I know. This mad byproduct of capitalism and "the-earlier-the-better."
Luckily, my mom was busy and "ignorant" enough to not do any of those to me when I was little. My early memories are filled with nonstop reading, origami and legos, catching cicadas, dragonflies, snails, and "raising" ants at home.
For suneung, I got a top 1% score. The price I had to pay were my freedom, health (imagine sitting for 15 hours every day), and my relationship with my parent and others. One thing I liked about my suneung experience was developing my own discipline from self-study (because I couldn't stand bs from some private institutions).
Still, the pressure from suneung starts from when you're born, and that limits a lot of other beautiful life experiences.
100% AGREE! Reformers like to point to Covid as the cause when in reality, it was Covid that allowed parents to witness that what was going on in public schools was NOT education. Test prep is NOT education, it is NOT learning and it IS very dangerous to children. Covid was absolutely horrible, but every gray cloud has a silver lining somewhere......and that was online school that was witnessed by many parents. Unfortunately, the Education Industry in the US is huge (even though DoEd is fairly small) and it will take a lot to kill the hydra of test based education with the bureaucracy that is firmly in place.
I wouldn't exactly say that schooling standards in Korea are softening per se, but that the younger generations (perhaps Millennials and Gen Z) in Korea are more accepting of different lifestyles and "achievements." Many of them have left harsh corporate culture after a few years of work to have a more meaningful life - and this idea has become more acceptable in general by their peers. I'm not sure if it's been accepted by the older generations though.
You can see it through the recent popular Korean books like "Welcome to Hyunam Dong Bookshop" and "I want to die but I want to eat tteokboki."
Also - I believe marriage rates have plummeted too - so there is a generation of young Korean women that are rejecting getting married, having children, and working the corporate grind. They just want to have a simple, single life - and culturally this has been more normalized by their Korean peers.
Another contributing factor is the current job market in Korea. Many young adults that achieve everything they were supposed to through schooling and testing, are still faced with unemployment and underemployment. As a result, they are realizing it all wasn't worth it and are doing other things with their life that may have not been acceptable a generation ago.
"Korean students, by various accounts, spend more time studying than students anywhere else in the world."
I can attest to this. I visited South Korea in 2010. I was impressed with Seoul and it reminded me of other large western cities. At one point in the day, school was over and I saw South Korean children and youth everywhere. But within the hour, they disappeared. I was so confused.
I asked my South Korean friend, where did all the young people go?
He said they are in tutoring until around 10pm. He said they do they every school day. First, I admired it. Then I remembered that South Korea is an honor/shame culture.
Your stats on depression and suicide don't surprise me at all. Glad they are moving in a better direction.
But I still wonder how much of the mental health challenges are related to how differently the younger generations are being raised compared to older generations.
In the US, education is still primarily aimed at the wealthy. That is unfortunate because so many kids are left out of the educational system without any clue about what college and learning are about. Growing up in a rural environment can be significantly limiting, as isolating kids can lack self-worth or even think they can't go to college. We should help communities that need it most because they usually suffer.
Yeah team! We are thinking this through and hopefully this can make the lives of children better!
What if we could have high achievement and happy kids? That would seem ideal. The assumption to date has been that there is high achievement and there is childhood well-being: Choose 1. What if we could Choose 2?
Seems the Choose 2 option is doable. If you use super-learning type strategies and AI, then you can be top 2% all within 2 hours of daily work from there you can embrace your passion project. This is moving towards a highly attractive learning model. With school choice this could be optimized at population scale which could create a profoundly successful society.
Wow, that's a real horror story. Anything anyone does to bring awareness of the mendacity of schooling is doing virtuous work.
You have to read this: https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10430451?trk=feed-detail_main-feed-card_feed-article-content
I am truly concerned about our country's young children..
Thank you.
I know. This mad byproduct of capitalism and "the-earlier-the-better."
Luckily, my mom was busy and "ignorant" enough to not do any of those to me when I was little. My early memories are filled with nonstop reading, origami and legos, catching cicadas, dragonflies, snails, and "raising" ants at home.
For suneung, I got a top 1% score. The price I had to pay were my freedom, health (imagine sitting for 15 hours every day), and my relationship with my parent and others. One thing I liked about my suneung experience was developing my own discipline from self-study (because I couldn't stand bs from some private institutions).
Still, the pressure from suneung starts from when you're born, and that limits a lot of other beautiful life experiences.
:(((
How insane!!!! This should be considered child abuse, full stop
Horrific :(((
100% AGREE! Reformers like to point to Covid as the cause when in reality, it was Covid that allowed parents to witness that what was going on in public schools was NOT education. Test prep is NOT education, it is NOT learning and it IS very dangerous to children. Covid was absolutely horrible, but every gray cloud has a silver lining somewhere......and that was online school that was witnessed by many parents. Unfortunately, the Education Industry in the US is huge (even though DoEd is fairly small) and it will take a lot to kill the hydra of test based education with the bureaucracy that is firmly in place.
I wouldn't exactly say that schooling standards in Korea are softening per se, but that the younger generations (perhaps Millennials and Gen Z) in Korea are more accepting of different lifestyles and "achievements." Many of them have left harsh corporate culture after a few years of work to have a more meaningful life - and this idea has become more acceptable in general by their peers. I'm not sure if it's been accepted by the older generations though.
You can see it through the recent popular Korean books like "Welcome to Hyunam Dong Bookshop" and "I want to die but I want to eat tteokboki."
Also - I believe marriage rates have plummeted too - so there is a generation of young Korean women that are rejecting getting married, having children, and working the corporate grind. They just want to have a simple, single life - and culturally this has been more normalized by their Korean peers.
Another contributing factor is the current job market in Korea. Many young adults that achieve everything they were supposed to through schooling and testing, are still faced with unemployment and underemployment. As a result, they are realizing it all wasn't worth it and are doing other things with their life that may have not been acceptable a generation ago.
"Korean students, by various accounts, spend more time studying than students anywhere else in the world."
I can attest to this. I visited South Korea in 2010. I was impressed with Seoul and it reminded me of other large western cities. At one point in the day, school was over and I saw South Korean children and youth everywhere. But within the hour, they disappeared. I was so confused.
I asked my South Korean friend, where did all the young people go?
He said they are in tutoring until around 10pm. He said they do they every school day. First, I admired it. Then I remembered that South Korea is an honor/shame culture.
Your stats on depression and suicide don't surprise me at all. Glad they are moving in a better direction.
But I still wonder how much of the mental health challenges are related to how differently the younger generations are being raised compared to older generations.
In the US, education is still primarily aimed at the wealthy. That is unfortunate because so many kids are left out of the educational system without any clue about what college and learning are about. Growing up in a rural environment can be significantly limiting, as isolating kids can lack self-worth or even think they can't go to college. We should help communities that need it most because they usually suffer.
Yeah team! We are thinking this through and hopefully this can make the lives of children better!
What if we could have high achievement and happy kids? That would seem ideal. The assumption to date has been that there is high achievement and there is childhood well-being: Choose 1. What if we could Choose 2?
Seems the Choose 2 option is doable. If you use super-learning type strategies and AI, then you can be top 2% all within 2 hours of daily work from there you can embrace your passion project. This is moving towards a highly attractive learning model. With school choice this could be optimized at population scale which could create a profoundly successful society.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/texas-private-schools-use-ai-tutor-rockets-student-test-scores-top-2-country