Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.
...
There are other hints of slackening. A banner once hung on a Minjok building. “This school is a paradise for those who want to study and a hell for those who do not,” it read. But it was taken down after faculty members deemed it too harsh, said Son Eun-ju, director of counseling.
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I can't imagine being under the same sort of pressure-cooker. It was bad enough - but 15 hour days doing schoolwork of some sort?! I couldn't without breaking down before the admissions rounds.</p>
<p>Screw the Korean education system. I love the country but the educational system is completely ********...</p>
<p>The educational system there is so completely up by generations of intercompetition that the people living there don't even understand that there is anything outside of learning. After school, most high schoolers attend private tutoring and learning sessions that typically go on over 12. The sadder part is that they don't have a choice... It's either that or go into some rut end job making nine hundred bucks a month so that your kids might make it through the educational maze to become something worth mentioning. </p>
<p>and that's just the average student in Korea I'm talking about. The people at selective foreign language high schools and the school like the one featured above, "Minjok" are a completely different story. They are generally part of the Korean upper income class, with the money to boot. A Korean middle class person couldn't pay for those highly competitive private schools on an average family income. </p>
<pre><code>The kids that attend there are "bred" for admittance to the top selective schools in the US and UK, which becomes the only driving force of their education. They don't care if the school is a match to their interests or if they love it or not, they apply based on name and perceived "prestige" only. The schools they attend promotes these one sided applications, so they can advertise their expensive high schools based on the number of acceptances to the top foreign universities. And lets not forget the parents with their insatiable egos hovering over their kids managing every detail of their lives, who couldn't name the city the colleges are located on if their lives depended on it.
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<p>All for what? Some job they will get back in Korea that an American might make more money as a Starbucks manager... but at least they'll have their egos filled.</p>
<p>I can confirm that Gryffon's response is very accurate. I don't understand why Korean educators can't think beyond simply academic learning...a true education should surpass that of only academia...*sigh. Yet top schools continue to accept one-sided students with superior academic records (with the exception of Harvard this year) so Koreans continue to emphasize this kind of education. As a Korean myself and a Korean who has extensively experienced it, I'm confident that Koreans are one of the most shallow people when it comes to being college prestige-whores...not all Koreans though.</p>
<p>Also, being surrounded by Koreans at school, they are definitely prestige whores, but you cannot deny most Koreans are hard working. The notion of excelling in academics is so entrenched in their culture that it is actually bad for them. In fact, Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.</p>
<p>
[quote]
While mental illness is linked with 90 percent of suicides, what about the other 10 percent? This must be contributed solely to social factors. For example, in South Korea, it is intensely competitive to get into a prestigious university. Suicide rates unsurprisingly spike around the time of midterm exams for high school students.
<p>FriedRice is right. I've experienced enough of the asian school system to be intensely thankful I was spared high school there. The sad part is, these students will have little to show for their hard work - they don't go on to achieve any more success than their counterparts in other countries. This can be attributed to asian schools' brute force approach to education, which entails drilling theorems and formulae into students' heads, with discussion discouraged in classes.</p>
<p>^ You also make a good point on " Asian schools' brute force approach to education." The Asian education system emphasizes on rote memorization and high test scores. In fact, admittance to colleges in East Asian countries are solely based in test scores and grades, unlike the way more holistic admission process in Western World.</p>
<p>yah that is very extreme... i agree with friedrice... even the way they teach high school anywhere around the world, it isnt learning, ur pretty much there for the grade... its very generic book learning... and i think that is not going to be as helpful in the real world... i kind of like the way western system looks at a student- making sure they are well rounded, going to have an impact on the world in some way- rather than just purely based on the ability of the student to be considered "bright" based on a grading system developed by them.... we lose so many highly intelligent people in the system due to a grading system... i remember my professor telling me that when he read the biography of Albert Einstein, it mentioned that Albert Einstein failed the 6th grade, and was going to be considered mentally retarded if he couldnt prove to them that he can be considered "smart" by the grading system... total BS... this isnt just for korean schools.. it everywhere.. im generally speaking about the grading system as well... so rather than becoming purely knowledge and understanding, some of the kids lose other aspects required in the real world, and its pretty sad.. like they can not advance because they are basing it on everything they learned through memorization... and it takes more than grades to succeed.. initiative, thinking skills, creativity, etc... stuff that pure generic learning cant provide....</p>
<p>This should be a wake up call to people who base their lives on grades... i know for a fact that the father of neurosurgery, Harvey Cushing (1895-1936), was not purely book smart... he had enough knowledge for himself to develop a better neurological surgery system in the western world... not because he studied previous texts, rather he understood the world and developed a higher thinking and developed a philosophical view, which can not be taught, rather expressed and gained through thinking..</p>
<p>and i know i should not be the one to talk about the grades and all that... clearly most of us in high school are trying to get the grade to prove to the universities that we are smart... especially with test scores... and its total BS... i am one of those people i've got to admit... but yah... i've taught myself more than high school has, and i've learned more from my mentor who is a neurosurgeon resident, than i've learned through generic learning...</p>
<p>Despite your romantic views, most American schools promote the rote, memorization type of learning too... I doubt half my calc class could derive any of those equations we use. </p>
<p>That said, how much do these super-Koreans end up learning? I spend maybe 50% of the time in school paying attention or doing homework, and an hour after school per day studying or doing homework. I'm confident in getting 6 5's on AP exams in a few weeks.</p>
<p>Now let's take the "average" Korean who spends 100% of school time in rapt attention and dedicates... 8 hours of after-school time to studying. If I'm in AP Calc BC, he should be in what... graduate school level mathematics?</p>
<p>Is this really the case? I doubt it, so there should be studies done on the diminishing returns of beating-your-head learning.</p>
<p>Oh and no I don't believe that the Korean system carries inherent disadvantages for the next Einstein, or that they are holding back an entire generation of creative thinkers. The thing is that you can't be taught that kind of imagination or genius, no matter how many extracurriculars you join. Sure the "grind" may muzzle your inner spirit for a while, but what's to say that going from a club to a sport to an instrument lesson won't?</p>
<p>ee33ee, I've always said that if anything in school is rote memorization, you probably don't get it. Calc BC is not based in memorization, and if it is for you, you clearly just aren't understanding the material. Same with biology for the most part. People always act like it's memorizing, but it's really systems that fit together into a beautiful picture. The only thing that may be memorization is some of the terminology (most of which can be derived from etymology anyway).</p>
<p>If the American education system feels like memorization to you, I feel bad that you missed the learning you could have been doing instead of memorizing.</p>
<p>Oh BTW, most of the good schools in singapore don't have the rote based system. Like in our school, we actually derive the equations we learn and don't memorize them.</p>
<p>I believe that, save for instances when you dictate a bunch of gibberish words into your head so that you can spew it back out verbatim on the test, memorization is learning.</p>
<p>If biology is a beautiful picture to you, great. You've managed to memorize the overall picture, which greatly aids you in your memorization of the details. As long as the test isn't fill in the blank, I don't think you can perform the latter without performing the former.</p>
<p>Learning and memorization can't be separated. As for calc, I memorize the formulas and I memorize the concepts behind them such that I can apply them to new situations. But do I really "get" the concepts so that I can derive every single one of those equations from scratch? Nope. Can anyone in my class do that? Nope. Can my teacher do that? Nope.</p>
<p>And this isn't about what should be done, but what actually is done. I said that the American system promotes rote learning too.. well it does. In fact, I think the Korean system deemphasizes rote memorization... anyone can spend a few hours memorizing equations and memorizing the fundamentals of calc, but they have to completely master it until they get perfect 100's on tests every time. That's not rote memorization, that's learning IMO.</p>
<p>What is learning? Repetition until an idea is ingrained.</p>
<p>It is not only repetition. The most important part is thinking for yourself. It is about analysis and discussion. Everyone can memorize, but it takes a lot more work to form opinions and independent thoughts.</p>
<p>As I read the article I found myself being more and more turned off by the whole name-branding of education. We are all just consumers rushing to buy the latest name brand. And the colleges play into it big time. It reminded me of my Korean relatives who come here and buy up all the Burberry, Coach, any name brand named stuff they can buy to bring home and impress people. Ugh...</p>
<p>I also kept thinking - what does this say about HYP,etc if they can be crammed for and trained for? But then again, we all kind of know this anyway.</p>
<p>Should we blame it on the Ivy schools or blame it on the Korean students? Why do Ivy leagues schools admit them? And many people say stats and numbers are not important to top US colleges, but it seems that it's not true in this case. So where is the truth?</p>
<p>Why should we blame anybody? I do agree that these students and schools go to the extremes when it comes to admissions, but it isn't unfair in any way. These students work hard, and top schools definitely value work ethic. In spite of what "many people" say, stats and numbers are still very important to admissions.</p>
<p>I would much rather these students gain admissions to top schools than development admits.</p>