One of my summer English camp courses is about helping some 3rd level (seniors) girls prepare for university interviews. Here is one that made me stop and think about how much distance is truly between these students and US students' perspectives:
Q: Give your thoughts on current international or national events.
A: The only country which seperated in two in the the world is the Korea. It is consisted in North Korea and South Korea. South Korea is a democratic country but, North Korea is a communism country. So many country, especially USA pay attention to the North Korea. The main issue about North Korea is denuclearization. I think that issue is not only national but also international. Frequently the North Korea have threaten peace of the world by a nuclear weapon. So staple countries open conferences to negotiate with North Korea. I hope to solve the trouble between North Korea and many other countries quickly by peaceful unification.
Given, I haven't been around too many US high school students in the last couple years, but I feel like these students have a unique perspective. They don't want to graduate and pick the nearest party school, or become rock stars (outside the singing room, of course). 4/6 of the girls want to be diplomats; 2 want to be teachers.
I think there is a lot of really crazy decisions being made over here--the kids go to school 6 days per week, 14 hours per day, and on Sundays they "waked up at 9am and went to the study room until midnight." But one thing is clear: South Korea's priorities are rightly placed on Education.
In the U.S., I feel like the major issue is that no one can agree on the level of importance for the social/political platforms; everyone has such an extreme individual stance, that no one can even agree to be individual or collective. In Korea, the teachers, the parents, the students, the policians ALL believe that education is the priority. They acknowledged a problem: underdevelopment; they collectively chose a solution: extremist-education.
Is it crazy? Hell yes. Korea's students are rated #1 in terms of unhappiness, stress, and even suicide. But, so are their scores. And, they've identified the new problem: too extreme. So, they're making new changes: taking away classes on Saturdays. Still too much, but at least it's something. And I even had one student say, "What will we do with no class on Saturdays anyway?"
Whereas in the U.S., we can't decide on how important education is, so of course there is going to be even more ridiculous argument over how much to pay teachers, how much state/fed money should go to education, which kids get to go to what schools, and so on, and so...fucking...on. I think it's really old and the reason I swayed from the path to teaching public education--hard to fight a fight when we have no idea WHAT the fight actually is.
I feel like our U.S. students are lacking realistic perspective, and I can't blame them--the influences are tainted, leaving them with a mix of impressionist and abstract ideas that don't really result in anything concrete, and subsequently, no where near ready for the harsh realities of the globalist-future.
Korea is BIG on sending their own to study abroad--it's extremely high on everyone's priority list. After reading this article, it gives me hope that we can start seeing it that way too:
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/17/american-kids-immersed-in-chinese-asian-education.html
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