Synthesis essay on education

     What is education for? This is a simple question that can easily be answered. We need education because in order to become full fledged members of society, humans require a little more than just food. Through education we learn to adapt to the society that we were born into, and find the possibility of moving into a higher economic class. In this perspective, Korean education system has long been accused of failing to serve its original purpose. Among many of its defects are three major problems  that should be addressed immediately; the current education system in Korea requires too much competition between students, takes an entirely wrong approach on moral values, and leads to the polarization of wealth. All of these problems of education will reappear as social problems when the misled students become old enough to form a society of their own. We should find a new model of education system that lets our students lead a stress-free life and eliminates the need for private education.

     Anyone who has experienced learning or teaching in the current Korean education system would agree that the students in this system are put under extreme pressure. Like Haechan, a ten year old boy chosen by BBC as the average Korean schoolboy, they live in constant fear of failure the minute they enter first grade. "The harder you work, and the earlier you begin, the better university you get into, and a better university means a better job," Haechan tells the reporter with a grave face.
 (video from Seewan's blog)
Most Korean students have heard their parents or teachers say that without good grades they will fail to get into a decent university, and will be obliged to live the rest of their lives as stragglers of the society. Their fate is usually decided by a mere difference in score or by some award certificates, which obviously cannot indicate which student is better fit for which university. Therefore, Korean students tend to be obsessed with minor influences to their scores or their ranks among peers. Sometimes this heavy load of stress leads students to commit suicide, and sometimes it creates hostility between classmates who would otherwise form comfortable relationships. While it is well known that the most frequent cause of death of  Koreans between ages 15 and 24 is suicide, many say that it is a problem of the individual whose mindset was too weak to endure competition, not of the education system. However, those who manage to refrain from choices as sad and as wrong as commiting suicide are not entirely free from a mental chaos. I myself have witnessed many arguments or fights caused by grades; some sly students would trick their friends into reading cartoons or watching soap operas by pretending to ignore their studies, and would secretly study at night to keep up. Sometimes they would borrow notes from the highest scoring student in class and never return them. What we have to remember is that although these students were indeed wrong, they had a reason to be mean; they were quite desperate to get a higher rank, and to escape from being a loser.

    

    As we can see from students who are pushed to the point of taking advantage of friendships to rank higher, the system of relative evaluation requires decent education on morals. Nevertheless, not only does the Korean education system neglect moral education, but it also employs a wrong approach. Few schools schedule regular classes to enhance the morality of students, so building students' character is usually a task left to individual teachers. While some teachers succeed in getting voluntary respect from students, others simply bark orders at students and expect them to be obeyed. Below is a video clip that effectively portrays how many Korean teachers approach moral education. They tell students to respect their elders but fail to tell them why. When students ask why they should listen to their teachers they receive a rather hysterical response that such questions are rude and absurd. Aside from scoldings, many other penalties such as corporal punishment are used to stop students from raising their voice against what the school requires.
 
(Video from Dongkyung's blog)
Picture these students ten years later, working at some company. Submissive members of society who never question their superiors or the government; my, what a healthy society they would form-- without the ability to ask why, or to find any reason for themselves. However, this is not the worst a teacher can do to students. What's yet worse, is discrimination.

     Many Korean teachers discriminate their students by standards relating to their future social status such as grades or wealth. In a 2011 survey, aproximately 46% of middle school students and high school students answered that they have experienced discrimination from teachers by grades, appearance or wealth in the form of physical or verbal abuse. I have witnessed a case of discrimination last year. When I went to a public boy's middle school to teach after school classes, I saw a man in a suit, probably a teacher, push the boys around with a wooden switch -- swinging, tapping, hitting and poking as he marched about. When he noticed me, he beamed so kindly that I was surprised. He treated me, a decent student from a prestigious high school, like a respectable adult, and the boys, backward students waiting for supplementary lessons, like animals. I noticed later that some of the boys showed considerably low self respect. Although they were angry at teachers who mistreated them, they actually believed the cruel, foolish nonsense, feeling that they must be of less value to the world than higher scoring students. These teachers eliminate the wonderful possibilities of young students with easily uttered words.

      Another major problem of Korean education is, of course, the invasion of private education. Now that private education is widespread, most teachers in public schools lose their drive to teach. When they walk into a classroom, they often face a class that does not pay any attention at all. Some students have already learned the material beforehand in private education centers, and others do not understand a thing because their parents cannot afford those extra studies. This situation leaves the teacher with two choices; first, to focus on the low-achieving students and make the class as easy as possible. Second, to assume that all of the students attend a private education center and teach something more difficult. Neither of the two choices satisfy the students and their parents, because easy classes are a waste of time for bright students as difficult classes are for backward students. So either way the students end up getting even more private education.

     Private education is not actually as bad as people say it is-- it provides students with high quality education. Nevertheless, everything becomes a problem when it is excessive. In 2001, Korea's private education expenses covered 3.4% of the nation's GDP, while average OECD member countries spent only 2% of their GDP on public and private education. Zealous Korean parents sign up for class after class, obliging their children to have their meals in cars while moving from one Hagwon to the next. Students have to undergo even more stress and pressure than before, hating people who tell them that it is a process that everyone has to go through in order to lead a successful life. Fees for private education skyrocket, breaking the hearts of economically challenged parents who are forced to make their children give up opportunities of education. Because it is difficult for students to learn enough to get into prestigious universities without private education, children who had to give up private education grow to repeat the tragedy of their heartbroken parents, while children of the 'upper class' parents become the same rich parents who spend up to 4 million wons a month on private education alone. In 2006, top 10% families have spent an average of 316,000 wons per month on private education while bottom 10% families have spent only 31,000 wons, about ten times as less. Moreover, considering that the stat includes families without children and families with children younger than 7 years old, we can imagine the gap between economic classes to be much bigger, because usually private education fees increase in geometrical progression as children get older. Here we witness one of the major purposes of education lost; equality and opportunity to move into a higher economic class. This leads to the polarization of wealth, a sign of a closed society. We no longer can hope for 'dragons from a small stream', an expression that refers to those who achieve success despite their poor backgrounds.

      There is no doubt that the education system in Korea must undergo a reform in order to stop its faults from influencing the structure of the Korean society. How should it be done? The devastating mental health of students who have to endure up to ten years of intense competition, combined with the lowest level of happiness among students of other OECD member countries, could only be addressed by changing the fundamental structure of Korean education. In order to lessen competition among students and to improve their mental health, it would be a good idea to turn our attention to Finland, where schools emphasize harmony and cooperation rather than competition. The video clip below explains that Finnish education starts from a question, "If winning over others is all students learn at school, what kind of society will they make when they grow up?". Their ultimate goal is to leave no student behind, and so they concentrate on slow students and help them follow their high achieving counterparts.

(Video from Seewan's blog)
Keeping such values as cooperation in mind will not only facilitate our students to become more stable and morally correct, but will also help our future members of society to save dropouts rather than considering them as social failures. Then, we may hope for a society where you live your own life rather than your parents', and we may be able to find many dragons who come from little streams and creeks.

     In conclusion, as a Greek philosopher Diogenes once said, "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth". Korea's foundation lies in its education system, which has been quite unstable for a long period of time. Students are not happy being told to defeat their friends to lead a successful life, and the overheated enthusiasm for private education is contributing to the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. While Obama seems to be interested in the high achievements of Korean students in math and science, he does not know that it came at a cost of our students' mental health. In order to solve some serious problems at hand and to improve the foundation of Korean society, we should adopt a cooperation-oriented education system that does not leave anyone behind. Only then will Korean education rightly serve its purpose as a breakthrough for those who have been locked in a vicious cycle of poverty, and as a home to many full fledged members of society with healthy minds.