Obama said what?
People always get nervous when they hear someone else is doing more than they are. And I guess our new President is no different. The following is from the Korean Herald:
U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday called for the United States to look to South Korea in adopting longer school days and after-school programs for American children to help them survive in an era of keen global competition, according to Yonhap News Agency.
"Our children -- listen to this -- our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea every year," Obama told a gathering at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce here. "That's no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy."
Obama made his remarks while emphasizing the need for sweeping reform of the U.S. education system for which he earmarked US$41 billion out of the $787 billion stimulus package to cope with the worst recession in decades.
"We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," he said. "That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage."
Let's see what I did in the Korean public schools this week.
I amazed myself by coming up with an exercise that got more than 2 people to participate, and had at least a little educational value. The fact that I got the entire class to do the exercise has not ceased to stun me. However, that was only one lesson. Yesterday I was trying to get my students to fill in a sheet about their favorite things. When I tried to get two boys to participate, they went and hid in the back of the classroom, so I had to kick them out into the hallway. Once, I tried an activity where the students had to get out of their seats. I did that only once since the students destroyed the activity in about two minutes. I was so shocked I just stared at them for another two minutes. I had never seen such chaos. I haven't let my students out of their seats since. So the Koreans may have more school, but they certainly don't have better.
Our actual school day is longer here in Korea than any I ever experienced, but I think that's mostly because we have an hour and twenty minutes for lunch and another thirty minutes for cleaning time. The school year may be longer, but I've never seen people waste time like we do at school. I remember fondly the couple weeks of school we had after exams in which we taught our students nothing, and were expected to teach our students nothing.
All the teachers teach straight from textbooks, often to classes of 40 (unless you're lucky enough to be one of the "country bumpkins" Obama mentions from days gone by and are in a class of 7). The teaching is for the most part so ineffective that any student who cares about their future then has to go to the hogwon all night (many students, middle school students, don't get home until 10pm). And who knows if the hogwons are more effective than the schools. At least the class sizes should be smaller.
The students I've met are mostly incapable of thinking beyond the textbook, unless you sit on them or twist their arm. Most students stare out the window during class, or take a nap because they're so tired from studying the night before, or work on homework for another class. In a class of 40, you'll have about three, if you're lucky, who will participate. It's quite common to get "the stare" when you ask a question. Do they understand, you wonder. Are they confused, you wonder. Are they even alive, you eventually ask.
I think the clear answer to the education dilemma, by observing the Korean schools, or any school, is better education, not more. Have we still not realized that more isn't always better? My students said it best when I asked them if Korea was the best place to live and they said, "No. We have to go to school all the time. In America they are free to do things that are interesting*."
*The interesting things being dancing and singing like in High School Musical
**Thanks to my Dad for sending me the article.
This is a So Impressed article
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The distance between idea and reality
I'm going to say that this is one of those classic examples of a Korean pattern of management I have seen again and again during my time here: have a great idea, and tell your underlings to implement it. Do not (this is critical) make any attempt to alter or adjust your idea to account for reality. Just do it. For example, bringing in (a small army of) native English speakers to enhance your English education is an utterly fantastic idea: it lets the kids see English as a genuine spoken language and means of communication, it ensures that the (often low-level) Korean teachers will not continue to teach the same mistakes that they were taught, it brings some fresh blood and excitement into the classroom. A cynical mind might further stipulate that the foreign teachers should either be experienced (and familiar with the Korean educational system) or trained by the Korean government in basic Korean teaching techniques, but this would ruin the purity of the idea... not to mention increase the cost or difficulty of finding teachers. Additionally the idea should be implemented with a minimum of restrictive rules or oversight, ensuring that the individual POEs and schools can use their teachers however they want to... if they can figure out how that might be.
A longer school year is not a bad idea. It has worked famously well in Japan, which uses the educational system upon which Korea's is modeled. Several times Korean teachers have told me how angry everyone is that Japanese students consistently outscore Korean students---along with most of the rest of the world---on standardized tests. This is said in terms of righteous indignation, since it is a proven fact that the Japanese are all horrible people and are probably cheating. I have seen not the slightest indication that any Koreans believe the difference might be due to the Japanese government's careful management and allocation of school resources, or to some alternative form of classroom dynamics; the thought seems to be, "we are using the same idea, so we should be getting the same results." (To be fair, I do have one extremely cool co-teacher at Tangeum---Ms. Yu---who is perpetually telling me what's going on at the school and saying things like, "isn't this CRAZY?" And usually it is, but either we are the only sane people or everyone else has just submitted to the craziness around them.)
Your critiques, Marisa, are quite accurate---this is why all of the foreigners I know who have stayed in Korea over a year are people who are genuinely excellent teachers, and who simply take over their classes and use their own syllabus (and not a Korean textbook). Having seen Jason, Matt, and Stephen leading classes I can say that their activities involve far more learning (and motivation for learning) than any of the attempts I make; however, it is true that you need to be a far better teacher than I to do much with the students in a Korean middle school. Some of the things you describe are, of course, universal in middle schools (remember, only something like 2% of the students actually want to learn... that's why you have to provide the motivation, and why I'll never be a believer in things like Unlearning), but in almost every case they are indeed exacerbated by the Korean school system.
That said, much as I agree with you on these counts, I'm not sure that what we see daily in the classroom is really connected to the longer school year: like life, it's not so much the quantity of time as the quality of that time. Obama's instincts are accurate: if your educational system works, increasing the length of the school year will also increase your results. (I would have killed for another month or two in my World History class in high school, and we were always leaving topics behind because there wasn't time.) But if the system is broken (and I would not argue that the American system is in perfect working order), simply adding time is not going to do squat, and may even hurt matters. So basically, Mr. President: great point... really lousy example. (You may notice that Obama did not say that the US should model its educational system on Korea's... that was the Korean Herald, being its good old patriotic self.)
(This comment should not have been written before dinner, as it is now being rushed to press without proofreading so I can eat my overpoweringly delicious-looking tuna sandwich.)
Education is a mystery to most, but not to those who master it.
Oh, Marisa - You and Jordan are on a roll - I laughed and laughed again at your entertaining writing! You should "polish" your post and then send it to some newspapers as an editorial. It would be good for Americans to hear from people teaching in another country - especially Korea since Obama made a reference to it. The grass is rarely greener on the other side of the hill - just different. It would be amazing if Obama and other leaders asked teachers how to improve education. Some how the very people who know the most about education rarely get asked to comment on it. So, I won't waste my breath commenting on education even though I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. Keep writing - it's the high light of my day!
write to the President, right away!
Marisa, I hope you go straight to Pres. Obama's website and comment, before he commits the U.S. to importing thousands of teachers from Korea to fix our education system! And don't forget to point out that quote about the interesting things that Americans have time to do!
But again...
All Obama himself actually said was, "our children -- listen to this -- our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea every year. That's no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy." The Korean Herald claims that this is "looking to South Korea," but for all we know the point was actually, "good grief, folks, even South Korea has a longer school year than we do!"
All I can say is that the
All I can say is that the educational system would have to be extremely different before I would even consider more school to be better. They should focus on the "better" before they get carried away with "longer."
And talk of standardized tests always drive me crazy. People always worry when some country beats them at standardized tests. But honestly, what does scoring well on a standardized test ever get you? I'll never forget in Hong Kong during exam time when they would play the "don't jump out a window" public service announcement. What kind of life is that?