I Was Wondering Why You Guys Were So Good at Math…

colontos,

I went to high schools in both Korea and U.S. Both are more or less true. In fact, the Korean one seems a little easy, but my HS in Korea was particularly hardcore.

Also, the explanation on the bottom should say “Attendance is taken for study hall and beatings are applied liberally for those who seem to slack off.“

I showed it to an associate of mine who did, who vehemently disagreed with it.

Must have gone to a crappy school

Alright, since I got called out by name, I can’t help but contribute here.

All the English I knew was from Korean schools until I was 16.5 years old. As you guys all know, that is not much. Then I moved to America, and learned to speak, listen and write well enough to get into Cal within 1.5 years. Guess how I could do it? Rote memorization!

I remember just watching American TV for 3 to 4 hours a day with a caption on, mouthing off every word that show in the caption. After a while, I ended up memorizing a number of TV shows in their entirety, and constantly replayed them in my head just for the sake of saying the words. I can still do this whenever I want. That took care of speaking and listening. The key was to memorize a number of expressions such that I can fit in variable vocabularies to express what I meant to say.

And the vocabs. Man, those vocabs. I hate them so much, but I had no choice. When I looked a mock SAT sentence completion question, I did not know all five words in the selection and at least two words in the question itself. I wrote them all down on blank flash cards, and just memorized them until I could recite the words and the definitions in order and in reverse order. (Unfortunately, I can’t do this anymore.) Once I realized I needed to get the connotation right as well, I started memorizing entire sentences that included those words. By the time I graduated high school, I had a whole bookcase filled with boxes of flash cards.

Now, could I have done this unless I was accustomed to memorizing entire textbooks in Korea? Hellllll no. You can argue with me all you want, but in my mind this is an unchanging truth: once past the age when language comes naturally, rote memorization is the ONLY way to learn a new language. There is no other way — certain no way that involves any “fun” or “interactive” bullshit. Don’t assume that just because I lived in America I got to be more interactive about English. I quickly learned that when you are not good at English, people don’t hang out with you. I didn’t have real friends in high school to speak of until about second semester of my senior year, when my English improved substantially. All my English skills are a result of an isolated self-study, purely based on rote memorization. I also took a few classes in or self-studied Spanish, Mandarin, and Latin. My progress is constantly faster than other students in the class because I have no delusions about language acquisition having to be fun. There is nothing fun about language acquisition, only rote memorization. The fun comes when you finally get to use the language.

This is not to say Korea’s English education is without flaws. But the problem is in giving a proper focus of the education, not rote memorization. Korea’s English education definitely could use a little less grammar. Recent I read an article about an elementary school that is teaching its students to memorize 400+ English sentences which they can manipulate as their vocabs expand. That is a GREAT approach in improving speaking and writing.

As a sidenote, my high school in California was soft. It is supposed to be one of the 50 best public high schools in California, but I had no problem destroying the curriculum. After arriving as a 10th grader with minimal English skills, I graduated with second in class GPA and first in SAT scores. (My graduation speeach was awful, as you could imagine.) The reverse could have never, never, NEVER happened. If I started out in my California high school and moved to Korea at age 16 to attend my Korea high school, I would be at the bottom of the class.

And really, it is not as if I was an ace in my high school in Korea. I was just an ok student — maybe ranked around 75~100 in a class of 450~500 students. So just in my high school, just a single high school in Korea, there were 99 kids who were smarter than me. That’s why I said earlier: “Oh, but those who do manage to stay awake and put the requisite effort — watch out for them.” I mean the following sincerely: I went to Berkeley for college and a top-5 law school for graduate school. But I felt pretty comfortable that I was ahead of the pack in those two levels. In my high school in Korea, I never felt comfortable that way.

Say what you will about Korean education system, but in my estimation the system is doing fine — it just needs some tweaks, unlike the American one where it needs major overhaul.

WK,

Americans only need to be “scared” if Koreans all of a sudden stop spending money on English education and stop converting won into dollars to buy commodities and international services.

That day will come sooner than you think, friend. Investment in education is not wasteful at all, even though it may be rife with false starts in the beginning. The $25 billion that Koreans are spending will come back in multiples, but the $25 billion that Americans are spending will end up in scrap heaps.

@86,

Sure, I already said they are not good writers. But put them in a workplace — my money is on the Koreans destroying everyone in that class.

@87, 88

소작은 대붕의 뜻을 알지못하는법.

t_song,

Work, yes. Colleges, more recently yes. Elementary and middle schools, they are just starting to get into these team projects thing. But high school, not so much — they need to study for the test.

And about 노무현 – say what you will about his politics (and there is plenty to be said,) but he is definitely very, very smart. And he’s from 김해, not somewhere in 전라도.

WK, the pic –

Yes, no, maybe after I’m drunk, no, Roh, no, sure why not, no, with a bag over the head yes.

Can we give this tired “Asians are good at math” stereotype a rest already? Asians are NOT good at math. Many of my fellow gyopo’s positively SUCK at math.

Hey man, speak for yourself.

About physical discipline — that’s another reason why I thought American high schools are soft. My teacher used to slapshot everyone with a hockey stick after each exam, number of beatings corresponding to your classroom rank minus one. In other words, only top of the class escaped scot-free, which seriously drove everyone to another level.