Education News

First out of the blocks, a chance for sharp-eyed English-speakers to earn some money: the Korean Tourism Organization is offering a reward to photogs who submit signs in muddled, Konglishy English found at "tourist spots". No precise definition of tourist spot, and road signs, restaurant menus and guidebooks are not eligible, as KTO doesn't have jurisdiction over them. Still, an interesting concept, and a chance to get a W50,000 debit card for your efforts. Click here for more.

The Chosun Ilbo carried a report last week of a study done by SMOE (my employer) analyzing the results of a survey "conducted among 28,761 students, 11,980 parents, 2,406 Korean English teachers, and 595 native English-speaking teaching assistants at 1,282 primary and secondary schools in Seoul."

The survey found that Koreans are still quite conflicted about having native speaking teachers run their English classrooms: less than one-third of parents and students "preferred" native speakers to Korean teachers with good English skills, though about 60% are "more satisfied" with the teaching job being done by foreign teachers. IOW, yes, you do a better job, but we still don't want you here--aka, having our cake and eating it too.

Speaking of which, English success not cake, the CSAT or suneung results have been published, and some 17,000 of the exam's 648,946 takers aced the English section.

The Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), announcing the scores of the 2012 CSAT [Wednesday], said that 171 people this year received perfect scores on the exam’s three core subjects - Korean language, mathematics and English - compared to 11 last year.

Post-exam bellyaching is an annual sport here, as people complain the exam was too hard if there aren't enough perfect scorers, or that it's too easy if there are too many. The testing authority aims for 1%, but never seems to hit that mark.

As if to make a point, the JoongAng printed elsewhere this story: Student’s perfect CSAT is all his own, about Baek Ju-hong, who aced the suneung without the benefit of hagwons, thus proving the effectiveness of public education.

...Or the inteligence, inquisitiveness and hard work of an individual student:

An avid reader, Baek said, “In the countryside, where there is not a single college prep hagwon, the only way to develop logical thinking skills was by reading many different books.”
Baek said he also had a head start with his parents, who were avid readers themselves.

This Week in Korean Education

I count four stories of interest in the week's online editions of the main rags. First up, do politics and education make good bedfellows?

Here's a great quote from a university student Choi, a law student who declined to give his full name to the Korea Herald for its story:

“One of my professors focuses too much on his political activities. Thus, his students, including myself, feel he has been negligent of his duty to teach and do research,” he said.
“Fortunately, his political views were quite similar to mine, so I was not offended. But many others with different views might have been annoyed when he expressed his views during his class.”

I imagine they might be, yes. The article, or thinly-disguised editorial by one of the right-leaningest paps, decries the involvement of popular professors, or "polifessors" [ugh] in the Seoul mayoral election to replace Oh Se-hoon.

One wonders if the story would have hit the presses had not Park Won-soon gotten the nod of the electorate, and pushed the poltical landscape a little further to the left than the KH editorial board likes. Park was an independent candidate, but with decidedly leftist tendencies.

In America, by comparison, Fox News and other right-leaning media doesn't utter a peep when, say, Georgia State University professor Newt Gingrich attempts to wield influence, but let a Barak Obama run for office, it's all effete intellectual professors of law trying to destroy the country...

So what do Korean university bosses think or say about this? Any policies guiding politics in the classroom? Apparently not, as:

Some critics also pointed out that as most professors joining politics and public service take a long leave of absence from their schools, young scholars cannot find permanent positions despite the vacancies.
Universities appear to be reluctant to take them off their payrolls as their activities in high-profile public positions help promote their schools.

Second, a weird story from Gwangju in Jeollanam-do, regarding a parent that injured himself in front of a group of teachers while complaining about treatment his daughter had received while being reprimanded by a teacher at the school.

According to the KT report, he had picked up a chair as if to attack the teacher during a meeting, then decided to use a tape dispenser, with which he cut himself. The father later apologized, and no charges were filed.

I am unclear about who the charges would be filed by in this, but in America, it's altogether possible the father would sue the school for having dangerous weapons like tape dispensers at hand.

Joong-Ang Daily had the only story I found on the Bureau of Audit and Inspection's report on university finances. Which is odd, because it's a blockbuster that should play into the hands of those who want to stymie the power of the education elites here. In essence, top managers at numerous schools have defrauded them of monies ranging from thousands to over ten million US dollars!

Not surprisingly, some universities take umbrage with the "interim report", complaining among other things that it's none of the government's business what they do with non-government money.

To be fair, academic independence is critical to a democracy, but that independence precludes both government and other power-brokers from excessive fiduciary entanglements. Also, when faculty members subvert the application process in favor of faculty children, that's particularly appalling here, where the application process is such a gauntlet. Speaking of which ...

The Suneung 수능 exam will take place this Thursday; it is the Korean SAT, offered once a year, and the only chance for most high school seniors to get into university.

It is not the only way, however, as some top students can get in via the "admission officer" system devised by the current administration to recognise superior students; and the early admissions system, which is much the same, and consists of a series of high-stress interviews with admissions officers.

I have been helping one of my students prepare for this exam process during periodic lunch breaks and free periods in the last few months: I give him a topic, a question and five minutes; he gives a five to seven minute response, including follow-up questions; then we debrief his answers.

He is an extremely bright kid with outstanding English skills, and while he got a lot better during this process, I can't take much credit. At the end of last week, he informed me that he got admission into his first choice, the Underwood International College of Yonsei--among the most prestigious placements in all of Korea.

Anyway, I mention this to bring you up to speed on the following story, about a kid with "sixth-grade scores" meaning "bottom forty percent of his school" who got into Hanyang University, one of the top schools, which requires "first-grade" scores. (My student 외수 earned "first-grade" scores at Young-il.)

Lee Kyu-hyeok used the admissions officer system to by-pass the suneung. Bribes? Powerful family? Blackmail? Creating an innovative software program that improves the performance of smartphones?

“When I was a senior at middle school, I bought the Blackjack Samsung smartphone. But it was too slow and sometimes stopped operating. I began work to repair it and made Kyuhyeok Rom. I thought it would be useful for other people, I distributed the software via the Internet blog, http://kyuhyuk.kr,” Lee said.

I'm not sure how well this guy will do in college, but I'm glad to see any signs that the suneung is losing its vice-like grip on the Korean educational system. Perhaps someday, English classes will teach students to actually speak English rather than to prepare for a nitpicky hour of grammar questions that are unrelated to English usage.

Education News

My friend and colleague 'Hwang-tae', as he is colloquially known, mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that he was going to see a movie, Dogani 도가니 (The Crucible) which is based on true stories of sexual and physical abuse at a school for disabled children in Gyeonggi-do. The movie is for Over-19s only.

I said it sounds quite depressing, and he agreed. Well, it turns out something possibly good may come out of it, as JoongAng Daily is reporting that the government announced a new set of measures to permanently bar convicted sex offenders from teaching. This refers to Korean teachers.

I say "possibly good" for two reasons: alas, it mostly seems to apply to those abusing disabled teens, or at least "especially" disabled teens; further, it is probably yet another example of ill-considered overreaction, or legislation without teeth, as

Students will be disciplined more strictly when they sexually assault their disabled peers than when they do the same to students who are not disabled, the government said, adding that schools will be recommended to change their rules in that direction.

Huh? Recommended to change?

Okay, moving on: story #2 is a loosely-disguised ad for a group which wants to close down the English hakwons, this one called World Without Worries About Private Education (WWWPE). It says "private education" right there in the name, but they seem unconcerned about math hakwons (which I gotta point out more of my students attend than English ones) or music or sports or ...

That's--as I've pointed out before, in my opinion--fine and good: this culture is rather too focused on "getting ahead" in the education game, and thereby robbing children of adequate time to just be kids. The article touts a new "booklet" from the group that addresses "12 misconceptions about English education and gives alternative solutions". Sadly, at least in the article, some of the misconceptions are in the alternative solutions, and some of the solutions are mis-labeled as misconceptions.

I'm not going to belabor this, but let's just take one statement: "According to the booklet, the temporal lobe that controls language ability develops from age six."

Well, no. In fact, just go to the post above and watch the two eps. so far in Fry's Language series to see that fallacy be destroyed. In point of fact, most children have developed the majority of their syntactic and grammatical understandings by age three or four--take the kid whose weird father taught him Klingon alongside English: he learned the vocab, structure and syntax of Klingon quite well, but gave it up circa age three (which according to the bollocks above is before he even begins to learn it) because it wasn't very useful in communicating to his cohort.

So, if you want your child to be truly bilingual, speak Korean and English to her from the crib on up. I must hasten to point out, I am not seriously suggesting this as a solution to the English conundrum in Korea. No, it is clear from research that children absorb new languages like a sponge at least up to age ten or so; and even old people can learn a new language! My point is that it "develops from age six" is utter nonsense.

Education News: School Begins

Well, tomorrow marks 개학하다, the beginning of school, the second semester at least. And my seventh semester at 영일고. Not a lot of new prep to do, though I have done my best to learn the lessons of previous, um, lessons, and improve my planning accordingly.

More on the new school term as events develop.

Meanwhile, let's inaugurate the back-to-school vibe with some education news:

1) The big story (well, for those of a political bent) is that Seoul mayor Oh See-hoon has gambled his career on a rare referendum concerning the free lunch plan brought in by the new City Council last year when the Dems took control. First, he decided to forego running for the Korean Presidency two years from now when when MB's single five-year term ends. The Seoul mayorship is a natural springboard to that position, as MB himself could tell you.

Then, today, the mayor tearfully announced he would resign--not if the referendum did not go his way (he is opposed to the free lunches) but if the voter turn-out is less than 33.3%. Reports the KT:

The brinkmanship, only three days before the Aug. 24 vote day and without a consensus with his Grand National Party (GNP), underlined the situation that he has no other choice but to take his last option in order to encourage as many citizens as possible to cast their votes, while opposition groups are campaigning to boycott the vote.
“If my decision today can sow the seed for ‘sustainable welfare’ and ‘true democracy’ in the future, I have no regret even though I disappear from the stage of history,” the mayor said.[...]
The mayor called for citizens to go to the polls and support his policy, which aims to provide free school lunches only to students in low-income brackets, over the city council’s idea to provide it to all students regardless of the financial status of their parents.[...]
Finishing the announcement, he abruptly fell down to his knees and bowed his head, an apparent gesture to appeal to Seoul citizens.

2) Korea has a functioning democracy, though it has its odd ideas of what that means from an American perspective. Still, no one who pays attention can doubt that there is a sophisticated political environment beneath the squabbles, lock-outs, fisticuffs and appeals on bended knee. Take the on-going flap over brief descriptions and a few words here or there in history textbooks. Dong-A Ilbo:

Kumsung’s textbook contains biased sentences such as, “Under the Rhee Syngman administration, pro-Japanese collaborators were not eliminated, undoing efforts to start a new country based on national spirit,” and “North Korea`s land reform based on free confiscation and free distribution benefited farmers more than South’s farmland reform did.” The ministry’s order to correct 29 items is based on common sense. A person with a normal historical view would agree to it because of hard-to-understand and unclear expressions and unilateral claims that go against historical truth.

In the US, a textbook publisher can write whatever they want in a textbook, but they must beware that it may not get adopted if it's too "controversial". Indeed, for many years, a single couple, Mel and Norma Gabler of Longview, Texas, actually had the textbook industry by the short-and-curlies, since they had strong influence with the Texas purchasing committee--that state being the largest single buyer in the nation. Alas, the Gablers were anti-science, anti-evoluton nitwits, with the result that when I began teaching in the 1980s, many biology textbooks barely mentioned the term evolution, even though it is a fundamental organizing principle of the field; my earth science books trimmed Big Bang theory to one or two innocuous sentences.

Ultimately, scientists and science teachers fought back; the development of curricula by groups like the NSTA gave us a powerful tool to counteract capricious and benighted policy-makers and textbook adopters. Korea is not yet at that stage; instead, despite its remarkably unlitigious society, textbook arguments go to the courts. As the article explains:

The Seoul High Court has ruled in favor of the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, which ordered Kumsung Publishing to amend its left-leaning high school textbooks on modern and contemporary Korean history. On Sept. 1 last year, the court had nullified the amendment order, saying assessment of the textbooks should come through deliberation by a specific textbook review committee within the ministry, which did not follow this procedure. This time, however, the court said no flaws occurred in the procedure, saying regulations do not require amendment orders to go through the review committee. Textbook authors agreed to make corrections when the ministry makes the order after the publishing contract is made.
The latest ruling said, “The country can screen a book upon request whether the book`s content is suitable for students, whether the book contains a biased view or expressions, and whether it goes against the national system and legitimacy.” The court emphasized that history textbooks should teach future generations historical truths based on Korea’s legitimacy and constitutional value.

This story appeared on 17 August. On 19 August, the Dong-A followed up with this lede graf:

Controversy is mounting over the term “liberal democracy” contained in the 2011 History Education Curriculum. Adopted by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry on Aug. 9, the curriculum provides directions and standards that Korean history textbook authors and publishers must comply with. When the ministry announced the final curriculum, it replaced the term “democracy” with “liberal democracy.” The draft curriculum said, “This explains democracy, economy and mass culture that have developed since the 1960 Revolution.” The final draft says, however, “This is to understand how liberal democracy and economic growth have been achieved since the 1960s and grasp the heightened international profile of the Republic of Korea.” On hearing news of this change, certain scholars are demanding that “liberal democracy” be replaced with “democracy” again.

An on-going irritation with Korean media is the frequent publication of opinion and editorial pieces that are not marked as such. The article has no by-line or Op/Ed designation but it clearly is. Take the xloser, for instance:

People wonder why certain forces show an allergic reaction to liberal democracy. Democracy can be divided into liberal democracy, social democracy, people’s democracy and others. If leftist groups do not pursue democracy that has its roots in liberty, they should make clear what democracy they are seeking.

3) In a completely unrelated story, JoongAng Daily gives us an "intern report" (one of a series written by high school students working with the paper's staff reporters) titled "Gadgets may transform classrooms". True, but then again, maybe they will not.

I consider myself pro-technology in the classroom--I used computers in school as long ago as 1989, I have been school webmaster, taught computer, tried to help my colleagues overcome their techno-phobias, etc, etc. But one thing I know after a quarter century in the teaching trenches is that gizmos and gadgets are tools, they are not teachers.

“Before using my laptop during class, it took me a lot of time, effort and energy to take notes in my notebook,” Sun [A-young, an 18-year-old student at CheongShim International Academy] said. “After the school allowed us to use our laptops, however, I found I could not only save time and effort but I could also easily find the materials taught during class.”

Yep, Sun hits the nail on the head. I don't know when this school started allowing students to bring computers, but it should have been long ago. Indeed, most US colleges require them, and more and more high schools, too.

Ah, but, as the story mentions, that's where it gets sticky:

Despite the rosy expectations, however, there is some concern, as not all households can afford such expensive devices.
“I am very worried about this decision,” said Kim Hye-young, 39, a mother of two elementary school students. “Our family cannot afford such a burden. People like us live every day with financial concerns. We do not have the capacity to pay for such an expensive device.”

Furthermore, some students will not use laptops in an appropriate manner--playing video games in class, or even searching for pr0n, could prove to be a distraction.

So what impact have "gadgets" had in the Korean classroom? The article examines a study called Ssam, in which 16 schools offered classes incorporating IT devices. The story says that within a year, students improved by "55 percent in Korean, 46 percent in mathematics, 47 percent in social studies, 50 percent in science and 34 percent in English. Also, according to the study, students showed improvement in concentration and logical thinking."

That would be pretty impressive if it were not total bullshit. First of all 55%, 46% of what, compared to what? Secondly, logical thinking is difficult as hell to measure, and even harder to measure improvement in, particularly in one year. I don't want to come down hard on the student intern here, so I say shame on you to the professional who failed to point out the meaninglessness of these statistics.

Thirdly, their lowest improvement was in Englsih. Go figure.

Education News Wrap

This is probably the last Ed News Wrap-up until after the new semester begins, not because Ed News doesn't happen, but because I'm lazy and don't pay much attention to it during the inter-term hiatus.

Nothing earth-shattering of late, but interesting:

1) No. of women in higher education doubles, says the KT headline, but this is absolutely,unwquivocally NOT what it means to sat, at all. The article means to say that the number of women with a higher education has doubled:

The number of women in Seoul with higher education has almost doubled in the last 10 years, according to a survey Sunday. [...]
The research by Seoul City showed that the number of women aged 30 or over who received college education or higher jumped by 95.4 percent to 1.1 million in 2010 from 575,000 in 2000.
During the same period, that of men rose by 45.1 percent.

Girls are also matriculating high schools and continuing on to university at a better clip than boys--last year, 66% of high school girls went on to college, compared to 59.8% of boys.

Women are also defering marriage and motherhood, shadowing US trends of the seventies, with an increase of 37% of women in the 25-34 age cohort remaining unmarried compared to 2000.

2) From the JoongAng Daily, and perhaps of more interest to our waygookin readers, "At hagwon, demand for U.S. teachers rises". The story states early on: "Because Western norms have been embedded within these instructors’ gestures, speech and behavior, these teachers provide education in English while also exposing students to Western culture." This is particularly important for families planning to send their children to the States for English immersion.

You see, the teachers themselves, in this meme, are irrelevant, what's important is their embedded features, as though they are educational Terminator units with their mission hard-wired: Never mind John Connor, demonstrate American cultural minutiae to our children, please.

[One tutor at a popular hagwon in an upscale district] believes that an American teacher offers a certain trust to parents and students, which has increased their employment in Korea:

“There are lots of factors, but I think the overarching reason is that it is similar for most students,” he said. “[The] number one reason people go to these academies is to learn. And I think the biggest thing is [that they come with a] certain trust and feeling that they are going to get the best education from these native speakers rather than someone who can speak English but is not familiar with the culture. A lingering doubt evolves from that type of teacher.”

Meanwhile, although the national SAT will be adding an English speaking component in a year or two (such dates being eminently mutable), SMOE is dismantling the very high school conversation program with NSETs that represents the public schools' best chance at competing. Go fingure.

Yes, that includes my job. But, the way I understand it, I can keep my HS job as long as my school decides to offer it. Anyway, assuming a positive medical exam tomorrow, my job is secure for at least another year. Besides, who knows what may happen in 2012!

Education News Wrap

Time for the weekly *cough, cough* post about what's going on in education here on the peninsula. And this one is particularly interesting, or at least [your adjective here] since it crystallizes some of the key issues in Korean education.


First up, there is "the problem with an easy CSAT prep test", the problem being that too many Moms complained that the test does not allow their particular genius children to shine, since there was just too much shiny-ness.


It’s an important issue because CSAT scores are weighed heavily by universities in their admissions criteria. “If the official CSAT this year is this easy, getting just one problem wrong will place you in the second level,” said Park Su-jin of Seoul Foreign Language High School. Park is in charge of helping students at the school with their university admissions.

“Because of this [exam], it will be harder on the students.”

One might suggest that the best action on an easy exam is not getting just one problem wrong. That's what Norfolk & Chance did last Thursday at 3AP in winning the Trivia Contest, after all. But this is Korea, and it's always more complicated than that:


[Previously] KICE came under heavy criticism from parents. Last year, only 11 brought home a score of 100 percent for those sections. The prep test is intended to be used a barometer for students to determine their readiness for November’s CSAT. [...]

This isn’t the first time KICE [Korea Institute for Curriculum Evaluation] has come under fire for the CSAT’s difficulty level, which was introduced in 2008. Every year, parents complain that it is either too difficult or too easy. Korean students often compare it to water or fire.

It’s an important issue because CSAT scores are weighed heavily by universities in their admissions criteria.

So, which is the greater problem, that the test can be by turns judged--by less than impartial parties--too easy or too hard, or that a single test, administered on one and only one day in November, is weighed so heavily in in college admissions?


Next, three recent stories concerned the digital age and the Korean student. Yonhap News via KH describes the results of an OECD study on digital literacy. The story begins with the sentence:


Young South Koreans learn the best from computers and the Internet according to a survey of 15 year-olds in 19 countries, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

This sentence is a total--and typical--misunderstanding of the report. It really says that Korean students, thanks to their unwholesome addiction to PC bangs and MMRPGs like Starcraft, have a head start on digital reading. Reading. They can read from a computer screen better ... and "their ability to solve problems using the Internet is even better,” a Seoul Education Ministry official said, without a shred of evidence for his statement from the study.


Even an occasional reader of this blog knows I am as techno-savvy as most teachers and more so than most with similar hair-hue; at my school I am the "God of Powerpoint" since I seem able to bend that program to my will. I bought into the Internet for homework information, cool links and interactive assignments when they could be found, long ago. I totally believe in the power of technology for good, and of course, for ill.


All textbooks to go digital by 2015, announces another KH headline, stating that soon students in all age groups will be able to access textbooks and activity books using smartphones, tablet PCs and so on. This is a good thing.


Citing the best score South Korea garnered in an OECD digital reading survey, the Education Ministry believes that the digital platforms will bring about a sea change in the classroom and boost the country’s educational competitiveness.

Oh, dear. Well, see, no. That's not ... um, [sigh] Or, put it this way:


The problem we face now, however, is an exaggerated trust in digital education. Some people wrongfully assume that the quality of academic activity will improve with the use of multimedia digital material instead of conventional textbooks. However, without a teacher’s guidance, the impact of digital textbooks may fall short of expectations. There is a risk that digital textbooks will only aggravate addiction to the Internet among the young, when 12.8 percent of students are already suffering from this condition.


The above is from a JoongAng Ilbo editorial titled Smart education, not lazy teachers, which does a reasonable job lying out context for the e-textbook, teachers, and the computer-based classroom in the 21st century. Many in the educational administration field, especially the political wing--in Korea and America and probably everywhere--seem to view technology as a money-saver: more technology units=less teacher units. Certainly, quality interactive materials can free a teacher's time from rote processes like grading, but they cannot replace the truly interactive experience that is at the heart of education: teacher-student face time.

'Cinderella Law' and Other Teen News

1) The major papers report on a new law from the National Assembly to ban those under age sixteen from playing online games after midnight (see JoongAng and Korea Times, for sample coverage).

Gaming is big business in Korea, considering both export value (income to Korean gaming hubs exceeds USD 1 billion per year) and local economics (the monies earned by PC bangs--you never see folks in there just checking their email, or printing something off real quick, it's mind-numbing hours of Starcraft or WOW).

Industry sources say while the curfew will not affect the revenues of game publishers in the short term, it will certainly harm the image of the companies in the local and overseas market.
“The mandatory shutdown system is unconstitutional and allows the government to rule over families,” said the Korea Association of Game Industry in a statement. “It’s regrettable how [the system] has branded game publishers as those with ill intentions like those making drugs.”

While the 'Nanny state' issue may be worthy of debate, more problematic is the matter of enforcement--it is a simple matter for teens to use their parents' registrations or buy them from other people to get around the midnight curfew.

PC bang owners have other things to worry about besides checking IDs, especially with the Ministry of Health and Safety set to impose a nationwide smoking ban on billiard halls and PC bangs, according to a Herald article.

2) The government "envisions" free mandatory kindergarten for all children by 2016, according to the Herald. At a time when the US is actively defunding its education infrastructure, apparently because taxes are out of hand (NOTE: US income taxes are at historic lows--your taxes have never, ever been this low!), Korea is actively doing just the opposite. To the current nine years of free, compulsory education, they want to add a tenth: in Korea, you pay to attend high school (years 10-12), though Seoul's new government substantially decreased the rates last year.

The government-developed common curriculum will be used in kindergartens and daycare centers alike, according to the plan.
About 400,000 of the nation's 435,000 children who turn 5 next year, or about 91 percent, will benefit from the policy.
Children who are educated at home or at high-cost educational facilities, including English language institutes, will not receive the subsidy, but officials expect the expansion of state support will encourage more low- and middle-income parents to send their children to kindergartens or daycare centers.
The government will revise related laws in the second half of this year to give a legal guarantee to the new system, officials said.

3) Koreans’ TOEFL ranking drops, sez the headline. Interestingly, the average score of 81 remained constant from 2009 to 2010, but ranked 80th of 163 countries. In 2009, Korea was 71st of 157 countries.

The Netherlands topped the list with an average score of 100 followed by Denmark with 99 and Singapore with 98.
India and Philippines are also high among Asian countries, ranking 19th and 35th, respectively.
North Korea ranked 96th, China 105th, Thailand 116th, Japan 135th and Saudi Arabia 153rd.
The international average score in 2010 is 80 with 20.1 in reading section, 19.5 in listening, 20.7 in writing and 20 in speaking.

In case you wondered.

Education News

1) Korean History will become a mandatory subject in Korean high schools starting next year, according to articles in the JoongAng Daily and the Korea Times. The decision reverses a policy adopted only in 2009 to make history optional in the name of decreasing the academic burden on students. Why the quick turnaround?

“Due to the Japanese government’s recent claim over Dokdo, demands have been high for teaching students the history of Korea,” said Lee Ju-ho, the education minister. “The new policy is aimed at encouraging students to feel proud of Korean history and uphold their will to protect our territory.”

Ah, Dokdo. Of course.

2) In an unpublished survey of 290,000 Korean students and parents, students give low approval to leveled single-classroom English courses.

The Hankyoreh acquired an unpublished Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) research report on the results of English education policy and plans for development Thursday through the office of Kwon Young-ghil, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker and National Assembly Education, Science and Technology Committee member. Middle and high school students were surveyed on five areas of English education policy, namely leveled single-classroom English courses, English-only classes, EBS English education broadcasts, weekly one-hour conversation classes, and subject-based classrooms. Of these, only the EBS program was found to have more than 50 percent of respondents answering that they believed their English skills improved after the experience. Positive response rates generally fell in the 40 percent range for the remainder.

Fewer than half the high school (39%) and middle school (48%) students responded that they believed subject-based classrooms would be helpful in improving their English skills. These would generally be classrooms in which native speaking teachers require students to listen to English and actually speak in English some non-zero amount.

"In contrast, some 64.9 percent of high school students and 68.9 percent of middle school students responded affirmatively to a question about whether they believed the EBS [television] program helped them develop their English abilities." In this class, students are not required to do anything other than watch TV, or go to sleep.

“This report clearly shows that the Lee Myung-bak administration’s ‘English immersion education’ is nothing more than a lot of noisy sloganeering, and that satisfaction rates at the actual scenes are low on the whole,” Kwon [Young-ghil, Democratic Labor Party lawmaker] said.

This report in actually proves nothing at all, except perhaps that Korean middle and high school students hate to actually speak English and much prefer to sleep or watch TV. The survey asked their opinions but did nothing to evaluate their English proficiency or its improvement.

But let's be realistic. I (like most in EPIK) teach students for fifty minutes once a week, in about fifteen of the 19 weeks of a semester. That's 25 hours of contact time, max. There is not a lot of room in there to affect dramatic change--so I settle for incremental improvement, mostly in the unwillingness to try speaking a little bit.

Not surprisingly, high marks were found in the elementary school area, where about 80% felt that adding one to two hours of English instruction per week would help them improve their English abilities. No shit, Sherlock.

The Hankoryeh story begins with this anecdote:

In January 2008, then-Presidential Transition Committee Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook, currently chairperson of the Korea Student Aid Foundation, said at a hearing on English education, “Americans do not understand when you say ‘oh-ren-jee.’ You need to say ‘ah-rinj’ for them to understand you.” Lee expressed the view that the method for writing English words should be changed accordingly. “Ah-rinj" subsequently became a symbol of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s “English immersion policy,” and a number of English education policies were implemented under the administration, including leveled single-classroom English courses. Three years later, however, the results have been poor.

Indeed, Koreans still say oh-ren-jee. But other than that, actual results of the programs were left totally unexamined by the report.

Education News

1) All the major papers are covering events at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute for Sciece and Technology), where four college students have committed suicide since the beginning of the year.  This seems extraordinary, but according to the DongA's take on the tragedy:

... a combined 16 students have committed suicide, with four taking their lives in 2003 and this year each. Given the student body of 10,000, this translates into 1.4 to 1.5 suicides per 10,000 students per year.
This figure is no different from the national average suicide rate for undergraduate and graduate students. Of 2.1 million undergraduate and graduate students nationwide, 230 to 340 kill themselves every year.

Still, the recent flurry of deaths have prompted concern.  Some critics place the blame on president Suh Nam-pyo, a former MIT prof. who took over the reins in 2006.  The Korea Herald chronicles:

Suh revised the tenure system which used to guarantee the faculty members’ right to stay permanently at the school. He then ordered all lectures at the school to be delivered in English.

In 2007, Suh adopted a unique tuition system, which is believed to have driven many students to the verge of breakdown.
The state-funded elite school, which was established in 1971 to nurture talented scientists and engineers, had not originally received any tuition from students.
However, under the new tuition system, students are required to pay different levels of fees up to 6 million won ($5,538) a year when their grade point averages are less than 3.0 out of 4.3.
Of the total 7,805 students enrolled last year, 1,600 students, or 12.9 percent, paid an average of 2.45 million won. And the figure has been on the rise recently, with 4.9 percent in 2008 and 8 percent in 2009.

 According to reports, this problem did not affect the students who died, but Suh is nonetheless walking back the policy.  It seems to me a pretty poor policy to begin with, adding huge pressures to students, espcially from poorer families; it was also an effective design to empower unethical professors to bestow grades in return for, ah, favors.

2) Speaking of bestowing grades, a JoongAng Daily article titled 'Teachers are under fire for revising report cards' reports on homeroom teachers at 23 high schools in Seoul for revising previous teachers' comments on report cards without permission, to enhance sthe students' chances for admission to colleges. 

According to the office, the teachers revised the cards because so many parents and students pressured them to do so, saying any negative comments would hinder the students from gaining admission.
“It is true that teachers feel burdened when parents and students beg them to change the comments on the cards,” a teacher in Seoul said. “If we don’t do it, they would blame us, saying we are leading students to fail to enter university.” [...]
Among the revised comments on the cards, 41 percent of them were about career counseling for students, and 32 percent were about reading habits of students. The rest of them were about student club activities or volunteering.
Teachers who committed the unauthorized revisions of report cards will be given warnings or reprimands.

3) Finally this week, both the Times and the Herald cover a report from Korea Educational Development Institute stating the number of high school students choosing to study a second foreign language (after English) fell sharply last year, after authorities decided it was no longer necessary:

The number of second foreign language classes at high schools nationwide also fell 11.2 percent to 18,554, the data found.
The dive in popularity for a second foreign language has come after the government adjusted high school curricula in 2009 to put more emphasis on the study of English, Korean language and math. Learning a second foreign language was compulsory until 2009.
By language, the number of students who chose German as a second foreign language marked the steepest 26.9 percent fall from 29,881 to 21,841, according to the data.
Students of Spanish also fell 25.4 percent, followed by French (18.6 percent), Japanese (17.5 percent), Chinese (13.3 percent) and Russian (5.6 percent), they said.

Korean Teenager News

Instead of my usual "Education News Roundup" I'm going to focus on two stories from the paps reporting on survey results comparing Korean teenagers' attitudes to those of other nations'. Both surveys came out of the National Youth Policy Institute, but were carried by Korea Times and Korea Herald, respectively.

1) Korean teens less happy than Chinese, Japanese

71.2 percent of surveyed young Koreans said they are happy, lower than the 92.3 percent of Chinese contentment and 75.5 percent of Japanese gladness.
The survey was conducted on 2,268 Korean middle and high school students, 1,167 Chinese and 1,144 Japanese students last October and November.
Of the Korean students who answered "yes" to the question, 20.8 percent said they were very happy, far lower than the ratio of Chinese students' 60.2 percent and still less than that of the 27.6 percent in Japan.

Korean teens also showed the least contentment with their free time, 67.5% being satisfied, presumably with amount and type of leisure time, compared to 78 percent of Chinese and 74.7 percent of Japanese respondents. While it is easy to blame this on lengthy and intensive study time, as the researcher does, it is worth remembering that Japanese students run a similar prep gauntlet.

Check out this BBC report on South Korean education.

Koreans, at 48%, were sandwiched between Chinese (83.7%) and Japanese (23.9%) when asked if they will do anything for their country if it is in danger. Of course, the males will do their mandatory military service, so perhaps they feel it satisfies the requirement.

2) S. Korean teens' social skills among worst in world: report
No surprise there.

Each nation was assessed in the three areas of relationship promotion, social cooperation and conflict management through surveys of students' participation in local and school communities, their perceptions of community and foreigners, as well as democratic solutions to conflicts, the report said.
South Korean teens scored the lowest among the 36 nations with scores of zero in the two areas -- relationship promotion and social cooperation -- that valued highly voluntary participation in local and school communities.

Koreans scored well in the third component, Conflict Resolution, because of their ability to list off possible methods for democratic resolutions--not because of any demonstrated ability to resolve conflicts democratically. The article continues:

Teenagers in Thailand had the best social skills with 0.69 points, while Indonesia (0.64), Ireland (0.60), Guatemala (0.59), Britain (0.53) and Chile (0.52) followed closely behind.
"Social interaction skills are linked to the ability to live harmoniously with culturally or socioeconomically different counterparts, so they are very important to teenagers who are the leading players in a globalized and multicultural age," the report [from NYPI] said.
"(We must) pay attention to the fact that Korean children scored well only in areas with a strong emphasis on written assessments and performed very poorly in areas related to internal and external activities. There is a need for measures to change the policy on developing knowledge toward nurturing independence," it added.

Education News Roundup

1) Covered by both the Times and Herald, the Korean education community reacts to the latest attempt to clarify and define strategies to replace corporal punishment of students from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The boards of four education offices, Seoul, Gyeonggi, Gangwon and North Jeolla, have decided to reject the ministry's new policy, claiming the disciplinary measures "inflict physical pain on students and may violate their rights."

What are these draconian measures? Lists the Herald: "proposed alternatives include push-ups, walking laps around a track and standing at the back of the classroom." Sez the Times: "The measures considered as indirect punishment were running laps, standing in the back of the classroom or being sent to be alone in a separate room."

What's wrong with this picture? I'll grant you that beating students with broomsticks is indefensible, but hasn't the pendulum swung a bit too far if you can't even send them to time out?

2) In response to the devastating earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, the government will begin an earthquake-readiness inspection on school buildings nationwide. According to the Korea Herald, the last such inspection was in 2008, following the Sichuan, China earthquake that killed 70,000 people.

On Friday, the ministry conveyed a set of school safety guidelines, including those for building structure, during a meeting with school officials across the nation.
Under the plan, local educational offices have to complete the inspection on all the school buildings by May 20 and submit renewed safety plans.

3) Dads take interest in kids’ education, reads the top headline in the JoongAng Daily's Education section. The story reports on mostly middle school "Fathers' Committees" which get involved in curriculum and extracurricular activities such as sports clubs and the like.

Several dads interviewed talk about how they now spend more time with their kids, feel closer to them, etc. But the money quote, at least for me, was this:

“Fathers tend to speak frankly about students, so sometimes it’s easier to talk to the fathers rather than mothers,” said Lee Jin-ee, a teacher at the school.

Put another way, mothers have an unwavering belief that their child is special, gifted, and a genius, and if the child is not at the top of the class, it's all the school's fault. Father, as Robert Young would say, knows best.

Education News

1) This week's education news roundup opens with the headliner, "More 'fat schools' north of Han River", detailing the increase in overweight and obesity among Korea's youth. Welcome to the First World, Taehan Minguk!

According to data obtained by a member of the National Assembly’s Education, Science and Technology Committee and reported in the Joongang Daily, 64 of 1,276 Seoul schools were "fat", meaning 20 percent or more of the schools' students were overweight by BMI measurement.

The article tried to make sense of the data by purely geographic means: north of the river, "nine out of the top 10 schools with the lowest obesity rates were found in Songpa," eight "fat schools" in Gangseo (my district, but certainly not my school), etc. Random pins in a map, really. I suspect a more meaningful breakdown might be accomplished by a socioeconomic rubric...

Education, Science and Technology Committee member Rep. Park Young-ah commented: "There is a need for schools and also the government to provide measures for physical education, health programs and education on right eating habits."

No one mentioned the report I blogged about last year that 60 percent of Seoul high schools plan to cut P.E. classes for 3rd graders.

2) Students cry foul over soaring fees

According to a governmental report, Korea’s college fees ranked second-highest among OECD members following the U.S. in 2007 when it marked $8,519 a year for private schools.
In a separate report by the National Assembly, the annual university fee reached 7.5 million won in 2010 for private schools and 5 million won for public schools. The amount exceeds 10 million won for medical schools. Adding costs for class materials and lodgings, the money easily surpasses 10 million. The sum amounts to about 23 percent of the average Korean’s income of 32 million won.

Debate and discussion of soaring higher education costs promise to monopolize the policy chat forums for some time to come, since the problem seems as intractable as it is in the US. University costs are rising faster than private sector incomes. For instance, the article says that 189 private universities had 7,353 buildings in their campus in 2008 ― up 279 from the previous year ― suggesting that 1.5 buildings per school have been built within a year.

Detractors suggest that new buildings are just another way for universities to increase slush funds, pointing out that:

As of 2009, Ewha Womans University, Yonsei University and Hongik University have been piling up 738 billion won, 511 billion won and 485 billion won, respectively. Korea University, which has recently announced a 5.1 percent tuition hike, has also set 230 billion won aside. The amount of reserves for these prestigious schools has risen by double digits over the past three years, despite their complaints.

Interesting stat:

[U]niversities have been stingy about investing to enhance students’ and professors’ capacity and aptitude. The KHERI found the private universities spent only 0.9 percent of their budgets on books for their libraries. The portion has risen only 0.04 percent over 10 years. On average, the number of books per student is 58.5, a far cry from Stanford’s 703 and MIT’s 259 in the United States.

Well, okay, but I wonder what that ratio is at, say, University of West Georgia. Ah, 47.

During the 2008 election cycle, the Lee Myung-bak campaign promoted a "half-tuition" policy, whereby the government would fund half of a student's tuition costs. However, it seems to have gone nowhere, and is currently "at the forefront" of the main opposition Democratic Party's platform for next year's elections.

3) Story K Research Center of Youth Intellectuals Forum (whatever the hell that may be) has released a report touted in yesterday's Dong-A Ilbo about pro-North Korea bias in Korean history textbooks. Before venturing any further, it must be said that the DongA is the "rightest" of Korea's right wing dominated media. And they are very poor about labeling opinion pieces as such. For instance:

On North Korean leader Kim Jong Il handing over power to his youngest son Jong Un, five of the six textbooks surveyed used the term "inheritance" or "formation of inheritance structure" instead of "succession." In a father-to-son power succession, something which is hard to find in a civilized society, use of the term "inheritance" to describe the event is inaccurate.

Possibly there's a translation issue, but I don't see the huge difference, since succession means "the right of a person or line" to take over. That North Korea has reverted to a feudal power structure seems obvious, and both terms seem to me adequate for relaying the fact.

The five textbooks also turned a blind eye to the human rights of North Koreans, who are suffering under dictatorship and suppression. One of the textbooks that mentions human rights also blurs the subject by saying, "An issue more important than human rights, including political prisoner camps in North Korea, is the defection of North Koreans who are suffering from hunger."

Well, if the textbook mentions human rights, it clearly didn't turn a blind eye, though it may have given them short shrift. I don't know, I would need to read the text. However, it could be argued that the starvation deaths of 3 million people is more important than maybe 200,000 people in political or re-education prison camps, at least from a purely humanitarian perspective. No one is arguing that things north of the 38th are going well.

The article is correct that it is wrong to say NK is "suspected" of developing nuclear weapons, when it has detonated two such bombs; however, it's rather simplistic to deny the role of antagonistic foreign powers in spurring the regime on. While the Clinton administration had effectively reined in Pyongyang's nuke program, the swaggering, tough-(non)talking Bush approach clearly raised tensions and whipped up Kim's paranoia. Rightist oversimplifications of history are no less dangerous than simpering lefties'.

The new textbooks have been published after undergoing a string of obstacles and struggle, including legal battles, amid social consensus that left-leaning history textbooks should be corrected following the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration. Nevertheless, textbooks meant to view the North as an "immanent being" and to overlook objectivity and historical facts have not been corrected. This is believed to be closely related to the structural problem of South Korea’s history sector. Amid an overly nationalistic perspective over history, the environment of a certain school of South Korea’s history community that accepts and justifies everything on North Korean history is apparently worsening this problem.

The Korean culture wars, like those of America, are so often fought in the classroom. To quote T. Jefferson: "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

Education News Roundup

I have been out of the loop, but the new school year is just a few days away, so here's the latest goings-on in the Korean education world:

1)  Corporal punishment was banned in Gyeonggi-do schools last October, and the ban has since grown to include Seoul and many other school districts.  Frankly, the Korean system has relied almost entirely on the threat of physical pain to keep students in line for so long that no one seems to have thought about any alternative disciplinary modi. 

Fortunately, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has come to the rescue, releasing new discipline guidelines, according to the JoongAng Daily:

Under the guidelines, teachers are permitted to discipline students by ordering them to do push-ups, stand in the back of the classroom, or run or walk a few laps around the school playground. Teachers will be permitted to suspend students from school for up to ten days, with a maximum suspension of 30 days a year. Suspended students will receive counseling from education experts. If a student keeps misbehaving after 30 days of suspension, the ministry will allow teachers to summon parents to school for counseling. [...]

The ordinance that banned corporal punishment said teachers could summon parents of a misbehaving student, but teachers complained it wasn’t legally binding and chances were high that parents wouldn’t obey.
The ministry plans to revise a law to mandate parents to appear at schools when teachers summon them to discuss their children’s misbehavior.

The problem is that even suspension is an ineffective tool, since students are never ever held back to repeat a school year.  In Korea's Confucian confusion, group harmony is so important that disruptive students who ruin the educational exerience for their cohort must be allowed to continue doing so.  Until this changes, nothing else will.

Mind you, I am quite blessed in this area, since my classes really experience very little in the way of disruption--the biggest problem I have is quite the opposite: sleeping students, who are only disruptive if they snore loudly.  And, furthermore, my co-teachers, even if they can do little else, can at least go round making sure everyone stays awake.  Getting them enthused about the class activities--that's my job.

2)  Under the headline "They may be old, but ‘school sheriffs’ good to go," JoongAng reports on a Seoul city government response to an increase in crime near city schools:

Three months ago, the city announced plans to improve children’s safety by hiring a team of these “sheriffs.” A total of 1,094 people were selected and survived four levels of fastidious evaluations. They will be deployed to 547 schools in early March.

These “sheriffs” learned similar tactics to what police learn.

 Now, of course, they're "good to go" or "ready to roll", according to the article. Their average age is 59. 

Choi Young-hee, 67, one of the few female attendees, is a former police officer with 30 years of experience. She recalls an incident in 1980, when seven male students raped two middle school girls behind the school.

“All the assailants were arrested but the shock still remains today,” said Choi.

3)  Unfortunately, that kind of thing hasn't stopped since 1980, as a Korea Times story illustrates: four teenagers lured a middle school girl to a nearby school playground (in Busan's Nambu district) and forced her to drink alcohol. "After molesting the girl, they abandoned her in the 6.8 centimeter deep snow that had fallen in Busan that day, and fled."  Police arrested two students for rape and booked two others without physical detention, the story notes.  It doesn't say why, but presumably there's a better reason than that they weren't foreign English teachers.

4)  Read the whole story here to get all the ins and outs, but the daughter of a Korean English teacher in a Seoul high school is accused of stealing the English exams and using them in tutoring students prepping for the exams.  Complicating the story is that the school was identified in 2009 (and given lots of government money) for being a school "without private education".  But the most interesting feature of the story to me is this quote:

Urging an investigation, one teacher said, “Since we made many questions meant to develop creativity as encouraged by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, it is practically impossible to provide such tutoring without stealing questions.”

Hmmm.  See, I think it's practically impossible to provide such tutoring without developing the student's creativity.

5)  The DongA Ilbo gives us a statistics-laden report on the drop in the number of Korean students studying overseas.  The decline was quite significant, with 33.7% fewer overseas students year-on-year. 

The number of primary and secondary school students going abroad started to surge from 2000 and peaked at 29,511 in 2006. The figure, however, decreased to 27,668 in 2007 and has since declined for three consecutive years.

6)  Finally, for a bit of comic relief, we turn to the Herald, which steals a story from the Straits Times (Singapore) about a Korean secondary school whose website was allegedly hacked and replaced by a pornographic website.  Turns out, though, that Junyuan Secondary School had teminated its old URL at www.junyuansec.net while building a new net presence. 

As a school webmaster, I've actually seen both ends of this, first when the McEachern HS website actually was hacked and its homepage replaced by a pr0n image; secondly, my school failed to pay its yearly bill to our provider, and someone moved in under us and bought the address.  Fortunately, this guy only put up clothes merchandising, and I was able to hunt him down (somewhere in South Africa) and buy it back.

Education News Roundup

Not much is happening on the education front as the school year has ended along with the calendar one--the new school year traditionally begins the day after Sam-il or 3-1, the March First Movement, which was an early attempt by Koreans to rebel against Japanese occupation. Similarly, in the US, school traditionally begins the day after Labor Day.

Anyway, Korea Times carries a report on SMOE, under new superintendant Gwak No Hyun, promising to publish the identity of schools where principals and others have been caught in "corrupt or illicit practices":

A list of such schools will be posted on the office’s website (www.sen.go.kr) as part of moves to root out corruption at schools.
It will also disclose the outcome of audits on schools and staff members. However, the disclosure of the names of teachers and other staff members will be withheld.
"Revealing the names of staff involved in misconduct will be difficult as it could conflict with related laws, but school names will be made public regardless of the severity of the offenses," said Song Byung-choon, an inspector of the city education office. "It will help root out illicit practices," Song added.

Seems like a logical, even minimal, sort of step to take. KT also has an article of interest in Business/Finance--it's actually an opinion piece, but it doesn't carry any labelling--regarding the future of university education in Korea. Titled "Will 'gross well-being product' resonate soon?", here are the nut grafs:

It is hard to believe that there is a government that discourages its citizens from going to college, but Korea is such a country. A year ago, Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said Korea needs fewer universities for the sake of its economy. His faith remains firm in the New Year.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in its 2011 policy plan that Korea should reduce the number of universities through “restructuring” in order to raise “competence” and to “nurture a workforce that fits industrial demand.”
In other words, the government will try to shut down dozens of universities this year so that more high school graduates have to give up on going to college and instead take blue-collar jobs.

The author, Cho Jin-seo, is arguing that the government is turning its back on the idea of measuring the nation's success through a "happiness index" and will focus singlemindedly on burnishing its GDP numbers. Back to the relation with education, he opines:

The change in educational budget structure has a symbolic meaning in this debate of which matters more between economic growth and happiness. The idea of reducing number of universities and cutting state funds to liberal arts and social science courses, and of shifting the saved government budget to vocational training programs at two-year colleges and high schools is appealing to policymakers who prioritize GDP over the joy of learning.
There is resistance, however. Professors at Seoul National University, the most prestigious school in Korea, are holding rallies on its campus this winter to protest the government’s decision to make the school run as a public foundation, where board members will be designated by the education ministry. The teachers fear that this will lead to closure of many liberal art programs and contaminate the school’s academic atmosphere with capitalism.

Interesting stuff. Still, while the GNP (ruling party) assumption about happiness and economic growth is just that, an assumption, so we must admit is it an assumption that higher education automatically leads to higher quality of life.

A bit more mundane, and possibly more practical, is this Korea Herald piece: Teachers seek to reshape English education. The article looks at three schools with "creative English programs", identified by Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, which try to bridge the divide between what students "learn in school with what society expects from them."

Disseminating 10 idioms and expressions per week throughout the school, rewarding students for "creative, longer sentences", creating an "Englsih-only environment" ... Reading between the lines, the primary innovation of these schools is that they have streamed or split their English classes according to English ability not just overall academic ability. Something I have been asking for at my school since the week after I arrived.

Scheduling that kind of thing is an absolute nightmare, I know, having done some scheduling myself; still, they promised me at the last department meeting (a delightful hanu beef place called 대도시) it's going to happen, but warned me that it will mean more lesson preparations for me. I think I can cope.

Education News Roundup

First, and unsurprisingly, a analysis of data acquired by Dong-A Ilbo found that teachers are "more generous than students or parents in assessing their colleagues." The paper studied the results of the first-ever national evaluation of tachers conducted by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry:

The data suggested that the average score given by teachers to their colleagues was higher than those from students and parents in all categories.
A discrepancy of up to 1.85 times characterized the evaluation scores of teachers and students and up to 2.54 times between those awarded by teachers and parents. [...]
Jeon Je-sang, an education professor at Gyeongju University who conducted a joint study with the regional education research center at Chungbuk National University, said, “Efforts are urgently needed to correct the practice of teachers granting high scores to their colleagues due to sympathy.”

The aticle did not provide information on the basis by which Jeon was able to determine that higher scores were due to "sympathy" or why efforts to correct the practice are needed urgently, since the ministry has not determined any policy procedures that would be impacted by the study.

Second, another story on the so-called "English-teaching" so-called "robots" being pushed by KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology) as the solution to the native-teacher so-called "problem", this one from Korea Times, never the brightest pap in the rack:

"We learned that Engkey [the "robot's" nickname] should be able to fare well in markets based on the first phase of experiments. We are poised to conduct more pilot runs before commercially launching the robots in 2013, [said KIST spokesman Park Young-ho.]"
Engkey has arrested the attention of students in the English-language classes in Masan elementary schools this year thanks to her cute penguin-like shape, tender female-voice pronunciation and ability to interact.
However, the robot was found to freeze if a student goes off the scripted dialogue.

In other words, Engkey is a CD-ROM on wheels, in a plastic shell that looks like what children think a robot should look like. Utter shite, as my Brit friends would say.

Finally, and quite disturbingly, JoongAng Daily's story carries the header: Seoul high schools to eliminate P.E. classes "for third-year high school students next year to give students more time to study for the university entrance exam."

Wow! Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick! If anything, what these kids need is less time with their noses in the books, and more time in the fresh (well, you know what I mean) air, exercising their long, skinny bodies. PE teachers' jobs, of course, don't face elimination (which is purpose of those robots in the story above for English teachers), as the number of PE hours will remain the same. The reporters explain:

Schools are currently required to give students 272 hours of physical education during their three years of high school, with 102 hours each for first- and second- year students and 68 hours for third-year students.
Starting next year, schools will be free to divide the number of class hours in any way they like, following the passage of a new regulation that also stipulates that schools offer classes in just eight subject areas.
According to statistics from the Seoul Office of Education, half of the 178 high schools in Seoul that offered physical education classes this year say they will reduce or eliminate the number of physical education hours for third-year students and allocate all of the physical education class hours to the first and second year of high school.

I asked around at my school about this, and they have no plans to make such a change. In fact, they're still hoping to find money for the new gymnasium project despite the big budget cuts for facilities in next year's appropriations.

School Budgets

About two weeks ago, I went to the annual SMOE NSET workshop, which I barely mentioned here because there was not much to mention. However, during the sharing session, a couple of people (these are all high school teachers) talked about their candy budget.

I had two responses to that: a) that much candy you need a budget? Seriously? For high school students? Whatever; and b) you have a budget?

So, this got me wondering, Do I have a classroom budget? Before I go on, let me clarify it's not that the school I am at is niggardly (with apologies to David Howard), as whenever I've asked for teaching materials they've always been very accommodating--but that's not the same as having a budget!

In any case, I pretty much have what I need: enough desks and chairs; heater and air conditioner; loads of lockable storage cabinets; a modern computer and sound system; and even a large touch-screen display. In fact, it's a rather nice room. Still, I buy things for my classes occasionally, like those witches' hats for the Harry Potter pictures. I generally just out-of-pocket the expense, and don't worry about it--what's a few thousand won here or there, right? (I know, I know, I'll never be a millionaire thinking that way ...)

But I also generally save the receipts.

I've wanted a presentation pointer for a while (the kind of thing that lets you advance Powerpoint slides and so on from anywhere in the room), but Miss Lee had told me that Korean teachers should buy that for themselves. At 75 to 100 KW (kilowon), I didn't want one that much. Well, I did finally break down and buy one just recently for use in my public speaking class.

Anyway, I asked around about my classroom budget, and got an answer today: 500,000 W. About USD 450. This does not include paper and printing costs. So, I go to my room and tally up the receipts I've collected since March 2: 88,420 W.

Yikes. Coming out of my pocket, that sounds like a lot, but coming out of a 500,000 won budget, it's not much. Therefore, I went to the nearby Daiso during my free period and bought twenty bucks worth of marker pens and plastic tubs to put them in, so there are enough for each of my student tables to have their own. (For a first grade lesson I'll blog around the end of the week.) 111,420 W. 388,580 W to go.

Serendipitously (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke), when I looked through the papers this evening, what did I see but a story carried in both the Korea Herald and the JoongAng Daily about next year's budget from SMOE (my employer). Sez KH:

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will almost quadruple the free education budget next year, officials said Monday.
The office unveiled its final budget plan for next year, which amounts to 6.6 trillion won, a 4.7 percent increase from this year.
A total of 249 billion won is to be allocated to free education, a 376.7 percent rise from this year’s 52.2 billion won, according to the budget plan.
Of that amount, 116.2 billion won is to be used for free meals in elementary schools,

The article continues:

The education support fund for low-income family preschool children has been raised by 51.4 percent from 29.5 billion won to 75 billion won, officials said.

Hmmm. Actually, 151.4% of 29.5 billion comes to about 45 billion. This would presumably be a typo by the Herald, as the JAD account gives the current budget number as 49.5 billion.

So, where is all that money coming from, if the net effect of these increases only raised the budget by 4.7%? Cutting back on native teachers, perhaps?

Maybe, but there's no mention of it. No, the big loser appears to be school facilities improvement, which KH calls "repairing and exchanging deteriorated buildings and facilities": down 27.1 percent.

The upshot is, then, that it is my school's plan to build an elevated gymnasium, rather than me and my measly 500 dollar budget, that will suffer from the cuts: click here and scroll to #4.

Size Matters

... at least when it comes to your score on the SAT essay section.  Didn't know the SAT has an essay section?  You're not alone--my informal survey on this question found one out of two people didn't know the SAT even has an essay section, which is 50% of the sample.  The other 50% couldn't remember what SAT stands for.  Mind you, this survey has a margin of error of + or - (whichever the case may be) 15,000 per cent.

My survey is slightly less scientific (but only slightly) than that performed by a New York high school student and reported by ABC News: Has Teen Unlocked the Secret to a Better SAT Score?  Nebbishy fourteen-year-old Milo Beckman has taken the SAT twice, and found that even though his second essay was factually inaccurate and generally inferior, it earned a higher score.

It was longer:

"My hypothesis is that longer essays on the SAT essay component score higher," he said.
So he asked his fellow students at New York City's Stuyvesant High School to count how many lines they had written on their essays and to provide their scores.
"I thought, 'This ought to be interesting.' I've always wondered about this, too," said David Sugarman, a classmate.
"This was something directly related to the SAT itself and the means by which, you know, we were being graded," another classmate, Yana Azova, said.
Milo says out of 115 samples, longer essays almost always garnered higher scores.
"The probability that such a strong correlation would happen by chance is 10 to the negative 18th. So 00000 …18 zeros and then (an) 18. Which is zero," he said.

Me?  I kinda wonder what are the chances that it's really an 18 after those 18 zeroes?

Another thing I wonder is, why has a 14-year-old already taken the SAT twice?  I only took it once, as a high school senior, and that was under duress.  Back then, the top score was something like 23.  Today, you can get 14 million on your SAT.  And you still might not get into Harverd. 

The ABC News story follows up Milo's research with some MIT professor's insane blathering about how to do well on this (largely imaginary, according to my research) essay section, including such advice as memorize some big words and sprinkle them randomly throughout your writing, and conclude your paper with a quote by a famous person, even if it is totally unrelated to your topic, and even if you don't really remember it well enough to get it right.  I hasten to add that I am NOT making this part up.  

Which explains why I didn't get into MIT.  As the poet Sherman Helmsley said, "I am the Captain of my Fate, I am the something something here in Seoul."

N.B.: My first post on this blog is a copy of a post on my other blog, The Seoul Patch. This will be the way of things for a while, to some extent, as I migrate my education/classroom/teaching stuff to this--more serious--blog address.