Walking into a classroom every morning, I see the majority
of my students with their heads down, a few coffee mugs present, a Red Bull or
two. Other students tenaciously look
over their exam notes as they anticipate their dreadful exams in less than a
week. This took me back to the old
yesteryears of college; however, it was not; this was middle school.
The night before, I was jogging along at about 11pm in my
neighborhood where I can hear the sudden shouting of “TEACHER
RANDY---HELLO!!!!!!” permeating through the tight airspace between my eardrums
and my iPod earphones playing to the sound of Muse’s “Time is Running
Out.” I turned around and saw my
students still in their school uniform coming out of their private
academy. Puzzled, I glanced at the clock
on my iPod, and I thought to myself, “is there a curfew for these kids?” To my
kids, it was second nature. To me, it
was “Welcome to Korea.”
I had taught English in Korea through EPIK (English Program
in Korea) for 3 years (From 2009 up until the end of February of this
year). Entering Korea, I knew little
about the culture and the education that would stand far apart from its Western
counterpart. As I would soon realize, I quickly
began to see the effects that the Korean education system would have on these
young minds.
One day, I had an introductory lesson on “Your Plans.” I asked my students “What are your plans for
the weekend?” Several students replied,
“I have to go to school on Saturday or I have to go to my academy on Saturday,”
or “I have to study all day on Sunday.”
Perplexed, I asked them “Well, do you have any hobbies?” They simply replied, “Oh, we play computer
games all day or go to the PC Room with our friends.” Certainly, not the kind
of enthusiastic, ice-breaking discussion I had hoped for. Simply, it was becoming rather evident that
my students barely had any time nor the ability to be just kids.
For centuries, Korea is a culture influenced by
Confucianism. This brand of cultural philosophy emphasizes the importance of a
person or family’s status in their society based on wealth, social, and job
position. Education is the symbol of achieving higher status in Korean
society. It is the key that many Koreans
feel would unlock the gates that would lead them to fulfilling dreams of being
at the top of the mountain. Only that
getting to the top is where many students start to fall when the climbing
becomes unbearable.
According to a 2011 article in Time Magazine, “In 2010, 74% of all students engaged in some
kind of private after-school instruction.”
The private after-schools are known as “hagwons.” The article also states that these hagwons
cost at “an average of $2,600 per student for the year.” Besides the rising tuition cost, there are
more private school teachers than there are public schoolteachers across the
country.
The
ever-increasing influence of the hagwons has significantly decreased the
influence of public schools. I asked one
of my fellow Korean co-teachers about this issue, and she simply sighed and
said, “Randy, even though many parents see teachers as an important, respectful
part of our society, they don’t completely trust us teaching their kids because
having a hagwon means that they can continue to study more, and they have more
chances to learn something.”
As Korean parents
are pulling out every penny to support their children’s education, their kids
are absorbing the pressure to academically achieve to near-perfect
success. As Korean universities are
becoming ultra competitive, students are competing for academic success as
early as elementary school.
It’s simply not
just university entrance exams that students have felt pressure from, but there
is also a high school entrance exam which can then influence the fate of what
university a student can enter into.
At my middle
school, there is such a great contrast from the 1st year students to
the 3rd years. The 1st
years enter middle school with their innocence, childish humor still intact but
for the 3rd years, the puberty hits, the studying begins, the
expectations grow, the smiling stops, and so does their childhood.
A typical day of
a middle schooler goes much like this: They get to school around 8 am, and
finish the day after 3 pm with the exception of a selected weekday where they
stay an extra hour. Generally after
dinner, they go to their hagwons and coming home as late as 11 pm. They also go to their public school every
other Saturday morning, and spend a good part of either their morning or
afternoon at a hagwon, and in some cases, on a Sunday.
The life of a
high school student, however, intensifies.
They generally arrive at school at 7 am and study into the midnight
hours nearly on an everyday basis. It’s
the kind of lifestyle that has worried me as a teacher in my 3 years at my
middle school.
Oftentimes, I
would joke around with my other teaching colleagues that our students lead a
much more difficult schedule than we do.
As teachers, we get to have vacation days and take time for ourselves,
while my students are confined to the books, pencils, desk, and desk lamp
during their vacation period.
During cleaning
time at the end of the day, I ran into one of my favorite students,
Hyun-Seung. He sat in his chair, face down,
and rather oblivious to the frantic cleaning that his classmates were
doing. I came up to him, poked his back,
and asked if he was alright. He slowly raised his head up and said, “No, I’m
not okay.”
He then went on
to tell me how his father kept pushing him to study. I asked him, “Well, what time do you sleep
every night?” He answered, “Maybe 1 or 2
am.” I looked at the sad, concerning
look over his face. I felt helpless as I
couldn’t rescue him from the hours of anxiety and studying he had been putting
in. All I could do was listen and be as
supportive as I could.
Another student
of mine came to me and looked dejected.
He talked about how stressed out he was about his exams for the high
school entrance test, and how he had sought out the school counselor for advice
and emotional support. Instead, the
counselor focused on his eating habits and reducing his already thin social
life.
Much to my
student’s disappointment, it didn’t address the concerns and anxiety he was
already having. He needed someone to
listen and understand his problems. As a
teacher, I did my best to at least provide some sort of outlet that he could go
to without feeling judged. It is the lack of sensitivity towards students’ emotional
needs that became more alarming than my students’ studying habits.
My former student
visited our school one day. He quickly
spotted me, and was quite happy to see me.
I talked with him for a little while.
I asked him about high school and whether or not he found a
girlfriend. I enjoyed having him as my
student as he was energetic and humorous, and told him I missed having him in
my class.
He mentioned to
me how he missed me as well as his old middle school days. He was unhappy with high school, his grades
were low, and he was looking to transfer to a different one. I told him to keep his head up, and that I
will continue to support him. It was the
last time I would ever see him. A couple
of months later, he committed suicide.
Hearing the news,
I was in such disbelief. I couldn’t
imagine any of my students taking their own life away especially when they
haven’t seen what they could really do out in the real world. However, the real world that my student had
been living in felt hopeless, and that his concerns over his high school gave
him no real prospect of success in college or beyond. The expectations became too much, and the
only outlet he had was to check himself off the planet.
It’s a moment
that still haunts me to this day. It was
a moment that threatened to erase my 3 years of happiness as a teacher in
Korea. I became angry at the way many
Korean students are not being emotionally supported by their school, their
families, and their society.
Many Korean
teachers and school counselors aren’t taught or given the resources to help
students cope with their anxieties, or take pressure off of their
studying. Instead, they are faced with
the pressure of making sure their students are preparing for their daily exams
and from parents who want to ensure that their child has the best shot at
attending a good university.
Sadly, Korea and
Japan are ranked in the top when it comes to suicides. Facing embarrassment, judgment, and
disappointment in front of their peers and family causes them to lose
face. With the lack of available
resources to help those coping with anxiety and depression, there are many
Koreans that turn to alcohol and smoking to numb their pain, but for others, some
have chosen to end their life.
Every child desires
to earn approval and acceptance from their family and society, but when they
are made to feel that they haven’t earned anything, it’s a burden that they are
carrying into their academic performance, but ultimately, into their personal
life.
Ironically, if it
wasn’t for the country’s willingness to spend more money on education, my expat
colleagues and I wouldn’t have been able to work in Korea.
So in my 3 years,
I made it an effort to at least give my students a piece of their childhood
back through my lesson plans, and to make myself accessible to students at
school. It was an attempt to give them a
different side of teaching that they weren’t accustomed to. It was through those experiences that many of
my students, even to this day, are able to open up and trust me more than their
other teachers. They are able to smile,
be creative, and act silly without restraint.
If only the
schools, parents, and ultimately Korean society are able to show better
emotional support rather than a hint of ridicule, I can only imagine that there
would be more Korean students having reasons to smile AND sleep.
Copyright © Randy Kim
All rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment