smokehard

In today’s online edition of the IHT, Choe Sang-Hun has an interesting article about Korean boarding cram schools, where students study from 7:30am until midnight every day of the week for one year. WTF? Yeah, I said the same thing. The most pathetic part is that most of the students are study-again students, which means that they didn’t get the score they wanted on their first college entrance exam so they’re spending a year of their life studying to try all over again.

South Koreans compare their obsessive desire to get their children enrolled in top-notch universities to “a war.” Nowhere is that zeal better illustrated than in boarding cram schools like Jongro Yongin Campus, located in a sparsely populated suburb of Yongin, 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, south of Seoul.

Here, most of the students are “jaesoo sang,” or “study-again students,” who did not get into the university of their choice and are cramming again for the exam next year. Some try again, and again, for three years in a row after graduating from high school. (IHT)

It infuriates me a bit that parents, on such a grand scale, put their kids through this kind of thing. Why is this kind of thing so pervasive in Korea? What would happen if everyone got into the top tier schools? The top tier schools that aren’t even internationally well known. I mean jesus H kim it annoys me.

School background looms large in the life of a South Korean. What university people attend in their 20s can determine their position and salary in their 50s. Top-tier schools like Seoul National, Yonsei and Korea Universities hardly register in the global lists of top schools, but at home, their diplomas pass as a status symbol, a badge of pride both for the students and their parents. On exam day, mothers pray at churches or outside the exam halls. (IHT)

Yes, in Korea, the SKY (Snu, Korea, Yonsei) schools are the bomb! No one even cares what you studied when you graduate. You simply tell people you went to SNU and they automatically think you are a genious. It really is one of the strangest things I have encountered. It’s like instantly assuming George Bush Jr. is smart because he went to an IVY League school. Who thinks that way? Many Korean’s do.

When massive anti-government protests shook South Korea in recent weeks, first over President Lee Myung Bak’s agreement to import U.S. beef and later over his other policies, many of the demonstrators were teenagers protesting the pressure-cooker conditions at school. Among students between 10 and 19, suicide is the second most common cause of death after traffic accidents.

Lee’s trouble started when people accused him of filling many top government posts with people who have ties with his alma mater, Korea University. Still, when he replaced his entire presidential staff this month, all but one of his 10 senior secretaries were graduates from the nation’s three best-known universities. When the news media report government appointments, they always highlight the officials’ school backgrounds. (IHT)

It used to be that being from outside of Seoul made you a bumpkin, but nowadays, not going to a SKY school makes you an idiot (according to a few people here at work). Nevertheless, linking the stress of students to the candlelight vigils is a bit of a stretch.Perhaps if the kids weren’t studying for standardized tests all the time, they’d learn some critical thinking skills and demand changes to the system that causes the second most deaths among 10 - 19 year olds in Korea. Forget the safety of beef, how about holding a candle up for more free time and safer streets?

At 6:30 a.m, whistles pierced the dormitory as teachers strode down the hallways, shouting “Wake up!” Amid cuckoo melodies and pop music, students climbed down from their beds and shuffled into a roll-call formation.

After a brief exercise in the playground, breakfast, coffee and brushing teeth, they reported to their classrooms by 7:30, 30 pupils per class. In the back of each classroom there are a few music stands, for students who want to study standing to keep from dozing.

“I snatch a nap between classes and during the lunch break,” said Chung, the student. Other boys wolf down their food and race out to play soccer or basketball during the one-hour lunch break.

Another roll call comes at 12:30 a.m., when students can go to bed, unless they want to cram more, until 2:00 a.m. (IHT)

Music stands for students who want to study standing up to keep from falling asleep? ZOMFG! That is hilarious. I simply cannot understand what is going through their heads. I understand they want to do well on a test, but i mean seriously. Going away to prison to study for a year?

The life of a South Korean student, from kindergarten to high school, is shaped largely by the quest of doing well in standardized examinations to enter a choice university. (IHT)

Study study study. No wonder by the time these kids leave school they hope to work in an office, feel empty inside, and feel like their is nothing left to work towards. The game they have been playing their entire lives is over.