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No Fs for Korean Students: My Time In A Public High School
(Note: written during the author's second year in Korea, this article may reflect non-current views.)
(Note: written during the author's second year in Korea, this article may reflect non-current views.)
So you know all those tests we in the West hear about our Asian counterparts studying so hard for? Well, all that time spent studying has an interesting component, which is that regardless of your test or class grade, at least in the pre-university education system in Korea, you cannot fail.
That's right. You will pass biology, English, math, or any other class you take with any grade whatsoever. All you do is show up. Did you get a 20% in algebra I? No problem, we're moving you on to algebra II. Not ready? Remedial classes? Summer school? Surely you jest!
I discovered this today at the same time that I discovered my students also receive no greater grade than 10% of their overall English grade from my class. That's right, there's no separate grade for English Conversation. And that 10% comes from a one-minute (that's not hyperbole, sadly) test which I will be giving next week. And that test? It's only the second-year students who get tested. The first year students receive no sort of quantifiable evaluation whatsoever.. really. It's part of the Ministry of Education's idea about how student enthusiasm for English will be diminished by stress regarding tests and grades and so forth. Funny. I studied as hard as I did in French specifically because I didn't want to fail, and wanted to do well.. and that stress never diminished my desire to visit the Rive Gauche and drink wine and eat brie and baguette.
So basically: I have 40 students. I'm lucky to have five that have skill and enthusiasm for English. So they try anyway because they're self-motivated. They care about doing well because they want to study at good universities and explore the world and all that. Maybe there are another ten who have much less skill but who will at least listen and attempt the activity, even though they know there's no grade and basically no reason to actually do any work or participate at all. And then there's everybody else.
I guess teachers all over the world face difficulties like this. My teachers in high school certainly had to deal with difficulties, but we were a private school. So parents had an investment in one's school behavior, and were not happy if the semesters tuition brought bad grades.
Oh wait, grades. My teachers could give a bad grade. Or fail you. For wretched behavior, you might get docked 10%. Or less. Or more. You might have to have to petition the teacher and apologize to get some of that grade back, since schools teach more than just math and reading and all that. We get socialized in school. We learn about social politics and hierarchies. We learn how to play by the rules and how to break them. But we have to make an effort to learn these things. We don't just sit idly by or sleep through class and get passed. Even if we really forget as much of the information taught to us in high school as we all believed back then (remember when we told this teacher or that something along the lines of 'You know, it's proven that we forget 90% of what we learn anyway...') the most important stuff is generally ineffable, or at best difficult to explain. Because we learn to be who we are and who we become, and we learn how to behave, and grades are part of that reinforcement. Grades are part of the lesson. But I don't give grades. I will determine about 10% of the overall grade for my students, in one minute, for one single activity, for an entire semester. So grades aren't part of whatever lesson I will end up teaching.
The government wants English classes to be taught in English by 2011. Wait... Korean students study a foreign language in.. Korean!? No wonder no one can speak any English even after 5 years of 'instruction' in public school! Apparently this is true of other language classes as well, including Chinese and Japanese. It's a good thing Asian cultures are generally reputed for their politeness, or every Korean trying to order a steam bun at the Olympics would get the same sort of distainful glare I got in Monte Carlo when I tried ordering something in French, before the server sighed loudly and asked me (in French) what language I really spoke. "Uh.. English," I muttered, after thinking better of my desire to put the final nail in the coffin of my faux-internationalism by saying, "Euh, je parle anglais."
I never studied French in any language other than French. I imagine the other students learning languages like German and Spanish at my school studied those languges IN that language. Our teachers weren't necessarily native speakers, but they had degrees (in the language that they taught) and they had studied in the countries which were home to those languages. I even studied Latin in Latin. And who speaks Latin these days? The point was immersion.
So, Korea. I wonder now about your many businessmen, politicians, and doctors. Your lawyers and public servants are now highly suspect. How many of your citizens, O Country of the Morning Hack-Cough-Spit, are quietly coasting by on what in the US would be less than a high school diploma? And what of your universities? I know that Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei Universities, along with Ewha Women's University, are all basically Ivy schools which are impossible to enter with less than a 96% overall grade average. What about the others? Even our state schools are getting harder to enter. Especially state schools with good reputations. No diploma? GED and community college, baby! We'll talk in two years. Terrible grades? Failed classes? Community college.
So I wonder about all the university students at the many less-than Ivy schools here. Someone has to take the students who don't get into the SKY schools.
That's right. You will pass biology, English, math, or any other class you take with any grade whatsoever. All you do is show up. Did you get a 20% in algebra I? No problem, we're moving you on to algebra II. Not ready? Remedial classes? Summer school? Surely you jest!
I discovered this today at the same time that I discovered my students also receive no greater grade than 10% of their overall English grade from my class. That's right, there's no separate grade for English Conversation. And that 10% comes from a one-minute (that's not hyperbole, sadly) test which I will be giving next week. And that test? It's only the second-year students who get tested. The first year students receive no sort of quantifiable evaluation whatsoever.. really. It's part of the Ministry of Education's idea about how student enthusiasm for English will be diminished by stress regarding tests and grades and so forth. Funny. I studied as hard as I did in French specifically because I didn't want to fail, and wanted to do well.. and that stress never diminished my desire to visit the Rive Gauche and drink wine and eat brie and baguette.
So basically: I have 40 students. I'm lucky to have five that have skill and enthusiasm for English. So they try anyway because they're self-motivated. They care about doing well because they want to study at good universities and explore the world and all that. Maybe there are another ten who have much less skill but who will at least listen and attempt the activity, even though they know there's no grade and basically no reason to actually do any work or participate at all. And then there's everybody else.
I guess teachers all over the world face difficulties like this. My teachers in high school certainly had to deal with difficulties, but we were a private school. So parents had an investment in one's school behavior, and were not happy if the semesters tuition brought bad grades.
Oh wait, grades. My teachers could give a bad grade. Or fail you. For wretched behavior, you might get docked 10%. Or less. Or more. You might have to have to petition the teacher and apologize to get some of that grade back, since schools teach more than just math and reading and all that. We get socialized in school. We learn about social politics and hierarchies. We learn how to play by the rules and how to break them. But we have to make an effort to learn these things. We don't just sit idly by or sleep through class and get passed. Even if we really forget as much of the information taught to us in high school as we all believed back then (remember when we told this teacher or that something along the lines of 'You know, it's proven that we forget 90% of what we learn anyway...') the most important stuff is generally ineffable, or at best difficult to explain. Because we learn to be who we are and who we become, and we learn how to behave, and grades are part of that reinforcement. Grades are part of the lesson. But I don't give grades. I will determine about 10% of the overall grade for my students, in one minute, for one single activity, for an entire semester. So grades aren't part of whatever lesson I will end up teaching.
The government wants English classes to be taught in English by 2011. Wait... Korean students study a foreign language in.. Korean!? No wonder no one can speak any English even after 5 years of 'instruction' in public school! Apparently this is true of other language classes as well, including Chinese and Japanese. It's a good thing Asian cultures are generally reputed for their politeness, or every Korean trying to order a steam bun at the Olympics would get the same sort of distainful glare I got in Monte Carlo when I tried ordering something in French, before the server sighed loudly and asked me (in French) what language I really spoke. "Uh.. English," I muttered, after thinking better of my desire to put the final nail in the coffin of my faux-internationalism by saying, "Euh, je parle anglais."
I never studied French in any language other than French. I imagine the other students learning languages like German and Spanish at my school studied those languges IN that language. Our teachers weren't necessarily native speakers, but they had degrees (in the language that they taught) and they had studied in the countries which were home to those languages. I even studied Latin in Latin. And who speaks Latin these days? The point was immersion.
So, Korea. I wonder now about your many businessmen, politicians, and doctors. Your lawyers and public servants are now highly suspect. How many of your citizens, O Country of the Morning Hack-Cough-Spit, are quietly coasting by on what in the US would be less than a high school diploma? And what of your universities? I know that Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei Universities, along with Ewha Women's University, are all basically Ivy schools which are impossible to enter with less than a 96% overall grade average. What about the others? Even our state schools are getting harder to enter. Especially state schools with good reputations. No diploma? GED and community college, baby! We'll talk in two years. Terrible grades? Failed classes? Community college.
So I wonder about all the university students at the many less-than Ivy schools here. Someone has to take the students who don't get into the SKY schools.
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