SOUTH KOREA—According to a recent study, South Koreans spend an average of seven percent of their annual income on private education for their kids—about US$253 per child, per month. Often, though, it’s a case of quantity over quality. Concern about the standards of education, and especially ESL, is a common theme in public debate; education was a defining issue in last year’s presidential campaign, and new South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak has promised to make it one of the focal points of his presidency.
The hagwon system is often fingered as a main offender in promoting poor teaching standards. “Hagwon” is a Korean word meaning something like “private institute.” Although they exist for just about any subject you can think of—math, art, music, Lego—the majority of them offer ESL, which in turn accounts for the whole “teach English in Korea” phenomenon that my fiancee Amy and I dove into just over a year ago. Parents want native English speakers teaching their kids English, so hagwons pay for Westerners from a select list of countries to fly over and try their hand at teaching. Usually, the only requirements are that you are white, that you have a University degree of some stripe and that you have no criminal record (and even that last one is new, part of recent changes to the process of applying for a teaching visa prompted by the hoohah about the accused swirly-face pedophile).
The deal is something of a gravy train for whiteys, offering good pay, free accommodation and a chance to experience a foreign culture with a bit of a safety net. Lots of people come here to pay off debts, and lots of others come because they don’t have anything going on anywhere else. As such, teaching isn’t the first priority of a lot of people here; there are some very good teachers working in Korea, but there are also plenty of folks who’ve come thinking their job is just something to do between trips to the bar to get annihilated on soju (about which I have just found the best quote ever: “Koreans are proud of their indigenous drink, and justifiably so. Where else in the world has the issue of industrial pollution been solved by bottling it and selling it back to the populace as a dinner accompaniment?”)
Take me—I’d be lying if I said I came to Korea because of my burning desire to educate. I like Asia, and this is probably the easiest way to live here, so I’m doing it. Plus, I live on Jeju-do, South Korea’s resort island, where there are beautiful beaches and mountain trails and bizarre tourist curiosities—a circus where you can see a man box a kangaroo; two miniature worlds; a museum where major events from history and myth are recreated with teddy bears; an erotic sculpture park where, in the daytime, you can see small children climbing on giant plaster representations of penises and humping dogs.
But, while I sometimes like to believe I can treat teaching as a means to an end—that I can coast through the weeks and put all my energy into intrepid weekend adventuring and absorbing as much of the language and culture as possible—when I get in front of a roomful of students, I inevitably feel an irresistible need to teach them Something Important. What that is depends on the age and skill level of the kids, as well as the materials I’m supposed to be using; topics I’ve covered in class range from basic ABCs to the concept of nobility to the mechanics of virgin birth in Komodo dragons. (A favourite recent test question of mine, included on a quiz from the McGraw-Hill Open Court Reading curriculum my hagwon uses, and posed to a class of nine-year-olds: “Do you agree that living bravely and loving life are more important than fearing death? Explain.”) My goal, though, is usually always the same: to pass on not just knowledge, but whatever wisdom I can muster—to get the kids to walk away with a few new vocabulary words, sure, but also an understanding of why life is mysterious and valuable and cool.
This approach can be effective as long as I am teaching kids who have developed a few thinking skills. It falls apart, however, when facing kindergarteners. This week, Amy and I started a new contract year of teaching, and I found out I have been given a classful of five year olds, who I’ll be teaching for forty minutes, three times a week. In Korea, five year olds are actually three years old. I realize this sounds insane. But it has to do with the way age is calculated here: as soon as you are born, you are considered to be one year old, and you get another year tacked on whenever January 1st rolls around. (China, Japan and Vietnam also use this system, but only in cermonial situations; only in Korea is it still common). It is difficult enough teaching Something Important to my three year old nephew who can speak in simple English sentences. It is impossible to teach it to Korean kids who are still learning how to effectively speak their own language. This week, the closest thing I got to Something Important was “Don’t hit me in the crotch,” which I suppose is an essential life lesson in its own right, but doesn’t exactly give one the satisfaction of having communicated any of the profound mystery of life.
Still, it’s a start. If I set modest goals for the class, perhaps, given a year, I’ll be able to make little Simon, Betty, Kelvin, Apple, Rose and Sally (who is currently too afraid of white people to participate in the class at all) understand, in some small way, why thowing furniture at each other is contrary to the Kantian principles of good will and moral duty. This week’s lesson, then: When You Pee In Class, Everyone Gets Hurt. If that’s not an insight worth $63.25, what is?
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