Ripley thought that Eric, the second person in which she was interviewing and following in their journey, had a very interesting background. He came from Minnetonka, Minnesota. A place where education was at very high standards along with very fancy high schools. His education and course load was similar to that of a college graduates. Eric wanted to challenge himself more, so he decided to move to a foreign country where Math, his favorite subject, would be taught in a different manner and also have a different meaning. Coming from a high school that ranked closely to Korea in Math performance, he decided to study abroad there for a year.
Eric didn’t really expect to surprise himself with what he was going to see in Korea. Stuffed subways, busy roads, overpopulation, and bad environmental conditions. He also expected the schools to be somewhat similar to the rest of the atmosphere. His host family tried as best they could to accommodate his needs. Eric was quickly situated to the atmosphere due to his expectations and preparedness. But he did not expect to see the totally different conditions of the students that were studying at the school itself.
About 70% of the class was sleeping when the teacher started class, Eric was baffled. He could not believe that this was what the students did in class to get such good math test grades and math skills. It simply did not make sense. He asked one of the Korean students how they pulled it off. They countered his question by asking him how many hours he spent at school. He was too dumbfounded to answer, so the Korean clarified his doubts by giving him a mind blowing number of hours that they had to stay in school… 16 hours. Unbelievable, all they did after school was finished, was study or go to special tutions for each subject. They would only come home to get a partial night’s rest, then it was back to school first thing in the morning. Kids in Korea practically lived at school.
I have read on the news that there is a big governmental education reform that is going on in Korea to decrease the number of hours of schooling in a day. I have also read that after their rigorous school day, Korean children a private tuition in which they further study what they have learned during the school day. i believe I read that the hours spent in tuition are included in the sixteen hour school day.
ReplyDeleteBecause we are not used to it, we, as Americans, see a sixteen hour school day for our children to be an incredibly large amount of a for which a child is spent in school. However, what does this say about the importance that Koreans place on education? Koreans spend twice as much time as Americans do in their school day and seem to be getting more out of it. However, is there a way for Americans to increase their education standards without adopting an education plan seemingly ridiculous as that of the Koreans? Or is it only possible to improve our education standards by adopting such a time-consuming curriculum plan?