You have much to learn, young 파다원 (Korean children’s daily life)
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009Korean children’s daily life.
These snot-nosed little brats sweet little angels are the cutest things on Earth. Proof.
But make no mistake - these kids get more than their daily dose of school. The sheer number of hours spent in the classroom is enough to raise Western eyebrows. They get plenty of instruction in and out of school. The Korean educational system consists of six years of elementary school, three years of junior high, and three years of high school. School semesters are seasonal (like in America) but start in March and ends in February (Spring to Fall as opposed to Fall to Spring).
One overall educational goal is to make them bilingual in Korean and English; if they can fit another language into that sweet little melon, they will do so later in middle or high school. As noble a goal it is in spirit (and often in practice), sometimes it can get out of hand.
So when do these precious little lambs have time to rest their tired little eyes? Late. I do mean late. It’s not just sleep that is attracting attention of the media, either. Basically, the kids aren’t alright. A typical schedule of a school-age student would include school in the morning until dismissal, Monday and Friday afternoons spent learning English outside of school at a private academy, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday afternoons spent learning music, art, or dance, and Wednesday afternoons spent brushing up on a particular academic subject like Math or Science. It’s reasonable to accept the fact that being a student in Korea is a full-time job. And this is a full-time job that parents pay through the nose to afford.
One thing that will surely raise the other Western eyebrow is a certain lack of household chores. Kids are generally expected to study at school, go to an after-school academy, make good grades, come home, eat, study more, sleep, and repeat. Generally, kids aren’t told to clean up after themselves, do the laundry, or other household chores.
I feel that this might get misunderstood as laziness enabled by parents - a sort of overindulgence on said angelic children. But, take a closer look from a different perspective:
In America, our educational system is set up to provide a safe learning environment with the goal of socializing and educating our students with the most developmentally appropriate methods possible. We also have a focus on getting kids ready for the “real world”. We want kids to be self-reliant, unique, and well-rounded. So, it is very reasonable to have a student that makes C’s and B’s who is popular and a student who gets straight A’s emo-ing it out in the corner of the cafeteria at lunch. It’s also totally feasible to imagine an American parent concerned that their child isn’t developing socially at the same rate as their peers. This parent might seek outside help in order to get their kid involved in some sort of social activity be it music, sports, or religion. Either way, whatever the student chooses, the parents will generally accept so long as they maintain at least passing grades and minimally decent manners. Hanging out with friends is an acceptable use of an afternoon just as long as the homework gets done at some point in the day. Summation? Too much of anything is a bad thing.
Take a glance at life in Korea in contrast. Kids are not to be burdened with household chores not because they shouldn’t learn this life skill; it’s because they already have enough on their plate - their job is to study and be a dutiful student. A parent’s job is to support the student so that they don’t have to worry about things like a dirty room, unwashed clothes, and a empty cupboard. A student shouldn’t stick out so as to draw attention to themselves; such a behavior goes against the grain of the common good. It’s understandable that a good student is measured by the letter grade that they receive - that’s what grades are in place to do - assess and motivate students. The institution of school is to mold students into acceptable members of society - little kids get away with much more than educated teenagers in terms of socially acceptable behavior. A parent might seek additional schooling to give their kids a competitive edge for the workplace; be it a college prep class, music class, or very often, English class. Why not? If a parent can provide such a valuable education that can ensure that their student is successful later in life, why wouldn’t they enroll their kid in a 학원? The student’s friends will surely notice if they aren’t going to after-school class which would very likely make their kid the source of gossip. If their child doesn’t fit in at school socially it’s not the end of the world - so long as they bring home those A’s and speak English like a native. Summation? Sleep five hours and fail, sleep four hours and pass.
So, in conclusion: things aren’t the same in Korea. Of course, the system is flawed in some aspects but so is America’s system. Overall, both institutions are geared to acclimate students to their native society and in that regard, both systems perform that function. I can see how people from both sides of the fence could claim that their system is superior (or inferior for that matter) because it is the system that they studied under. Despite all the differences, it’s very refreshing to read articles like this where compromise can be met.
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
February 24th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Oh my god, tongue surgery. That’s scary and taking it way too far.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Wow…
Thanks for plugging the video… it really showed me just how hard it is there..
Definitely goes to show how different everything is in North America and in Korea.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Love the picture… so cute… but she will definitely pwn me in English. haha. Those kids are good!
February 24th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
keith, did you really just use the word “pwn”? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
February 24th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
better watch it or he’ll pwn you with his l33t skillz
…oh i feel so dirty…like taking a bath in mountain dew…
February 24th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
All I can say is that I’m glad I don’t live in Korea (at least for this reason). The stress level for kids in Singapore is definitely higher than in Western countries, but still nowhere near that of Korea/China I think. And even then, I’ve more or less decided to opt out of this rat race and homeschool my kids. However, I recognise that everyone has different worldviews, which affect their educational philosophies, and of course the circumstances in which you find yourself in at times compels you in a certain direction…
It would be worthwhile to study how these children fare after a generation of this kind of education, and observe if the Korean government changes its policies.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I used to game a lot… I used to watch the starcraft/gaming channel in Korea all the time… haha.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:45 am
“Nuclear launch detected”–I still have a copy of SC. Ahh the memories…..
February 25th, 2009 at 4:10 am
One of the reason my Korean wife preferred to emigrate was that she didn’t want our children to attend school in Korea. Because above all the things mentioned in this post, there’s also discrimination to foreign or half-Korean children…
February 26th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Great blog post, and great links to the various articles. Ah, these are issues for which your post will certainly not be the last…
February 26th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Only two languages?! Damn that would have been great, where I come from besides our native language you start English almost at the same time, maybe a year or two later. Afterwards, depending in which level of the system you end up it’s German or French or both, than depending which level you proceed to they add Spanish, Italian and if you didn’t get German or French you have to learn the one you didn’t get as well. Then if your in the highest level you get to select Greek and / or Latin and if you really enjoy languages and you get into University you get to select Russian, Arabic or Asian languages or whatever floats your boat but by then you enjoy learning languages so much you specifically choose to learn those.
I’m from Europe, just in case if you are wondering.
To be honest, only two languages is not that bad, well actually I find it bad but in another sense, I mean come on, it’s only two languages, compared to a minimum of three up to eight or more is nothing, and the more languages you know the more you’ll able to profit from it later on in life, especially in business but equally handy when you go around visiting other countries.
It also gets easier with each new language you learn, well at least that’s my experience with learning new languages, I know three languages really well, but that’s the minimum requirement, then I know the rude basics of two other ones, enough to know if someone is taking a piss at me and to get me at least around and buy stuff but since I hate those languages I try not to use them and now I’m learning two languages with self-study that I actually enjoy, which are Japanese and Korean, so that’s going towards seven languages now, although I would rather say five because I really hate the other two languages and rather not use them.
And I didn’t study anything remotely to linguistics or whatever else you have that is in the field of languages, I’m a designer and a programmer and started as an artist, that’s why I could make a go around and not learn five to eight languages at business level but just three and two only the basics.
If you look at it like that then learning two languages isn’t that much now is it?
March 1st, 2009 at 1:33 am
I think that the primary difference in the two systems is that the Korean education system is based on brute memorization and autocratic instruction. Plagarism is fully accepted and kids don’t learn how to think for themselves, challenge authority, and develop critical thinking skills.
The American system has a different goal. In fact, the Latin root of “educate” means “to bring out.” The American system works by immersing kids in different activities and fields in hopes of triggering a passion and thus a life path. It is geared toward developing critial thinking skills and actually learning how to think.. as opposed to the Korean way of forcing a bunch of facts and languages. Many Korean children don’t become critical thinkers.. and the one’s that do often have their own motivation… and it affects Korean society a great deal.
@Dango: I agree with you saying that two languages is not a whole lot. However, if you look at the European languages, they share a great deal of similarity. Going from English to a European-derived language is not nearly as difficult as going to Korean from English. Europeans, espcially with virtually free movement, have a much greater opportunity to actually interact with different languages. The US is a large country and predominantly English speaking. Korea is a small country that is very grographically isolated. For a Korean to learn English is a very large intellectual development step that can develop a pathway to learn other Romantic languages. You can’t put it down to “just another language” — it’s a big leap. Also, linguistics has absolutly nothing to do with how many languages you speak or methods of learning them. It is the human behavioral study of how language is acquired in your brain, works, operates, and is used. Many people with linguistics degrees barely speak two languages.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
@Chris
That’s my point, I’m not a translator, or anything you need a lot of languages for yet I know quite a few, even ones I don’t want to know. I also have no knowledge how people acquire languages or an interest in that.
It’s becoming convenient now that I’m a business man to know a lot of languages, but I just found that out recently.
I also think we need to factor in another perspective, which is, I’m native in English so why do I need to learn another language, everyone is learning English anyway. I go to the UK a lot and they really have that attitude, there is hardly anyone there who has a second language and more than three is very hard to find, usually the ones that know more languages actively use them for work or get their second language from home, for example Chinese.
I don’t know how that is in the USA but when I lived in Canada they usually knew 2 languages (English & French). But what is interesting is that a lot of Americans are from European decent all mixed together so they had the opportunity to communicate in different languages just as much as Europeans, plus one, the native Americans.
I don’t know about a great deal of similarity but some do share some similarities, if you look at English, Swedish, German, French and Russian they are quite different from each other.
Although Russian might not be considered European language a lot of European countries like Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia etc. have a lot of influence from Russian language in theirs and some generations it was mandatory to learn Russian in school, that’s why I’m including it.
If you translate something from English to German you have to flip it around just as you have to flip it around with Korean or Japanese to English and vice versa so German, Korean and Japanese also have similarities compared to English.
But if we compare it like you suggest, English to other European language you have to compare it to Korean learning Chinese or Japanese and since they make use of Hanja it also has similarities so Chinese as a second language should be just as easy as a German learning English as a second language.
Shouldn’t we compare it to a German learning Chinese, Japanese or Korean?
To sum it up:
With similarities:
German: German, English
Korean: Korean, Chinese
Without Similarities:
German: German, Chinese
Korean: Korean, English
Comparing it like that would be a more accurate and should be just as difficult for either one.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I’d agree with that comparison for the most part. By “European Languages,” I should have just said “Romantic Languages.” Didn’t quite think that one through. However, you would have to agree at the very least that English to Korean is much more difficult than English to Spanish or Korean to Japanese.
Even though your philosophy that only speaking English will get you far is more or less correct, many people have their own reasons for learning other languages outside of their direct usefulness. I study Korean because it’s stimulating and it’s a path of self development for me plus the fact I knew a very large amount of Koreans, and I study Greek because I am Greek and most of my family is Greek. I feel somewhat of an obligation and a duty to be proficient in it since it is part of me regardless of the fact that there are only 13m or so Greek speakers and most of them speak English anyway. I’m sure that you have some activity or goal that you pursue for intellectual stimulation. For some people, it’s language.
Your assertion that native-born Americans speak more than one language because of their European decent might have been accurate in the early 1900s, but not only because there are so many generations here that the language dies, but also since all of those European descendants need to be able to communicate with each other in a common language… which turns out to be English. Also, everyone is so inter-bred that nobody really knows their European identity. You’d be hard pressed to find a regular white guy here that speaks more than 1 language with some proficiency much less follow a non-mixed European heritage through all of those generations. If you look at Canadian history, the formation of Quebec, and the wars between the French and the British in the 1700s, it’s very apparent why there are very distinct English/French regions.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
In response to Dango:
It’s not only two languages. My cousins in Korea also know Japanese and Mandarin, which is similar to an American/European learning Spanish, French, etc., as well as English. Understandably, it is harder for them to learn English as it uses a completely different form of alphabet (compared to Korean and Japanese…Mandarin and Chinese dialects being different) as well as a completely different grammatical structure. Korean and Japanese are in the same linguistic family, hence similarities in vocabulary and sentence structure, whereas Chinese is structurally more similar to English. The Japanese writing system is largely derived from Chinese (Korean writing system to some extent but not as much), but the spoken languages are not.
Also, French and German are actually more popular languages that students opt to learn (same as how most Americans are offered Spanish and French), particularly French. Of course, the level of fluency depends on the individual student’s talent and desire; how many American students are really proficient at Spanish despite years of Spanish class? Anyway, my point is, Koreans don’t just learn English–they learn a lot of other languages too.
Besides, the stress level of students in Korea isn’t mainly because they have to learn English; it is the almost fanatic emphasis on education. For example, an American trying to get into college might not have stellar grades but awesome extracurricular activities and such–she could still get into very good schools that would not have accepted her purely on academic criteria. A Korean student has to take a test to get into high school and college, and it is literally a test that determines everything. So it is purely by academic standards. Hence the ubiquity of hakwons (private institutions)–extra schooling is not mandatory, but it is tacitly understood to be necessary.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:41 am
[…] Simply put, their little lives will suck later on in life. Korean adults know this. They know the pressure, they know the concern, they know the shock that will ensue once they hit junior high. So what is a caring parent to do? Let the kids enjoy their childhood. When viewed through a different set of cultural lens, this makes perfect sense. […]
May 12th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
[…] It’s no secret that young Korean students have a grueling academic schedule. Blame Confucius. […]