[KIM SEONG-KON] Lamenting the fall of public education

A few weeks ago I was asked to give a talk to high school students on how to become a global citizen. I usually give lectures for college students and general audiences, but rarely for high school students. But a high school principal, knowing my soft spot for the young generation, asked me to come and give his students a hope and vision for the future. He insisted that as an intellectual, I have an obligation to visit the incubator for future global citizens.

So I went to his high school, expecting to see some curious, passionate adolescents waiting to become future global citizens. But soon enough, I realized my expectations were totally off the mark. My audience was not an innocent, aspiring group of adolescents in the incubator; they were already hopelessly tainted, slyly calculative half-adults who were simply waging "the war" with the college entrance exam, which, needless to say, was their primary concern. All other things, including becoming a global citizen, were secondary and minor. Neither curiosity nor passion could be found in their blurry eyes. To make matters worse, they were not disciplined at all.



The students did not pay any attention to the principal as he introduced me before my speech. The auditorium, which was standing room only with about 600 students, was full of chatter. Strangely, however, the principal did not seem to care. As I began my talk, I noticed many students were still chitchatting, completely ignoring the guest speaker`s speech. Others had dozed off already. Meanwhile, teachers did nothing to stop students from chatting or sleeping.

From my recollection, students are quite different in other countries. A few years ago I was invited to give a talk at a secondary school in the United States. As a teacher introduced me she just said, "Today we have a guest speaker and you know what to do, don`t you?" And for one hour the students were very attentive, never taking their eyes off of me. Chitchatting or falling asleep was strictly prohibited until my speech was over. Here in Korea, however, I found students undisciplined, unscrupulous and uncontrollable.

I decided to do something about it. I thought to myself, "I don`t allow students to chitchat or fall asleep in my class. Why should I let it happen here?"

So I stopped my talk momentarily. The wayward audience thought it queer and stopped chattering. Then I reproached them: "If you want to become a global citizen, you should learn how to be courteous first."

The principal seemed embarrassed and troubled. But the students, perhaps intimidated and appalled by the ferocious guest speaker, quit chatting immediately. After everybody quieted down and became wide awake, I continued my talk. The students were very attentive during the rest of my speech.

"Ah, it`s a matter discipline, then," I said to myself. "Why, then, do teachers not discipline their students?"

After the talk, a teacher approached me and confessed: "Professor Kim, we have a serious problem at our school. During class time, half of the students fall asleep, and the other half work on their hagwon assignments. No one pays attention to me while I`m teaching."

"Why don`t you wake them up and ask for their attention?" I asked him, perhaps naively.

"I can`t," replied the teacher cynically. "Then they will protest wildly. We can no longer control our students."

"Hagwon is much better than school when it comes to preparation for the college entrance exam," another teacher told me. "So students invest more time and attention at hagwon."

"Hagwon teachers are far more caring and competent than schoolteachers," a parent once informed me.

"Whenever my child is late for class or absent, his hagwon teacher immediately calls me to see if everything is all right. School teachers seldom do."

Indeed, Korean hagwon, as excellent private academies, seem to have completely replaced school. At hagwon, dedicated, skillful teachers teach virtually any subject you desire to learn. As prep schools, hagwon exceed school in every respect. As a language school, hagwon are also par excellence. So these days, people are beginning to ask, "Why do we need school when hagwon can do a better job?"

Such questioning shows that our public education system has largely failed and been utterly defeated by the more competent hagwon. Our secondary schools, which have degenerated into a battlefield for the college entrance exam and ideological warzone between radical and conservative teachers, are insolvent enterprises that need radical overhauling and restructuring in order to survive.

Although Obama recently praised Koreans` unusual zeal for education, it is undeniable that our public education system is plagued by chronic problems. Hagwon thrive because people no longer trust public education. But the fever for hagwon is not normal. Hagwon entail many serious problems as their primary purpose is monetary profit, not education. We need to resuscitate our moribund public education system that has gone in the wrong direction for far too long.





Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English at Seoul National University and director of the Seoul National University Press. - Ed.