“Had I the heavens embroidered cloths, enwrought with gold and silver light, the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet; But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.” This is part of a poem from W. B. Yeats, and he wrote this for his love, Maud Gonne. Sir Ken Robinson quoted this and has ended his speech saying, “And everyday, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly.”
In his speech he presented his thoughts about education and how the current education is treading ruthlessly on children’s dreams. Every child has their special talent, according to Mr. Robinson and I agree with him. Every kid has their specialty. The ‘specialty’ here doesn’t always mean a genius in art or music. There are kids, such as, who is good at even mimicking, eating, fashion, memorizing, and remembering. Each of the talents can be used in so many different ways and the whole world requires students to study academics: mathematics and language. Sir Ken Robinson says this is because of the industrialism, and people wanting to have wealthy jobs. Even putting that aside, the status quo has its problem: squandering of talents.
Along with him, Education in Korea came into my thoughts. The purpose of education, is to help children live happily and adjusting well to the society. Some may disagree, but this is at least something education eventually has to accomplish, because those are the reasons kids go to school before starting their life as a citizen of a country. Then, is education in Korea heading for these? And, is Korea actually developing kids’ creativity? My answer to these questions is definitely no, and there are many problems that cause this reality; three of them will come along.
Primarily, as mentioned in Sir Ken Robinsons’ speech, academics are the most emphasized in education. When it comes to Korea it comes clearer: mathematics and language are the most important thing, and one more, English. The schedule from elementary school to high school and even universities give about eighty to ninety percent for mathematics, language (Korean), English, science and social studies. Two Physical Education classes a week in elementary schools and for me in middle school, PE class was once a week, one hour. One music hour a week and two art hours a week-that has never changed. Tests are all based on academics, and the three bonuses-PE, art, and music-are even not on the mid term tests. High school students always shout for all first ranks in Korean, math, and English because those subjects’ scores are the most that matters for universities. However, as mentioned, kids have way more diverse talents than just Korean, math, and English. There are some kids who are talented on those academic subjects but there are also kids who are talented in dancing, singing, and running. The education system in Korea is a problem because it doesn’t let kids to find their talents from the very start of education. From elementary schools they grow up with the opinion of academic subjects being the most important thing and other things are minor and useless, due to their surroundings and the schedule that is affected by those stereotypes. Talented kids-aside from the ones talented on academics-are not allowed to find their talents, and they just live rest of their lives, not being able to concentrate fully on what they ‘have to do’ and always failing to be the top student.
Free market doesn’t always solve the problem. The most out of the least formula doesn’t work for humans, eventually. To earn most many people abandon their own dreams. Korea, especially, has the system that pursues kids to dream the most expensive dreams. This money-pursuing structure of education is the second main problem. First there is this social tendency in Korea to make students go for the jobs that earn much: there is a list of jobs parents want to have, and they are, for example, doctors, lawyers, and judges. Second the system itself is a problem, and the root cause that creates that social tendency. To specify, the high school system in Korea is the first problem. There are three kinds of high schools in Korea, and one is the ‘special purpose schools’, like KMLA or many foreign language schools. One is the ‘common schools’ and one is the ‘career schools’. Kids who are at the top on academic subjects go to special purpose schools and the ones who are at the bottom rank of those subjects go to the career schools. The rest of them, who are ‘common’, go to common schools. This system builds a kind of hierarchy between students: the students who get good scores on academic subjects are the ones who have granted future with good jobs and comfortable life. In contrast, the common school students must study extremely hard-actually memorizing the content for good universities-to actually get close to those high ranking students. The career school students cannot even expect college education but must start working after high schools and their hierarchy among society is the lowest: people think them as ignorant and they themselves treat themselves ignorant as well, because they were the lowest rankers. This is a problem, proven by an example. Engineers in Korea mostly come from the career schools, and most of them are not proud with their rank in the society. People treat them contemptuously, and they earn much less than the ‘educated’ ones, when the engineers are actually the ones that are needed to be educated and a kind of job that people usually have with pride, in almost everywhere else on the world. Not only the school system, but the low status of artists or athletes in Korea is also the problem: a major cause for the parents blocking their kids’ dreams of artists and athletes. A solid proof is the amounts of money Korean athletes receive for their salary and for their accomplishment. The accomplishment bill is almost a half than that of American athletes receives for what they have done in the Olympics. Another proof can be the poor facilities for athletes: Korea doesn’t have a qualified ice rink for Ms. Kim Yuna to practice for her competitions, thus making her to go abroad and pay billions of dollars to afford it. That makes the parents in Korea not to even think about figure skater as a dream of their kids: it is almost impossible because of the huge cost.
Free market again doesn’t work on humans because happiness is not a proportion to the money one earns and people are not like machines: they have emotions and psychological factors that affect the results. In the free market the invisible hand pursues students to compete for the most, and the result is not the most efficient.
Competition and score based system is another problem. Students are labeled with their ranks after exams. It is different with A, B, C: they have to compete with one another, and the top 4% gains the 1st rank, and the next-until 11%-gains the 2nd rank and it goes on. Universities don’t see their specific scores but only their ranks and give the scores for each rank, and those scores affect greatly on their overall ‘score’, which determines who is accepted and who is not. Therefore, to survive students have to compete with their friends, and the result doesn’t really matter how hard you do: it matters on how the others have done. Consequently the burden students have, that they have to win over their friends, make them not to think about anything else-even their creativity, even a question about what they are studying right now will actually help them in their future, and what talents one actually has and what does he or she wants to do for the rest of their lives-but only their SCORES.
As shown above, Korean Education has severe problems. The current Korean Education is changing, but it is never a progress unless they solve the previously mentioned root causes. Every child has their talent, and we should not squander them. Academic talents are not the only talent. The current Korean Education, in my opinion, has never progressed since none of the three problems mentioned above was solved.
Everyday, everywhere, parents should tread softly, because they are treading on their children’s dreams. W. B. Yeats bewailed at the fact that what he had, which was only his dreams, is not something his lover expected from him. She did not know how precious his dreams were. Children may bewail on the fact that what they have is not what the parents expect, but that should never happen. It is because we know that their dream is the most precious treasure, something that really makes them themselves, and something that allows them to shine brightly, like a star.
Great intro, and nice smooth lead-in to the assignment. I get the impression that you have very personal feelings about this issue, and this shows up effectively in your writing. Who better to comment on the Korean education system than someone who's in it? You don't paint a pretty picture, but I think if we were to contrast education in other places - such as in some parts of the US - we would see that at least Korea has a real goal in mind. Where would Korea be without all the blood sweat and tears over the last 50 years? That said, I agree with you that real "change" is needed, because we have to ask - does the current model fit our current society - or even more importantly, our future society? KMLA, I hope, meets enough of those needs.
답글삭제Excellent essay. However, some really BIG chunky paragraphs. It's definitely okay to break them up with transitions, even if the topis is the same. You can do this through Question and Answer and/or Howevers, Despites, Consequently, etc.
Good writing.