"Korea's lessons for Seattle Public Schools and beyond"

Korea%27s%20lessons%20for%20Seattle%20Public%20Schools%20and%20beyond

My dad sent me this article over the weekend. Seeing as how I currently teach at all three levels of public school in Korea, and I my last job in the States had a connection to Seattle Public Schools, it really spoke to me.

The article is written by the SPS school board president, and essentially says that the US public education system is not up to snuff on a global scale, and that we should use Korea as somewhat of a model to strengthen our own system.

"The conclusion: Universal educational success is possible but is neither cheap nor easy, requires sustained commitment and more time and effort from students and educators."

I 100% agree with this conclusion, but I'm not so certain the Korean system exemplifies this as much as the writer believes it does. To gather their information, a delegation visited the public school system in Daejeon (about an hour from where I live). While I personally don't teach in Daejeon, nor does anyone I know, I've talked to Korean and foreign teachers who teach all over the country and most of us tend to have similar feelings about the school system.

First, he points out that the school has "flags and cultures of the world prominently displayed." He's possibly implying that the students get a well-rounded education about the cultures of the world, but one of my biggest pet peeves in Korea is how culturally insensitive, and sometimes even racist, people can be. Since it is such a homogeneous society, until recently people had never had to cope with cultures or peoples that were vastly different than their own. I've been told flat out that the things that I do differently are wrong. It's like "different" isn't even in the vocabulary. One person, after meeting my friend who is black, commented that she was surprised he was so nice because black people are gangsters. Another one of my friend's co-teachers told her that her school had originally received a South African native teacher, but refused the girl because "she might be black." My high school students honestly didn't know that people in Central America spoke Spanish, and I was horrified when I realized this was news to their teacher as well. When I taught an "American culture" lesson last week I explained to my students that many Americans get jobs at a young age to earn spending money, save up for a car, etc. They laughed and said our parents must be poor or not love us since they don't support us financially. I tried to explain that Americans think differently about the situation, that we value the independence that earning our own money gives us. One girl said that was stupid. There are possibly a thousand things per day that I think are stupid about Korean culture, but I would never be so rude as to say that to a Korean's face.


"Class size is 25 students, all of whom treat their teachers with great respect."

Oh my goodness I could write a novel about how untrue this statement is. First of all, class size in this particular school may have been 25 by some miracle of god or by hiding half the student population in a closet while the delegation was touring the school, but in my school and several others classes cannot be split into two until they are over 38 students. My middle school grade 2 has 37 students in the class. It's a nightmare to teach because I honestly can't discipline or engage 37 students at one time. I would say my average class size is at least 30.

Secondly, students here DO NOT treat their teachers with a great deal of respect. I'm not certain which Korean propaganda department was feeding the delegation this information. If there's one thing I hear foreign teachers and my Korean co-teachers complain about the most it's how disrespectful the students can be.  Getting them to quiet down during class is nearly impossible. Middle school grade 1 is still just timid enough that I can scare them with the awkwardly long silent treatment method. The rest of my classes I have to try yelling, pleading, silence, sending students out of the classroom, keeping the class late... nothing seems to work. And they aren't just taking advantage of the foreign teacher. I watch my co-teachers struggle as much as I do. Every time I walk down the hall there are 10 to 15 girls sitting on their knees outside their classroom as punishment, or for worse offenses, scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. But none of this ever seems to phase them or correct the behavior in the future. Last week, I decided to play a game in one of my classes since the midterm had just ended and I figured the kids could use a break. One girl complained, "This is BORING" and staged a coup with some other students. Seriously? On game day? Irene, my high school co-teacher, had a chair hurled at her by one of her students. My preconceived notions of highly disciplined and respectful Asian students have flown out the window since I've lived here.

He is right about teachers being well paid and respected in the community. He is half right when he says "A teacher's paramount responsibility is to move all students successfully to the next grade level in all subjects." While it is technically their responsibility, it's not always the reality. Children with mental handicaps, learning disabilities or what I assume might be A.D.D. are often just said to have "low intelligence" and pushed to the wayside. 

"The real secret to Korean success, however, is probably the simplest factor of all. Their students study more hours than the competition. Not only is their school year 200-plus days (compared with Washington state's 180), most students also attend private tutoring classes in the afternoon and evening."

 I have so many mixed feelings about this part. So do most Koreans in fact. He briefly states that "Koreans are beginning to worry about too much stress on their children," but I'm not sure that truly captures how problematic the situation has become. First of all, in my opinion, these kids spend way too much time within the confines of educational structure. They go to school from 8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and also attend on every other Saturday. After school most students attend the private academies (which their parents spend thousands of dollars per month to send them to) and continue their studies until 9:00 or so, and then high school students attend organized study groups until late into the night. As they are mentally and physically exhausted from this, there is a serious problem with students falling asleep during their classes. In fact, I can't remember a day this year when I haven't had at least 1 and often 3 or 4 students fall asleep in my high school classes. I don't see how effective 200 days of school are if you aren't awake for half of them.  Not to mention all of this text book cramming doesn't leave much room for creative and personal development.  Many Korean parents are worried about how much time their kids spend in school as opposed to just being a kid. But unfortunately this over-zealous pursuit of education has become so ingrained in the society that even if a parent disagrees with it, they still have to go along with it or they feel that their child will be at such a disadvantage.  It's hyper competitive and as a result the kids are growing gray hairs over which university they will attend when they haven't even finished the 6th grade!

By making this comparison I am certainly not saying that I think the US public school system is superior. It definitely needs reform and the students need access to better instruction from teachers who are well paid.  But I think we should use a lot of caution when generalizing about the Korean system. The Seattle school board president came to all the right conclusions about reforming the US school system in the end of the article, but how he managed to draw them from the Korean school visit baffles me. I think the focus should be on quality of instruction, not quantity. I believe US students are sometimes at an advantage in the world market because we have a bit more freedom and flexibility during our education. I think students are more well-rounded when they have time to play sports, work a job, hang out with their friends, develop social skills and learn to think outside the box. Instead of emulating Korea, I think both countries would be at an advantage to learn a little bit from each other and meet somewhere in the middle.