Couple of days ago, president Barrack Obama announced that his administration will change the US education system. He wants more school hours and less vacation periods. He believes that current levels of US students in math and science is very low compared with other countries like Japan, Korea, or Germany. I agree with his opinion. We have to change our education system, but what I am worried about his education policy that is likely similar to Korean education system. Since he already mentioned several times about Korean education policy and Korean parents’ passion to teach their children, I assume what he wants to do is following a standard model like Korean’s.
To be honest with you, I think that is a terrible idea. When I was in high school in Korea, I woke up at 6 am and I got to school around 7 am. I had 8 regular, 2 extra classes and 3 intensive self study hours. I usually stayed until 10 pm and it was 11 pm when I got home. I didn’t have time to meet my friends and I didn’t have time to read nobles. Most of all, my school life was so stressful. Sometimes, I couldn’t concentrate on classes because I was so tired to focus. I wasn’t only one who suffered, all high school students in Korean had to suffer. Now, I don’t have many recollections regarding to my high school years. Only what I remember is tests and a lot of homework.
Because of those difficult times, now I am pretty good at math and science. However, I am not sure whether I am a creative person. I am good at memorizing and solving problems, but writing? Writing requires a lot of thinking and creativity, but I am really terrible about it. What I find from American education system is that students actually learn creativity from their classes. My point of view towards US students is that as time goes by, American students are better than Asian students. Just what they need is some time to learn basic concepts.
What I am saying is that moderate change in the US education system like more class hours is a good idea, but not following others’ systems. We cannot sacrifice our creativity for higher math scores.
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that is a very interesting statement that you made saying that American students are more creative. the reason i say that it is interesting is because due to the increasing amount of tests that younger kids have to take in grammar school people have been saying that school has been becoming less about creativity. people say that all school does now is teach these kids how to prepare for a test, not actually teaching them things that they will remember. i experienced this first hand when i was taking an english class in high school, the first day the teacher said "i am going to teach you guys how to pass the SAT." from that point on the course was all about how to answer certain questions or how to take certain parts of the test. i feel like due to these tests kids are not being able to be as creative as possible in grammar school and they are not "learning." i do agree that there needs to be some slight changes in our education system but im not sure what those changes should be as of right now. interesting post jin.
ReplyDeleteI believe creativity is something that is trained, not learned inside the classroom. Hell, when I was in high school (which was almost as tough as how you mentioned; my schedule was 6am-9pm instead) the students argued that school was inhibiting creativity. On the other hand, it was very likely that they were f#$%ing lazy and just wanted to BS their way through classes.
ReplyDeleteRight, we sometimes forget why we are here now. For degree? For high GPA? Where is real value that we hear about it. It's getting harder and harder. Maybe I should feel happy now at least I am graduating this semester.
ReplyDeleteC'est la vie. The value that you speak of is that college is a necessary requirement for jobs these days. That's why you see some people trying to blaze through as fast as possible.
ReplyDeletei agree... im an exchange student in Korea right now and I understand where you're coming from since Im starting to understand how korean education works and how different it is from US education.
ReplyDeletecreativity definitely shouldnt be sacrificed for higher scores...