Korea reading 3 - Dillon, Sam

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Globalization:

DILLON, Sam, “Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills,” New York Times, April 27, 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/world/asia/27seoul.html
Accessed July 19, 2009.

[Anonymous]

Being an educator and working as a counselor at a magnet school for gifted/high ability students, I found the article about the elite students in Korea attempting to attend Ivy League schools in the US very interesting. These students are committed and pressured to succeed to a degree I haven't encountered in the US in my experience. Being a counselor, my concern for them is how they are coping emotionally. I believe most students in the US would not be able to handle this amount of stress. Amazing.

[Anonymous]

Interestingly, I have an inner scope on "being Asian." There is no room for coping because I did not know what coping was growing up. There was only one way: go to the top school. The pressure was not direct, it was indirect: "Cousin A just made it to Harvard, Cousin B made it to Yale, Cousin C made it to Stanford." Even my friends went to the best school and most studied Biology or Chemistry to become a doctor/pharmacist of some sort. There was not room for coping because we had nothing to complain about: we made it to America! Our parents suffered through wars and barely scraped by everyday with enough food to eat so there is no reason why anyone would "cope." There is not room for Cs or Bs, only As. I was never spanked or yelled at when I was in school because I never received anything but As. If I did, then I couldn't imagine what would have happened. But, not all Asian families are like this. Only parents who care about education would instill the importance of education in the children at a young age.

[Anonymous]

This article was great insight into the lives of the elite students at the Daewon and Minjok school's in Korea. When I was in Japan, I saw first hand how the daughters of my host family studied all the time. After school, it was hours of cram school. I can see how if that is all you know ( intense hours of studying), then it doesn't seem weird or even stressful for the students to study so much. Part of me wonders how they are when they are enrolled in the Ivy league school. Do they relax alittle? It seem like they would breeze through based on the intense work they did as elementary and secondary students. But I still want to know why do these students even want to go to school in America? It seems like Korean universities are more suited to their level of achievement. Is it just a prestige thing to attend an American Institution of higher learning?
Sometimes, it seems that it would be fun to teach such highly motivated students because that is one compliant of the some of the students that I have.
But very interesting article.

[Anonymous]

As an American, many of us are under the impression that MOST Asian families do care a lot about education. How rare or not rare would it be- in your experience dduong- for a family to not care about education? And how are they viewed by the rest of the families? Is it considered strange? Or is it just accepted as part of the spectrum of behavior for any family?
I try to compare it to growing up in my middle class neighborhood in Michigan- certain families had certain reputations for this or that, but it wasn't ever a big deal....BUT it's hard to compare perhaps- because our neighborhood really WAS so diverse; black, white, Jewish, Catholic, Chaldean, Arab, Asian, a few white trashy families, a few with airs and pretensions, etc., etc., And within that mix, the only families I knew of who REALLY emphasized education were the Jewish families, the Asian families and the ones who were more upper middle-class. (I changed "snooty," my bias, to "upper middle class"!) When I really think about it- valuing education really wasn't a big thing where I come from. Maybe it was expected that you would go to college, but it wasn't all about being the BEST all the time. (OR even the best that you could be!) I kind of wish it had been emphasized more. I could have used a push or two.
Later, in college I met more upper middle-class kids. They definitely a background of high expectations as far as their education starting early. I was amazed to hear how many of my classmates were from Andover, Exeter, and all those places. They had tutors in areas of study I had never even heard of before they graduated from high school! When I look back on it, I am kind of amazed I could keep up with those kids at all. They had MUCH, MUCH better preparation than I did.
One of my favorite moments was at college hanging around our physics lab. There were four of us; a beautiful blonde, wealthy, Harvard girl, a white, middle-class Ann Arbor boy, (me- white middle-class Ann Arbor girl), and a young Arfican-Amercian genius boy from Detroit. The question was, "Why get an education?"
I blurted out, "because it's fun!"
I assumed everyone's answers would be along the same lines as mine, but the white guy from Ann Arbor said, "to get a good job," which was definitely a common reason I had heard before. The black guy said something I had never had to consider and which gave me pause, "to be able to put food on the table and a roof over my family's head."
The Harvard girl's answer shocked me the most, "for the prestige of it."
I came from a world where you weren't supposed to admit to ambitions based on prestige even if you secretly held them. Education for the sake of education was the more pure and lofty ideal.
I know its kind of stereotypical, but I do think it reflects the diversity of class, culture and experience that is commonly melded together in our society and can make things very complex. Our students coming to us have very diverse backgrounds and very different motivations and expectations regarding education. I'm thinking it will behoove me to find out more about these next year as I start up my class. It can only help and can't hurt, right?[Edit by="price on May 18, 3:36:03 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

The article mentioned that almost all of the 133 students from Daewon Foreign Language High School were accepted into a prestigious American university. Well what happened to the few students that didn't make it. Do they stay at the school and continue to apply to other schools? Do they go to a Korean university? And what are the parents reaction. Do they make the child feel shamed? I think too much pressure is being placed upon these students. The article stated that these students have 15 hour school days and weekends are filled with cramming for other subjects. The value of education is stressed in my home but I think it also needs to be tempered with other activities that feed the mind spiritually and physically.

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I would love to have students this motivated. I wouldn't have to find some way to reward their good work, they just do good work. But I don't think 15 hour school days are the answer. I rarely even assign my students homework that they couldn't have completed in class. I guess it must be more of an American (maybe Western?) desire, but I would want my students/children to be well rounded, not just mini robotic geniuses.

I did like the quote about America's education system creating good citizens. Finally, we're getting credit for doing something right. But really how can our students compete with students who study for 15 hours a day? And do we really want them to?

[Anonymous]

It didn't take me long to learn that the asian students I have turned in their work more often (almost never missed) and with better quality. The also have very nice handwriting. Most of my asian students go to school "after" school and have multiple activities on the weekend. There is not much free time at all. I also tutor an 8 year old boy 4 days a week after school for two hours each day. By middle school, I guess that work load is fine, but for an 8 year old, it seems a little much. He gets very stressed out and sometimes cries.

[Anonymous]

This was an intersting article. I think that Korean kids are under a lot of stree and pressure from their family and society. College has a lot to do with future marriage and success. I personally feel that it contibutes to the high number of suicides of student trying to get into college and the students who feel empty after making it in to the school of their dreams. I know of many families who would moved and live in apartments to go to the best school than rather buy a home where they could affor because it is all about the education and status of their child.

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