There are two incontrovertible problems with the current Korean education model.
1) Memorization. Korea is the second best education system in world, but only in math and science. Here's how, they ram facts down these kids throat like whoa. They start school at 8 or 9, they finish at 3 or 4 and then they basically have an hour or so before they go to hagwon (private academy) which they stay at until 8 or 10. If they aren't at hagwon they are at home with their parents hovering over them. So they're excellent at textbook questions and standard solutions. But I challenge you to ask them something that they'd have to find on their own. I challenge you to give them a problem that they have to think about rather than just answer by rote. The truth is they can't, they have NO critical thinking facilities (as far as i can tell). Now this isn't god awful, in fact, comparatively speaking it's not bad at all. At least they CAN do these problems, whereas many kids in america can't answer basic algebra and geometry questions regardless of their difficulty.
2) Control. These kids have no freedom. At school they sit in class and the teacher lectures them. They aren't asked any critical questions and they aren't supposed to think about various answers. You follow the guidelines, simple as that, and they almost never speak unless they're giving a carefully structured class presentation. At home they are controlled by their parents, everything they do is controlled basically. So what happens when that control disappears? Well I just got out of class 309 which is the perfect example. They go insane. Literally. One kid in every class has the personal motivation to read or study on their own initiative (at this school that's, again, literal). All the others are either smacking each other around in a retarded (i mean that) version of rock/paper/scissors or are discussing meaningless pop news featuring such distuinguished individuals as Big Bang and Wonder Girls. Most of these kids spend all of their free time playing computer games and when they grow up they do the same thing. There's no motivation for them to do more, for personal achievement, only as much as they are pushed by someone in a higher authority to do. Though they do want to be rich, it's like a nation full of wanna-be bankers. god help them.
it's rather pitiful and depressing honestly. Though to be fair i'm writing this after a particularly bad time with 309 which is probably the worst class in all of korea.
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