In the Atlantic’s blog section, Daniel Indiviglio discovers that Korean hagwon tutors can make an insane amount of money, and wonders why the same can’t be said for Migukland:
So what’s our problem? We just don’t care about education as much. If we did, economics would do the rest. We only have ourselves to blame for the lack of demand for good education in the U.S. If we demanded it, more pay for teachers would follow. And so would better teachers and more educated youth.
Well, I think this is largely true, although with a caveat — while a few superstar hagwon tutors can make a ton of money, most do not. And while I’m probably a bigger fan of the Korean education system than a lot of my readers, it does warrant mention that, generally speaking, what Americans lack in high school education they make up for in higher education. In Korea, meanwhile, university is a four year vacation between high school and getting a job.
(HT to reader)
{ 66 comments… read them below or add one }
“In Korea, meanwhile, university is a four year vacation between high school and getting a job.”
We like to think otherwise, but it’s the same here in the States.
Well, perhaps. But now that you mention it, I could be argued that private tutoring in Korea and university education in the US are rather similar in that both are usually huge wastes of money for those who undergo it.
I think it’s fair to say that both the US and South Korea are far from the optimum in terms of demand for and effort put into education, with the US putting in far less than the optimum point and South Korea far beyond it. South Korea maximized the marginal productivity of education a long time ago.
“could be argued that private tutoring in Korea and university education in the US are rather similar in that both are usually huge wastes of money for those who undergo it”
I would agree when you specify it like this. My previous comment would apply to all education levels as a whole.
mkaplan: Yes to liberal arts, but try taking a vacation while getting an engineering degree in the U.S. and you’ll be forced to become a history major in no time.
“Good” education as measured by what and by whom? In many cases, good Korean education creates walking dictionaries that cannot grapple with issues outside of narrow boundaries created by national standardized curricula and testing. We’ll probably see comments pop up on this thread from some of these victims shortly.
I agree the US system often pops out intellects such as the poster who confused cerebral palsy with retardation in the previous thread, but who knows what kind of school and program they went through anyway? The US has some of the best universities anywhere and gifted, open minded Korean students who go there to study contribute to that achievement.
Wedge,
Thanks for the heads up. I always thought engineering was easy stuff, you know driving a train in a straight line and everything. Now I know thanks to you.
vince,
Yes, I am fully aware of the difference between mental retardation and cerebral palsy. If I thought they were the same thing, I would have to seriously believe that a mentally retarded Korean American individual was a public school teacher in Los Angeles. While I wouldn’t dismiss this from the realm of possibilities (we are talking about a government institution after all, and one in LA to boot), I’m not prepared to accept the idea that retards are employed as public schools teachers in LA -at least not yet. Though I can only see such a thing become more plausible as LA and California decay and fall apart even more in the coming decades.
“I’m not prepared to accept the idea that retards are employed as public schools teachers in LA ”
Of course not they’re too busy “running” the country.
I agree that the US has a lot it can learn from Korea when it comes to education. School from dawn to dusk might not be the best method, but it’s an improvement over how little school work we do back home in secondary school.
But, it was a pretty poor analysis by the Atlantic blogger. On the one hand, sure, you can say these star tutors are evidence of Korea’s education fever, but as you point out these are the great exception, not the norm. These teachers are celebrities in their own right, famous enough to get their hagwon to allow them to film their classes and broadcast the lectures over the internet. If a teacher with 50,000 internet subscribers—like the one mentioned in the clip—charged just 10,000 won per month per student, s/he’d earn over four million dollars per year. And you also have to consider the thousands of dollars they earn from the hagwon itself for the in-class . . . class, plus whatever else they’ve earned from books, lectures, articles, and so on. It’s not inconceivable for a tutor to make millions, but let’s not assume it’s the norm. The Atlantic blogger might have asked why, given Korea’s education fever, the public school teachers are considered so deficient as to necessitate these celebrity tutors.
College education is probably the second biggest rip-offs in Korea, right behind a night of partying in a Gangnam room salon.
You cannot graduate from a university in the United States without studying, but in Korea it happens all the time. College education in Korea is all screwed up.
The Atlantic blogger might have asked why Korea spends so much time and money on English language study and have so little to show for the effort.
It’s not necessarily about how hard you work but rather how smart you work. While students in the US maybe aren’t as challenged by loads and loads of cookie cutter school work, they’re more likely exposed to innovative and progressive teaching methods in the classroom compared to their Korean counterparts. And many US students (the ones who will get into the best schools) are using their free time learning outside the classroom at part-time jobs, internships and such. The freedom for students to actually be interested and motivated is limited by a educational culture of conformity in Korea. And when you’re heart isn’t in it, it effects performance.
I think that the USA’s univ education is generally excellent, at least compared to the rest of the world, and rarely a waste — whatever the major.
> Marmot
> In Korea, meanwhile, university is a four year vacation
> between high school and getting a job.
That was true more than a decade ago, before the “IMF” crash, but is not at all anymore.
Maybe freshman year still is (as elsewhere), but as a prof i can testify how hard they work now in the other 3 years, under pressure with stress — it’s so competetive to get jobs now, they need every grade-point possible — and many outside certifications-of-skills, TOFEL scores and etc. They compete against each other in class as if it were still high school… And meanwhile, the good univs have raised standards on them and on us profs — we’re ALL under-the-gun to “perform” better and “produce more. Things have changed Robert; you haven’t kept up.
In Hong Kong quite a bit of money can go to the actual teacher, although you gotta wonder what kind of personal attention the kids are receiving or what the tuition is. From yesterday:
“One of Hong Kong’s highest-earning English tutors has been taught an expensive lesson and ordered to pay his former employer HK$8.87 million in compensation for breach of contract….Judge To said yesterday Fan, who at one point earned as much as HK$2.65 million for 40 days’ work from March 10 to April 24, 2006.”
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/....._year=2009
So what’s our problem? We just
don’t care about education as much.um…make that…are not mercenaries feasting on the blood of children“as LA and California decay and fall apart even more in the coming decades.”
I think the ’s’ on decade is a bit much.
I would love to see some enterprising foreign teacher pulling that kind of money, the perfect story for a flame war.
Don’t worry. Kia will save them.
If not, there’s always marijuana.
(a.k.a. Extra! Korea)
@ http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/.....ent-323857
I ask my students to introduce themselves. Some of them described their major as “Domestic Science.” What’s that? Having a laboratory in your home? No. It’s cooking, child-rearing, and fashion. Other students major in Health and Nutrition. Oh, they must learn some biochemistry in that, right? Wrong. They learn how many calories a roll of ham kimbab has. And yet others major in fashion design. Ask your students about that. They’ll tell you that it’s basically the major for dumb girls who can’t get into anything else. While it’s true that American college students on football scholarships might take Mickey Mouse courses, they don’t major in football. In Korea, you can major in, for example, tae-kwon-do.
You say that students compete hard for marks. I’d be interested in what kinds of students you have, because the ones majoring Health and Nutrition, Tae-kwon-do, and Fashion Design don’t give a rip about their Grade Point Average, probably because after they graduate, they’re going to work in a restaurant, teach in a tae-kwon-do hogwon, and try to marry a rich guy, respectively. Some people are probably speculating that I teach at some rinky-dink college, but I don’t; it’s a top-ten university. Even more than in the west, universities here are money-making enterprises. Making up dorky majors for the dumb students means more students, which means more money for the university. It’s a giant pig-trough that everybody, including myself, gorges themselves upon.
And the fact remains that the only way to fail is by being absent too often. Students who get zeroes on every criteria (homework, tests, class presentations, etc.) will still pass, albeit with a D. And they can take the class again. The old mark disappears from their record as if it had never existed. Korean Universities have a nearly 100% graduation rate. You can’t possibly argue that that doesn’t cheapen the value of the university degrees. Having standards like those in western universities means a higher failure rate, which means less students, which means less money for the university. None of the pigs want the trough to have less slop to feast upon. Also, as Michael Breen said in his book (The Koreans), failing a student causes a loss of face for both the student and the university (because it looks like the school made a mistake in accepting a sub-standard student).
And don’t get me started on the attitudes, of both students and so-called “professors,” regarding plagiarism … and cheating on tests … and …
I could write a book on this crap.
Argh. That first line should read:
@ #12/sanshinseon
here’s the deal with California. Too many social services that benefit illegal aliens. Illegal aliens hide behind their US birthed children, obtain more services. Taxes? They either don’t make enough to pay taxes or simply don’t pay or just pay sales taxes.
In short, they use more services than they put into it. Explains how come there’s a negative balance sheet in social services, which are supposed to have one regardless of house keeping.
Here’s the real deal, however. Lawmakers in California are 3rd, 4th, 5th generation of these aliens. They will vigorously protect the aliens and the services. California will be stay in the red for many, many years. Some white supermacists or racists or actual genuine tax payers who care about their country are proposing to block services to US citizens born to illegal aliens. Highly, highly unlikely to pass or enforce such a proposition. I remember prop 187. Mexican flags were being waved in opposition of prop 187, which passed anyway, but not enforced because the state supreme court said it was null.
just itches me to think, however. What if Koreans were like Mexicans? Use a lot, not put in a lot. Population exploded by anchor babies. Overwhelming, strong representation in state congress, federal offices. Blocking and opposing any measure to hurt Korean illegal aliens, cuts to South Korean defense subsidies, unfavorable trade to South Korea, etc.
Promoting measures to force teachers and public offices to use both English and Korean to be used in Californian Korean areas. Or accuse the govt of racism.
Call it immoral to deny social services to Korean illegal aliens in the US. “This actually goes on, but Korean gyopos in their 20s 30s are much less sympathetic than Mexican Americans in their 20s and 30s. ”
During midterms week at my state university in California, Mexican Americans were not studying, but vigorously opposing the end of Affirmative Action. I directly quote, “Our brothers and sisters”, blah, blah, blah, and chanting and bothering people studying for exams.
In contrast when the Korean yoohak saengs were getting antsy over the 1997 meltdown and unfavorable currency ratios, gyopos were like ‘not my problem’. It’s only over soccer games or pussy hunts to Korea that they care about the real Korea.
California can’t be fixed. The only way is to enforce an unprecedentedly high VAT tax structure to meet state needs. It might shoo away immigrants to other states, however.
I digress. Which I usually do.
My real comment that relates remotely to this thread.
They do a shitty job speaking in English in China, Japan, Taiwan as well. Not just Korea. The Indians, Pakistanis, any English colony members from places like Nigeria, lot of places in the Middle East, they speak very good English. A Japanese scientist may be brilliant, but speak such shitty English that he decides he’s better off going back to Japan for tenure. On the negative side, former English colony 3rd world state doctors continually flee their countries and come to America. The only motivation as far as I can tell is money.
BTW, what are monthly salaries/benefits like now on the hagwon circuit? I guess by now it’s, what, housing plus 5 mil/month, something like that. Add a few privates at 60K an hour, and monthly income is up to, what, maybe 6 mil plus free housing…still a pretty good deal for someone in their 20s or early 30s. Add in a favorable exchange rate and your talking a real income with low Korean taxes, no U.S. state taxes, and minimal U.S. federal taxes (that is, assuming one bothers to file at all).
Actually, that’s more than a pretty good deal. Or are my numbers off?
DLB
But…first gen koreans can’t be korean in america without mexicans and other hispanics…working for them. They go together like, bulgogi and taco, heh heh.
Actually, that’s more than a pretty good deal. Or are my numbers off?
Sounds like your numbers are way off to me. I calculate that to be $47,000 per year. But now you’ve aroused my curiousity.
@dlb
unless you’re a good-looking gyopo or “that white” person whose been in Korea for like 5+ years, you’re not approaching those numbers at all.
just had a friend go over and got: 2.0 million+housing
Really?! That’s amazing. At 1,300 won to the US dollar, that’s just $18,500 per year.
With apologies to your friend, that sounds more like 1989 than 2009. Is that really typical?
DLB
BTW, if that IS typical, then I’d have to say that Koreans have no business complaining about the quality of English teachers they’re attracting to the country. You get what you pay for.
But I still hope it’s not typical, for the sake (and self-respect) of my fellow Americans.
DLB
DLBarch, if anyone thinks that a quality professional with a bona-fide career in his/her native country is going to give up their career and benefits and just pack up and head to Korea for a career-disrupting 1 to 2 year stint for a 5-figure income, then that person is surely smoking something.
With the advent of internet, education industry as well as medical industry should change; they should embrass new technology.
However, job security of teachers and doctors come first. The enemy is us.
With the full use of internet, some kids can finish high school in one year. College in two years. And, better educated.
They should make it into games. Give out gold medals, etc. Young people will be galvanized into learning. American youth will once again be the best-educated and most smart kids in the world.
However, the establishment will not allow that.
They have to guard their rice bowl.
I had a look at the job ads on Daves. The salary range for foreign teachers at hagwons is about 2-3 million won. Employers paying lower salaries usually provide housing while those offering higher salaries often don’t.
2-3 million won. So much for the “being treated like kings” myth, eh?
Mizar5 @ 27,
I don’t know about the smoking part, but I take your point. Low salaries are obviously a problem, and something I didn’t fully appreciate until now. If t_song and Sonagi are correct, Korea is offering its expat teaching community truly abysmal salaries. I frankly can’t even imagine how one lives on $18,500/yr in a city like Seoul.
I’d add, though, that Korea could attract more qualified teachers if it paid better. A lot of experienced professionals, including teachers, regularly take a break from their careers to head overseas to “see the world.” (I know I took a sizeable pay cut at my law firm when I left to (briefly) join a Seoul-based firm a few years ago.) And there is no shortage of experienced professionals either looking for a mid-career break or a post-retirement second career. Christ, even the Peace Corps attracts far more applicants than it can ever possibly accept, and they pay next to nothing!
So, just as union salaries lift the wages of non-union workers, the Kyoyukbu should consider raising the salaries it offers to its expat teachers, and maybe the rest of the teaching establishment will be forced to follow.
DLB
Yes, but how many would put up with Korea? I did, but only because I was already intimately familiar with Korea and wanted to return to her as a high level executive instead of a young man. Sure, the Korea of the 1970s was one of great hardship – brutally cold winters without central heating, oppressive Confucian social hiarchy. But it had heart back then. People seemed to care about one another, and family was important.
The Korea I returned to had regressed socially to its current tattered state. A good education system? Give me a break – it’s nothing more than a huge parasitic scam. Improved university study courses? Hardly. By the time a kid gets into college, he’s already half-brain dead from the high pressure cramming that has diminished his intelligence and judgement. More worldly? Much much more insular and defensive than ever.
You see, back then, there were so few foreigners that Koreans by and large had a more positive image of them. Today, that has all changed.
When you import young adults into the country to teach English, expect them to make the sacrifices necessary to adapt to a completely foreign culture, and then demonize him for not putting his social and sex life on hold, do you think he will leave the country with a positive impression?
As for qualified professionals, they are often even more frustrated. Those who work for Korean companies quickly find that they are not permitted to act in a professional capacity and have little actual support and zero loyalty. Even if they can get past the language and cultural barriers, they cannot endure the glass ceiling for very long.
You get the picture? Korea cannot attract qualified professionals because it is not interested in doing so. It wants people who will stay for 1 to 2 years at the most, during which time they can pick his brain and then discard him.
Word.
Morbidly obese, bottom of the planet in test scores Americans bitching about the world-class Korean educational system. The majority of people in your country don’t even believe in evolution and pray to some magic sky monster who will send you to hell if you don’t kiss his ass every Sunday. No room to talk.
Morbidly obese, bottom of the planet in test scores Americans bitching about the world-class Korean educational system.
Pretty out of touch with the facts, aren’t you? Let me guess, you’re a high test scorer.
BTW, I have consistently brought out – long before KrZ – that far too many Americans believe in bullshit like creationism and god. However, as for those polls that purport to show that a majority believes that shit, they need to be placed in perspective – in my view the people who count generally don’t. Atheism is only now beginning to make great strides in the states.
The kids are the parents’ 401k/rrsp plan –>the kids don’t have a choice.
Simple.
So far this has been an interesting thread. I’ve learned.
wjk has been showing a keen intellect.
DLBarch and I have learned a few facts from Sonagi about the lot of foreign ESL teachers.
Sanshinseon updated us on the improved quality of university study.
The artful dodger put it in perspective.
KrZ, who is usually quite witty, outsmarted me and caused me to overreact, which, while out of character for me, provided me a learning opportunity as well.
I can’t wait to see what happens next. However, hats off to KrZ who got lucky!
@ Mizar et al,
As a long-time English teacher in Korea, I don’t see that I need any sympathy for my “lot”. I may not be rich financially, but then, I am not in it for the money. Anyone teaching anywhere should not be looking at getting rich. Further, I make a comfortable enough living here– I earn over US$30,000 a year for 24 “hours” of work a week– one hour being 50 minutes, I get a free trip to the US once a year, one month of paid holiday leave, and a 5-room apartment rent free. Normally, it would be furnished by the hagwon as well, but I have chosen to furnish it on my own.
Granted, I do not live in Seoul or any of the satellites, and do live in a small town in Gyeongbuk, but my salary goes quite a long way, thank you very much.
“Domestic Science.” What’s that?
Whats your problem, look it up, its standard english.
That exactly the name of one of the compulsory classes I had to take in high school and basically sounds like roughly the same format. Teaching kids how to look after themselves once they’ve left the nest.
Mizar 5:
Great line on the Kia bit saving The Democratic Peoples Republic of California:)
If weed doesn’t save them then I don’t know what will.
You said: “Improved university study courses? Hardly”
To this I would say you are largely correct. However, one bright spot on this is Hongik which a few years ago raised pay and standards for teachers, and then implemented a maximum of 15 students per class accross the range of language arts classes (in English, anyway). Wow, I would really like to teach in that environment for I might actually be able to reach the majority of students as opposed to a few of the 50+ students in many uni. classes.
We recently got a new director at my university and, gasp, he wants to implement standardized syllabi and use better texts. Most of the teachers were in an uproar but I think this guy has his shit together. I was embarrassed by my coworkers for protesting an increase in standards for us, the teachers. “Don’t mess with my fiefdom!” Egads.
Now, if we can only get those classes down from 45 to something a little more realistic then I’d be a happy camper. Not holding my breath.
Mind you how they ramp domestic science up into a full scale four year university major is an interesting question.
“2-3 million won. So much for the “being treated like kings” myth, eh?”
Hence, previous comments calling out this myth, as little better than the average pay for new korean graduates.
[FKI said they had considered together last year’s average starting pay for university graduates at Korean companies with more than 100 employees (24.41 million Won)]
@DLB
Honestly, those 2 mill to 3 mill hagwon jobs are often those types of hagwons where the sole American or Candian hire is the “star” teacher among a raft of Koreans. They are the designated “foreigner” teacher that attracts students.
At the class, the teachers do little more than read from children’s books or play simple games or teach them songs. Certain English teachers go above and beyond, enhancing or creating their own curriculum, that is appreciated but wholely unnecessary.
Among my gyopo friends in Korea from Top 20 schools (Ivies plus MIT, Stanford, Duke, Stanford, etc.), most clear 50,000W/hour which at about 25 hours a week is about 5 million, if my math is correct. Some rake in significantly more than that. But even then, those gyopos are good-looking and they are the upper echelon of hagwons, usually one or two branches, in Gangnam, Apgu, etc. Sometimes there is a random white teacher there as well but those positions require a name-brand school and experience.
The exchange rate, interestingly, has kept some English teachers IN Korea, in that they are staying on for 6 more months or a year, because if they were to cash out their won, it would return so little. This certainly helps negate the decline in interest of those unhired teachers abroad who are hesitant to come b/c of the low salary, in dollars.
For the professionals burned out from Wall Street or business, they probably have a considerable nest egg already, so I don’t see why taking a $20,000 a year job–factor in the extremely low rate of taxes and that you pay no housing, so it’s really $20,000 in take home, pocket money–and it actually isn’t as bad as it seems. $20,000 in the States would put you on food stamps, what with 20% or so going to taxes and housing taking care of 50% or so, leaving you with only half the salary. Internet, food (if you eat Korean food), cable, utilities are all cheaper than the States, and most areas in Korea, you don’t need a car, so the $20K stretches much farther.
Just my 2 cents, or in won, 350won–and escalating!
“I frankly can’t even imagine how one lives on $18,500/yr in a city like Seoul.”
1) As you know many things are relatively cheap for example, public transportation, eating out for 3-5 USD not difficult (local korean style, not anything exotic like TGFi, Outback Steakhouse) etc.
2) Also, perhaps not in comparison to US but I’m delighted with how little tax I pay compared to back home, income tax, VAT, national pension, hleath service contribution etc taxes out of that are relatively low.
3) A large number of koreans, stay at home until marriage, or if they have to leave home flat share, and as for the english teachers this is one area where they get a good break over locals in that they frequently do get a small basic apartment.
Damn, wasted post, T-Song pretty much covered it already.
Although, don’t forget those gyopos can also come in on an F4 which means that on the side work, privates etc, can also be had. However, for non-gyopos, privates are illegal on an E2 visa.
t_song wrote: “Internet, food (if you eat Korean food), cable, utilities are all cheaper than the States”
Electricity costs way more in Korea – several times more than in the States (in my experience). And the unit price (for all electricity used) goes up incrementally the more you use.
“Granted, I do not live in Seoul or any of the satellites, and do live in a small town in Gyeongbuk, but my salary goes quite a long way, thank you very much. ”
I lived in Kyeong San myself, and was earning much less than that, not as a teacher, but, despite the hardships of life in the countryside, I had the opportunity to live a way of life that is now all but dissappeared. If there are still such places left in Korea, I’d say you’re in the right place. Fuck Seoul – it’s little more than a pale imitation of Beijing.
@Mizar,
I live down the road a little ways from Yangdong Village in Northern Gyeongju, (Angang-eup to be precise) practically next door to Oksan Seowon. The countryside and the laid back way of life associated with it are alive and well here. A mere ten minute drive, and I can be away from any hints of civilization– just mountains, forests, and fresh air.
@guit
You’re probably thinking of the winter season, right? Well the ondol, 온돌, which is the heated ground system. That skyrockets the electric bill from like November until February or March. That’s how you get the 150,000W electric bill (trust me, the shitty radiator heat that I was charged $200 for was NOTHING in comparison to ondol).
This is nearly 3 years ago now, but I lived in Apgujung-dong, and my electric bills during the spring months ran about 20,000W, which is what I pay here in Chi-Town. Maybe the prices have gone up, but I don’t think it would be significantly.
Re the legalization of marijuana and California’s economy:
Thank you for your scornful mirth. Might I suggest that you consider this matter seriously. Look at this as the beginning of a process to eliminate the extremely wasteful, individual-freedom-bashing, prison-industrial complex.
Good things are happening already. Here in Sacramento County, the following things may finally happen.
- Police helicopters grounded – Hooray!
- SWAT teams disbanded – Hooray!
There’s no guarantee on the above, though. They had a meeting recently where they successfully used decades-old tactics of fear to restore some of the police money. They chose deeper cuts to education and public health services instead.
Overall, there is a very bright side to this economic difficulty. I am hopeful that we will see the following:
- Release of non-violent “criminals” from jails and prisons
- Repeal of the prohibition of some drugs but not others
- End of police military forces ramming doors and breaking into citizens’ homes
- End of “crime” manufactured using entrapment (prostitution stings, etc.)
We can stop wasting billions of dollars, not just in California, but nationwide. At the same time, we can restore individual liberties to levels not seen since the 1960s.
Read more about the legalization of marijuana on LEAP’s website:
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
Every few months in the world of American news publications, an article is written which describes the greatness of something in Asian secondary education (usually test scores), and the sorrowfulness of its American counterpart. Without much experience with any one Asian country, the consensus among the authors of these articles always seems to be, “Why can’t American secondary education shape up and be more like high achieving Korea and Taiwan.” If I’m to extrapulate that line of thinking to the posted video, then, apparently we should argue, “Why can’t American educators make 4 million dollars/month”.
What never gets mentioned in all the Asia glorifying by the likes of the NY Times and others is that, at least in Korea, what you call a system is inefficient. The middle school and high school students spend an absurd amount of preparing for exams, parents spend an absurd amount of amount on private education, a problem very salient in the gov’t here, with results that hardly justfiy the effort. In Finland, kids start school at like age 7 or 8, spend half the time, parents spend a fraction of the money as kids here, and their scores in the major international test areas are always competitive with the East Asian kids.
Strangely, the Atlantic clip seemed to laud cram schools, private institutions the gov’t here would be happy to see disappear. For anyone that’s been in Korea more than a year, it’s obvious that the private institute system is the grease in the wheels of any kind of bragging rights Korea enjoys with their secondary education. However, this presents a situation which is at least as screwed as the 50 education systems in the US. Private institutes teach whatever the parents that send their kids to them demand they teach. If the parents don’t feel their kids are scoring high enough (most parents in Korea) they’ll just find another institute. As we all know, its dog eat dog here. Mothers feel an enormous burden to vouchsafe their kid’s entrance into a top school, and as such put enormous pressure on their kids, at the expense of any kind of, what Westerners would call ‘life’. Institutes are on every block competing for tuition money, selling their spiels to the mothers.
Meanwhile, at your average elementary school here , children open a math textbook or language textbook, and 95% of the kids are already competent in the material. Those kids who just attend the public without going to the institutes fall behind. This is a big thing. In America, at least when I was a kid, when we initially opened a textbook no one had seen the material before. We were all at, basically, the same level. In essence, lauding Korea secondary schools is tantamount to lauding not Korea’s public system but the private education situation here and all the problems and expenditures that go with it, where the parent with the most money wins.
I’m certainly not going to boast about secondary education in America, but this is the thing. When I was in high school, I always had part time jobs, where I learned some of my greatest lessons and met fabulous people, I wrestled, ran cross country and track for 3 years, drank beer, experimented with recreational party supplements, and believe it or not, I made my own decisions about classes, studying, and my future plans, none of which is possible for kids at Korean high schools. Where is the newspaper article which praises ‘living’?
It used to be called Home Economics in US schools. My mom and other female students took it in high school, learning how to cook, starch a shirt, and can produce from the garden as well as manage a household budget. Of course, my mom learned all these things at home, too, since she grew up on a farm ran by two very hard-working and resourceful people, my grandparents, but I guess girls were required to take it to make sure they all graduated with the skills needed to become housewives. By the 1970s, girls deemed the courses irrelevant, and it disappeared from the curriculum. Home economics has been reborn as unisex life skills classes as described by Arghaeri.
tmc1233, I know it well, but haven’t been back for a while. Glad to hear it’s still nice/ The countryside where my relatives all live now have nobody under 60 living in the town however (Hwa Bon) – kind of sad.
Really? How curious.
knoxfielding, my 20 yr old neice (Korean age) is staying with us for the summer and trying to pick up some English. What’s astounding is that after all the years of English study in school and hagwons, it’s like starting with a 1st grader.
My god, those kids are so crammed to death and confused that it is a wonder that they learn anything at all.
“My god, those kids are so crammed to death and confused that it is a wonder that they learn anything at all.”
Exactly! And they’re punished for asking “Why?” Precisely why I’ll be taking my daughter out of Korean school at the end of this year. All homeschooling for her from now on.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
When I attended middle school in the early 80’s, the classes were still gender-segregated. Girls took HomeEc and boys took Wood Shop (no choice was given to you). Those classes weren’t made electives until maybe 4-5 years after I’d left the school. You still had to take one credit, but it was up to you which class you wanted to take.
For the record, I hated shop class with a passion. I wasn’t a carpenter or a woodcraftsman. I was just getting into cooking at the time and would have rather taken HomeEc, which was mostly about cooking anyway.
Re: “As for qualified professionals, they are often even more frustrated. Those who work for Korean companies quickly find that they are not permitted to act in a professional capacity and have little actual support and zero loyalty. Even if they can get past the language and cultural barriers, they cannot endure the glass ceiling for very long. Korea cannot attract qualified professionals because it is not interested in doing so. It wants people who will stay for 1 to 2 years at the most, during which time they can pick his brain and then discard him.”
Very astute and the essence of my experience here as a technical professional here.
I don’t think it’s necessarily “zero loyalty” though. Korea usually isn’t a zero loyalty kind of place, or at least it hasn’t been for my relationships here. I think companies (and the individuals that comprise them) mostly enter into relationships with foreign specialists with good faith and high hopes. It’s just that these employers don’t understand themselves and their own business culture. Korean management is incapable of seeing how they resist the change they invited once the foreign professional is established in the company. And how can Koreans possibly understand outsiders if they don’t understand themselves? Western countries have been grappling with work place diversity for decades, and is gaining from it’s successes there. Korea desperately needs a pop psychology revolution. Is “Free to be you and me” available in Korean?
“most clear 50,000W/hour which at about 25 hours a week is about 5 million, if my math is correct.”
T_Song, are you sure this is the Hagwon salary, sound like a “privates” rate for which you wouldn’t squeeze in 25 hours on top of the hagwon hours.
#58 “Very astute and the essence of my experience here as a technical professional here.”
I would say I have been permitted to work in a professional capacity, but pressured to produce results in an unprofessional way, i.e. pressured to take short cuts and give the desired result, not necessarily the correct one.
As to “I don’t think it’s necessarily “zero loyalty”” though I would tend to go along with your sentiment.
“When I attended middle school in the early 80’s, the classes were still gender-segregated. Girls took HomeEc and boys took Wood Shop (no choice was given to you)”
Interesting, my school had already been forced to open up “woodwork/metalwork” because of a sexual discrimination case long before then, and it was compulsory in mixed class to do both domestic science / needlework and woodwork/metalwork in Year 1&2.
Strangely enough they couldn’t see the irony in examination stage Years 3/4 when you had to choose one craft, and like you I elected domestic science but was told I couldn’t because I was a boy, but any girls who wanted to could do woodwork or metalwork.
Suppose on reflection I could of taken it to court, but at the time PC sexual liberation only worked one way…..
About the same time I was pissed about the HomeEc/Woodshop BS I had to deal with, a girl successfully won her discrimination suit against the boys’ hockey league, and they were forced to allow her to play on one of the boys’ teams. A boy, in a tit-for-tat, tried suing to get on a girls-only field hockey team, but that was thrown out of court almost immediately.
Thank you vince. I agree with your assessment such as I understand it. Let me comment on your statement that “Korea usually isn’t a zero loyalty kind of place, or at least it hasn’t been for my relationships.”
Usually there is a balance to any aspect of things, and when a partial truth is trotted out, such as my “zero loyalty” statement, qualifiers are indeed in order.
Korean culture teaches “cheong” (heart) and is focused on relationships to such that Westerners often find uncomfortable and invasive the extent to which the professional sphere spills over to the personal. For example, the dining, drinking that goes on after work, often into the wee hours of the morning. Church ministers who come to paritianer’s houses unanounced is another example.
However, self-interest often trumps cheong. In the workplace, this means that professional loyalty is greatest toward one’s manager because he can help you get ahead. But once it is seen that someone is losing favor among the corporate eletes, that person is seldom invited to lunch or dinner and is treated…well…much as Westerners treat their colleagues in the workforce – ie. totally on a professional level, which is the kiss of death in Korea, and that person is eventually transferred out to a subsidiary.
So there is loyalty, but, like “friendship,” this is defined differently in Korean culture incomparison to Western culture. There is seldom friendship or loyalty in the “pure” sense, that is apart from self-interest. Koreans “befriend” others or “treat them with respect” to the extent that they can potentially benefit from that person. I’m not casting judgement here, but it is, I believe, disengenuous, and one of the reasons for the tremendous amount of stress Koreans are constantly under. The Western ideal is to make it on your on, be beholden to none and self sufficient. Of course it is not entirely realistic. But it is to some extent an empowering myth. In Korea, one is defined to a much greater extent by the company one keeps.
One example of this is the Senior VP who regaled us with detailed tales of the lives of TV stars at lunch. When I joked that he had apparently been reading the tabloids, he responded that these are things that the tabloids don’t even know. Apparently, during our company sponsored events with celebrities, he had been working overtime, gathering gossip that he could use in settings such as these to impress others with the extent and importance of his network.
Once a manager falls out of favor at Samsung for telling things as it is rather than going along with fictitious reports filled with fluff and mistruths, it becomes difficult to get his own reports to do any more than a perfunctual job for him. The employees’ long-term interests did not lie with him, and they it becomes obvious that they not there to do a decent job with any degree of professional pride, but rather a job that can curry favor and win recognition regardless of quality.
>Suppose on reflection I could of taken it to court
>I could of taken it to court
>could of
Typical English teacher.
@Argh
Yes. It’s at a hagwon. SAT prep.
KrZ, not another grammar nanny – anyway guess you’ve caught me……
1)I typoed it as it sounds in my part of the world, could’ve => could of
2) this is hardly a scholarly publication where I take the time to proof read.
As to the finale – three words – two suppositions – all wrong.
Dr Watson will be turning in his grave, don’t give up the day job.
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