedom to define curricula under the arch of Waldorf education.[6] 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 society opens the room 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,[7] contrastive to the education in South Korea which guarantees good quality teaching only for wealthy 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 scoring, but for the sake of individual child. Every student should have the right to expand personal talents and creativity, which include the possible capacity for changing 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 a precious jewel with soft care, but also can be left as useless stones if not treated properly. The future of education in South Korea shall be something which let 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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I

[4] Sir Ken Robinson on TED, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

[5] Wikipedia Article: Anatole France URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_France

[6] Wikipedia Article: Waldorf Education URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education

[7] Wikipedia Article: Education in Finland URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

04 02 2011 Chang Woo Jung

AP Lang at KMLA