Emphasized Education

The other day I was subbing for a US History class, explaining the details of the Civil War to a group of students. Most of them were obviously growing tired, listening but not completely focused. Then a student randomly asked what school I had gone to. "I went to Brown," I replied, and in a split second, the mood of the entire classroom took a 180 degree shift- eyes widened, ears perked, and heads leaned forward. There was a flurry of questions about Brown, what my test scores were, if I had any advice on getting in. Over the past eleven weeks, because of instances such as these, it's become increasingly apparent to me that the "prestige" of one's school matters more in Korea than it does anywhere else in the world.

A letter printed in a Korean newspaper a few weeks ago, written by a Korean student, described Koreans as "sustainers of the hagwon [academy] culture." Nothing could be closer to the truth. One of the major issues I've grappled with ever since I arrived in Korea is why Koreans place so much value on education, and it boils down to a self-perpetuating cycle. Students in Korea who graduate from top schools go on to land top jobs at the best companies. From my impressions, this seems to be a much more straightforward process than in the U.S., where graduating from a highly ranked school bears little to no correlation to one's "success" in life. And it seems to be this way in Korea only because it's become so engrained in the culture- students believe it, so they work hard, employers believe it so they hire accordingly, and parents believe it so they encourage (and often push) their kids to study hard. In the Korean system (within the country, at least), the education-based system runs like clockwork.

I've considered other factors as well, and they undoubtedly played some part in the shaping of the education culture. Even back in the Joseon dynasty, the yangban (or scholars) were considered an elite group, in part because of the emphasis on education found in Confucianism. And when Korea transformed itself from a developing nation into a highly modernized nation, education was crucial in that transformation. An educated populace would no longer live in pre-World War II poverty, but would be able make advancements in technology and living conditions, thereby pushing Korea into "modernity." Yet it seems that the only thing sustaining Korea's education culture in the present is this unwavering belief in the importance of education, and if Koreans were to stop believing in this importance, it would likely disappear.

Hagwons (or academies) represent a major sub-area of education in Korea. Some of my SAT students have told me that they had other hagwons for subjects besides the SAT, like math, art, etc. Jihoon told me he went to hagwons for English, math, and science, Janice has related stories about going to an English hagwon as a child, memorizing song after song, and one of my fifth grade students told me that she attended hagwons all day until 11 pm for almost the entire summer. Having only attended one institution even close to a hagwon during my childhood (and it was an SAT academy whose intensity was not even close to the intensity of academies here), I was a bit taken aback by the ubiquity of hagwons in students' lives. I was inclined to feel sorry for my students who would tell me stories of their non-Korean friends back in the states enjoying carefree summers while they spent their vacations learning and training.

And going to a hagwon doesn't just mean going to classes, there's also the accompanying hours of homework everyday. I was, to put it mildly, shocked when told during training to assign my students an hour of homework every night. A student taking three subjects would then have at least three hours of homework a night just for SAT hagwon, in addition to the five hours of classes they would have to sit through everyday, all during their summer vacations! And my jaw dropped when I discovered that for SAT Reading classes, teachers were required to have students memorize 50 vocabulary words everyday. That means that if a student were to come to all 55 days of SAT classes, he would have had to memorize 2,750 words over the course of a summer. If that weren't enough, one parent actually called the academy to complain that teachers weren't assigning enough vocab words! I've often questioned whether this "Memorize, memorize, memorize" policy, which appears in other hagwon classes as well to a degree, really works or if it's just a placebo to placate overzealous parents. Despite the many ill effects of hagwon culture, however, there are a number of factors countering the idea that hagwon life is just a prison.

For one, hagwon students make their own fun. Janice's mom, who teaches at an English hagwon, told me that hagwons are "like playgrounds" for students, and after hearing that I began to view things in a completely different light. True, the students did have to sit through lessons and complete homework, but they made friends with each other and sometimes made friends with teachers. A group of students in one of my classes would regularly go to a PC bang [PC room] after class to play Starcraft with each other, and another class all went out to take sticker pictures together. In contrast to the extreme alternative of two or three months of summer spent sitting around at home wondering what to do, going to hagwons and hanging out with friends seems quite bearable.

Another positive aspect of hagwons is the way it benefits spoiled children. Taking classes at a hagwon is certainly not cheap- some of the teachers have said classes at my academy are about 30-40,000 won/hour and private tutoring is over 100,000 won/hour- and only middle to upper class families can afford these extra classes. In class it's pretty obvious which students are spoiled and used to getting their way, and I can only imagine what their lives would be like if they were not in classes- if the money being spent on said classes were being spent on things the child wanted, like games, clothes, etc.

Even in light of these positive aspects, I still have reservations about hagwon culture. What happens to kids who never have time to play outside or make up things to do because they're "learning" all the time? To be sure, this is a problem for many American children too, but not quite to the same extent. Furthermore, what are the effects of a hagwon system that equates learning with memorizing? Where's the room for creativity and original thinking, and what about the burn-out factor? Granted, most of my Korean friends turned out pretty well, but I can't help but feel that some kids are feeling the deleterious repercussions of the system's flaws.

An additional flaw in the system is that, in my opinion, hagwons don't actually help every student. What I mean is that just because a particular student attends an academy, he won't necessarily have a distinct advantage over someone who didn't attend an academy. For many students, the repeated memorization and daily learning really do help to shape and sharpen their minds. For others, however, all the intensity (and sometimes monotony) of hagwons does is turn them off to whatever subject they're studying. Some students may get bored of studying, some may be burnt out, and others may just have strengths in other areas, but for all of them, being forced to go to hagwon does next to nothing for their educations while they could be out exploring the areas they would really excel in.

So what's to be done about this predicament? Frankly, I'm not sure anything can actively be done. I know of a number of people/hagwons trying to reform the system but from my impressions they've had limited success thus far. As I said before, what it really comes down to is what kind of value Koreans place on education and hagwons- if they choose to deemphasize them, then they will lose importance, but only then.

Yet I've found myself wondering how skewed the Korean view of education really is. After all, don't most people in the US hear what college you went to and what you majored in and instantly (consciously or not) form a preconceived notion of you, your intelligence, and your abilities? In some ways, Koreans just take this unfortunate situation and seize the opportunity to elevate their own and their childrens' status in the eyes of others and of society. And until either society or attitudes change, Korean students will continue to be pushed through the metaphorical strainer as everyone else holds their breaths, waiting to see who will emerge unscathed with a highly sought after Ivy League degree attached to his or her name.