By Tamara Teffeteller
Contributing Writer
As the new president of Korea promises educational reform, this English teacher wants to offer some humble, yet opinionated ideas of what that might possibly entail for a country that I have grown to love and admire, as my second home.
Before I begin on any tirade, I would like to express my sincere regard for this country. I therefore offer Korea views that are probably not typical of all English teachers here. In fact, I offer suggestions that are for the betterment of the country, not for myself or other foreign colleagues.
In the perfect and utopian Korea that I envision, I firmly believe that an emphasis should be taken off of Pre-school through high school private language institutes. This is not to say that there is something inherently flawed in them, but on a societal level, hundreds of billions of won are poured into after-school education, with very little (in most cases) verifiable results.
Writing this, I totally understand that there are many, very hard-working and honest people who are trying to succeed in a legitimate and difficult market. I am in no way attempting to slander these people; I am merely questioning the system that has put so much hope in them.
I have sat with innumerable academy teachers who lament their inability to discipline because the owner’s watchful eye knows that enrollment will suffer. High enrollment equals higher revenue. The results are chaotic classrooms and foreign teachers with big headaches.
I have listened to many teachers express that they feel like exotic pets kept in their institute to simply look good for the parents. Something is simply inherently wrong with a system that consistently dupes parents and disempowers teachers.
Rethinking Confucianism in education. In my honestly humble opinion, as an outside observer, it seems to me that the stratification of life that Confucius taught also bleeds into many aspects of Korean culture, but in particular, the realm of education. What I mean by this is there are perceived levels of quality in almost everything: from buying rice to movie theater tickets to rankings of high schools.
There are students who spend a lot of hours per day in extremely expensive institutes, and there are many students who cannot afford to go even one time per week to an inexpensive institute. This is simply not fair.
The spirit of education and wisdom, in its purest form, is not elitist. It does not only bless the brains of the children of the rich. It does not look at family background or scores on standardized test. And to be completely and totally honest, it has never and will never look at skin color.
This leads me to the next part of my dream towards education reform: Obliterate Racism. It is no secret that darker skinned foreign teachers often have a lot more difficulty finding lucrative employment in Korea. In fact, skin color is often directly proportional to the level of salary a teacher can make: as skin color gets darker, the salary often gets smaller. Of course, I understand and know of exceptions to this. I also understand that blanket statements are dangerous. I also understand that there are many Koreans who are not at all racist. I only speak from my experience and the experiences that friends and colleagues have had.
How does racism affect an English classroom? It is a valid question, but to answer this question, let’s factor out all foreigners for a moment. Though, of course, I believe that all children, regardless of age, creed or passport, should be exposed to people from all walks of life and from different places. This makes our realities larger. To be cliche for a moment, it opens our minds.
I have gone on a tangent, though. If we factor out the foreigners, there are many Korean people with dark skin. Though, as we all know, there is a serious obsession with skin bleaching, there is also a full spectrum of Korean skin color: from naturally pale to fairly dark. If Korea only wants to hire the lightest toned teachers from abroad, what lesson does that teach the students? Are the darker students doomed to a menial labor job that dictates their destiny because of a simple chemical (melanin) in their skin?
My last plea with Korea and the new administration is simple, yet prominent in the heart of every student and parent: Lower the Importance of Standardized Testing. My graduate degree is in Educational Psychology. It is not only the study of how the human brain learns, it is the study of assessment.
Educational Psychologists are the ones who write standardized tests like the SAT, GRE, G-MAT, L-SAT, etc. We are also the first to adamantly express that they simply cannot perfectly or precisely predict student knowledge or potential. They are merely one particular measure of a whole picture. I honestly feel that I am not being ethno-centric in saying that university admissions departments need reform and change.
I believe whole-heartedly that the West can learn a great deal from the East and my beloved Korea, in particular. With this matter, though, I do feel that those with power need to look at so much more than test scores: students’ demonstrated abilities in particular subject-specific areas, their commitment to community service/volunteering to make Korea even better than it is, an essay written on their own philosophy of life and why they fit into a certain school and even a possible interview.
All of these matter a great deal in students?and maybe then we will see less medical students saying, ``I don’t care about helping people, I just can’t wait to be rich.’’ I say all of this out of sincere love for a country that has been so good to me. I know that education is important and can be a red-hot issue. It is important to me as well, and because it is, I only say these things in the hope that someone might be listening, in the hope that education will become fairer, more tolerant and more open to thoughtful waves of change.
Tamara Teffeteller is a visiting professor of Dankook University in Seoul