Wrong side of education

By Lee Eung-tae

Winter is just around the corner and this is the season of the college entrance exam. I watched a news clip from one exam site: hundreds of nervous parents praying fervently for their children's success. What a poignant moment! When will our children be free of this examination hell? All their childhood memories are of cram schools and boring reference books.

Until last year, I was a high school teacher. My most vivid memory is of standing at the gate of the exam site in the early morning cold, attempting to encourage my students.

Happy moments cede to sad. Cheerful and energetic students become dull and expressionless seniors, zombies in trances in class. Their eyes were always half-closed. As a homeroom teacher I felt invisible, my words were often ignored. I blame myself for my lack of leadership. They focused only on college admission.

A student quite innocently forgot to surrender her cell phone during an English listening test and left it in her school bag. The student next to her reported this to the homeroom teacher. Of course, she was accused of cheating and got a zero. What misery for her! All her life she will be traumatized by her classmate's “betrayal.” I was saddened to witness this sacrifice of friendship to the competition for grades.

Educators advocate a variety of extracurricular activities during high school, but the reality shows how hollow these are. To impress admissions officers with a rich record demonstrating sacrifice, leadership, teamwork and other marks of an excellent character, students participate in extracurricular activities. Some even use the power of their parents, dubbed “parents chance,” to get a brilliant record that few can dream of. Is this fair competition? Can admission officers distinguish genuine activities from forged ones?

As a teacher, I confess that my personal references for their college admission used to bristle with exaggeration. I didn't lie: my guilt lay in magnifying the virtues and ignoring the faults. I dressed up stories of pure behavior to suit the taste of the admissions officers and ignored instances of bad behavior. That confessed, I hardly think I am the only one who is guilty of such duplicity.

I don't want to justify myself, but I wonder how many high school teachers in Korea could be vindicated in the matter of “modified” students' references. There is a Ministry of Education rule forbidding explicit negative statements about students. So, teachers have to adapt the tone or write “creatively” about a student's behavior: a student who sleeps all day in class becomes a “considerate girl, quiet in everything.” At least, she is considerate enough not to disturb other students. Sadly, many student records in high school are embellished like this and admission officers recruit students based on such records.

The present controversy of a mother using the so-called “parents chance” for her beloved daughter begs the question which parent wouldn't yield to such temptation.

In our hellish education system, teachers, parents and students are tempted to commit fraud, serious or venial. Most frustrating is our policymakers' inability ― swayed by public sentiment ― to change this system at the roots. In this terrible situation, our society sinks deeper into the mire of mistrust and resentment, leaving our precious kids in misery.

Lee Eung-tae (eungtae@gmail.com), a former high school English teacher, has been teaching English for 35 years.