By Jung Min-ho
Korea’s best schools may produce the world’s best test-takers who know how to choose the one “right” answer, but it is far from producing creative talent.
The country’s long-cherished dream of winning a Nobel Prize in any area of science has never come close to materializing, while scientists from its “Asian rivals” ― Japan, China, Taiwan and India ― have earned the award for their groundbreaking discoveries.
Recognizing this problem, the science college at Seoul National University (SNU), one of Korea’s most selectively exclusive schools, plans to form an education reform committee to focus more on fostering creativity in its teaching methods, according to school officials, Monday.
Some of the key changes will be adopting “flipped learning,” in which students learn new content outside of the classroom in advance and discuss it in class, and “peer teaching,” which allows them to learn from one another. For some of its programs, the college will also introduce an honor system, where students take tests without supervisors after pledging not to cheat.
Physics Professor Yu Jae-jun will collect opinions from professors in different departments to complete the formation of the committee by the end of the month.
The aim is to give students more room to be creative, moving from the old method in which professors gave top-down instruction and students only memorized what they heard.
With the changes, the college hopes that students will focus more on learning the process of finding answers rather than just getting answers themselves.
“Following the footsteps of other countries does not require creativity, but to become a first mover in any area of science, students need to be able to find their own research colors and approaches,” Yu said. “The school is trying to set up the right environment to help them.”
Kim Seong-keun, dean of the science college, also believes the open environment can better help students grow as independent scientists. “We want to nurture more deviators from the typical courses,” he said.
Critics of Korea’s education methods say the country’s narrow emphasis on academic work kills creativity of both teachers and students as well as the prospects of winning a Nobel Prize.
It is unclear how much the new methods will help in achieving the goal, which Kim believes requires a sense of curiosity and original thinking on how to figure out why things happen.
“Because winning the award is not a record game, it requires originality more than a high-level of research expertise,” he said. “As Korea tries to reform itself to foster more creativity, it will get closer to deserving the prize.”