Korean parents are strange.
Fact # 1: The parents of our kids send them first to school, then to one academy (maybe piano), then to another academy (maybe ours), then to another academy (maybe Chinese characters), then to another academy (maybe violin), and they come home between 8 and 10pm, eat dinner, do mountains of homework, and go to bed around 11pm or later.
Fact # 2: These parents expect their kids to do well in these academies. After all, they are paying lots (LOTS) of money for their kids to attend all these schools. If their kids don’t do a page or two in their books, the parents call the school to find out why. If the kids don’t do well on a test, the parents consider their money wasted and pull the kids out and send them to a different school.
Fact # 3: Many of these parents expect us to go easy on their kids. Don’t push them too hard. Don’t stress them out. Don’t make them write if they don’t want to. Don’t punish them. Little Bobby doesn’t want to come to Wonderland, please don’t make it too hard for him.
I’m still trying to figure out whether there are two distinct types of parents (those who push their kids and want them to learn, and those who just send their kids to academies because everyone else does), but I don’t think there are. Sure, there are some consistent parents who expect us to push their kids all the time, who get angry with their kids when they get bad scores instead of us, and who keep their kids in Wonderland and just make sure they do the work. But there are still those inconsistent parents who get upset if we spend a day watching a movie instead of doing the textbook, who pull their kids out if they are getting bad grades, but who tell us not to make their kids stressed.
So that’s the observation. Is there a conclusion? I’m honestly trying to figure that out as I write. Korean culture is very hard on the kids sometimes. Some things are easy for these kids. We teach the wealthiest kids in Jecheon, so these kids have fancy phones, brand name clothes, and new toys all the time. But when I tell them about the hours that American kids go to school, that they often get to choose their extra curricular activities (which include sports, theater, and fun stuff like that), and the amount of time they spend studying, I see their jaws drop with envy. BUT there’s a flip side to that, too. Many American kids don’t get into good colleges, they don’t travel because they can’t speak any other language well (how many of kids right out of high school can say more than a few broken sentences in another language?), they can’t converse with foreign visitors/immigrants to their country, and they never learned a musical instrument. They had a childhood, sure, but a childhood only lasts so long, and then you’re left with the rest of your life. And what you can do with the rest of your life depends largely on what you learned as a child. I think Korean parents struggle a little with this dilemma. It’s Korean culture to push their kids almost to the breaking point to make sure that their kid has a multitude of great opportunities as an adult. But I think some Korean parents still feel guilt, and they try to make it up by telling us not to be too hard on their kids, and by plying them with snacks and toys and fancy phones. As an outsider, I could be totally wrong. But that’s my best guess. As to my own conclusion, I think this is another matter where neither culture is better, but a blend of the two would be better than both. A few more extra curricular activities than American kids have, and fewer than Korean kids have. A little more choice for the Korean kids, a little more push for American kids. Too bad Korea and America are on opposite sides of the world.
Anastasia, I'm a Korean-American. Maybe I can shed some insight on the predicament of the Korean parent. I think the best comparison of the Korean parents you see would be to very WASPy, very well-off, Americans. I'm talking the North Atlantic, country club, Junior League types where keeping up with the Joneses is essential to inclusion and status. Not that the Koreans are rich, quite the contrary, but they have that same type of closed mentality. Many Korean families, like the WASPs I describe, are full of loveless marriages, unfaithful husbands, horribly lonely/depressed wives, kids who are seen as investments and/or extensions of one's success. Many of the parents you see, especially the mothers, probably don't like the way things are, but Korea is still a very repressed and conformist society (think pre-1960s America). I mean, South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world. Despite all of that, there are many Korean families where the parents do love each other and their kids. These are probably the ones who feel guilty about it all, but they really don't know any better. I should know, because that was my experience. That said, please don't judge these parents. They literally don't know that there are other ways to raise their kids. It's really quite sad. If anything, I hope that it gives you some added compassion for the kids and it will also remind you how lucky you were to be raised in the US.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your insightful comments, Mr. Lee. I appreciate hearing from someone so familiar with both cultures. I think your comparison to wealthy American families is especially apt in the case of my students, since I teach at the most expensive hakwon in Jecheon, and therefore teach the students of the wealthiest families. As a teacher, it's difficult sometimes to be a part of the system that pushes kids to study for so many hours, yet sometimes teaches them that as long as they spend enough hours a day studying, they don't necessarily have to do all the work.
DeleteOn the other hand, the method by which Korean parents raise their children often has spectacular successes. I wrote a post on this blog a few days ago about a 12-year-old student who won the Ban Gi Moon competition and gets an all-expenses-paid trip to the US to see the UN and meet the secretary-general. Her essays and speeches on culture and politics were inspiring, and I expect her to become a great writer and speaker, with insight into Korean and American cultures that will be beneficial to many. Many of my students amaze me with their intelligence, hard work, and enthusiasm for the subjects they learn. I certainly did not mean to imply that I judge Korean parents harshly. In fact, I think in many ways, Korean parents raise their children more successfully than many American parents, at least long term. However, I did mean to show that there are deficiencies in any country's system of education. There are extremes on both sides, and sometimes paradoxes where both extremes exist in the same system, as with the Korean system. Many American parents have the same problem - there are some parents who want their children to "succeed" so badly that they demand that the teacher simply give the kids As, not seeming to realize that this will only harm their children's long-term success.
In my time here in South Korea, my goal was, and is, to see the advantages and disadvantages of both cultures, in order to be more open to other cultures, and to have both humility and pride in my own country.