The Pressure to Learn (Or Rather, to Pass)

I work with ESL students at my middle school in Provo, Utah, and I have a South Korean student who is so pressured to learn English from home. He says his dad says he's stupid because he is in a smaller group with me, rather than with the regular class, never mind the fact that he just came here 6 months ago and barely gets by with English. I find that I don't understand him and so I sought more information. This essay is wonderful--I realize now that I need to try a different approach with him because of the pressure he's getting from home and inside his head. The thing I can't figure out is whether I should take advantage of the emphasis his family places on learning English and give him more to do and learn, or if I should back off and let him learn at his own pace. Any ideas?


The following is an excerpt from J. M. Beach's new book, Children Dying Inside: Education in South Korea.
Book: http://www.amazon.com/Children-Dying-Inside-Critical-Education/dp/1466269677/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316276963&sr=1-1
e-book:  http://www.amazon.com/Children-Dying-Inside-Education-ebook/dp/B005NRR6BQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316620
He presents some wonderful insights on the pressures that Korean parents in Korea, and thus in America, too, place on their students. 

The most serious flaw with private education, and with “education fever” more broadly in Korea, is the damage done to children. Korean culture places a lot of emphasis on exams and college placements, which creates a "pressure-cooker atmosphere."[38] Thus, most hagwons use a "teach-for-the-test" curriculum that focuses on the memorization of information, standardized multiple-choice tests, and test-taking techniques. Korean students rarely understand the information being taught to them, they are not taught to critically analyze information, and they cannot apply information to other contexts. Students simply become "expert memorizers" of "decontextualized" facts that can only be used to take standardized tests.[39] This teach-for-the-test curriculum "stifle[s] creativity, hinder[s] the development of analytical reasoning, ma[kes] schooling a process of rote memorization of meaningless facts, and drain[s] all the job out of learning."[40] High stakes exams also leads to widespread cheating, grade inflation, and outright bribery.[41]

But there is a much more serious problem for students. Hagwons take up a lot of extra time for classes and homework, add additional pressure for academic performance, and induce more stress on already overburdened students. Students already spend a lot of time studying for regular school exams, but the addition of hagwons and private tutors takes up a lot of time during the week, leaving most students with little to no free time. Students routinely are in school, studying, or engaged in private education for up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week. One student explained, "I have to get up at 7 in the morning. I have to be at school by 8 and lessons finish at 4. Then you go to a hagwon and when you arrive home, it's around 1 o'clock in the morning."[42] The Korean Teachers and Education Worker's Union claims that high school students sleep on average 5.4 hours a day, although a recent academic study found that the average sleep time was slightly higher, around 6.5 hours a day.[43] The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs has issued warnings about student's irregular meals and lack of sleep. About 40 percent of elementary and middle school students skip meals because they lack a break in their busy daily schedule.[44] There is a popular student proverb, "If you sleep for four hours a night, you'll get into the college of your choice - if you sleep for five hours, you fail."

This pressure to perform leads to serious physical harm and psychological distress. Parents and teachers routinely beat students that do not perform well academically. A study published in 1996 found that "97 percent of all children reported being beaten by parents and/or teachers, many of them frequently."[45]Many students turn to suicide as the only escape from this relentless pressure to perform. Statistics are not routinely kept on this issue, but limited data are frightening. Around 50 high school students committed suicide after failing the college entrance exam in 1987. An academic study published in 1990 revealed that "20 percent of all secondary students contemplated suicide and 5 percent attempted it."[46] And the problem is only getting worse. Two recent surveys found that between 43-48 percent of Korean students have contemplated suicide. From 2000 to 2003 over 1,000 students between the ages of 10 and 19 committed suicide. Families also suffer. In 2005 a father was so distressed over his son's bad grades that he torched himself, his wife, and their daughter outside his son's school in shame.[47] 

Cheating makes them seem better

You know, after reading something like this, it makes me think that the Americans who say "Our children aren't competing with the world! We have to improve their education" are wrong. We're not competing because we're not cheating! They cheat, so they seem to do better! Are there really any truly honest international tests that could show how we compare with them? Our cultures and values are just so different!

The following are an excerpt from the blog "Dare to Know," written by J. M. Beach. I found his insight on the Korean educational system fascinating, especially as I'm working with a South Korean student who is so pressured from home to learn English while refusing to work in groups or seem stupider than his classmates.

According to Thor May's, paper Corruption and Other Distortions as Variables in Language Education published in the TESOL Law Journal, Vol.2 March 2008 states:

"South Korean universities, on the whole, are organized to support the cultural face game. Academic pass levels are not set at 50%, but at 60%, 70% or higher; (this grade creep is a worldwide phenomenon). What do these percentages calibrate? There's the rub. They do not measure knowledge mastery or competence in any sense. They are norm referenced, and the referencing itself is not to any credible sample size. It is to each individual class, no matter how abysmal that class standard is. The writer has now taught in South Korea and China for almost ten years, in six institutions, and during that time has rarely been permitted to officially make honest assessments of student achievements relative to real competence or what was taught. Rather, there have been instructions that no student shall receive less than a C+, or even a B. Sometimes the instructions are conveyed in writing; more often there is a workplace process of enculturation where it is made clear that failing students poses a risk to the future of the teacher."

2 Keys to Organizing Your Middle School Student, pt. 2

In the last post, I discussed the importance of cleaning out kid's storage spaces in order to help them get organized. In this post, I will share the topic of Establishing a Simple Binder System.


1. Get rid of looseleaf paper and only use spiral notebooks. Tweens just can't handle all the possibilities--ripping them out, having them fall out of the binder, taking notes out and finding them months later at the bottom of the backpack, etc. No. Do not set them up for this. And get a spiral binder. NOT the kind where papers can be ripped out. That leads back to the possibilities I mentioned previously. Spiral binders go on sale for less than 50 cents right before school starts. Do your kids and yourself a favor by starting right with spiral binders for each class.

2. A 3 ring binder. A big one, so it can hold all the notebooks.

3. Tabs. Label each tab with the name of the classes, in the order that your kid will have them. If your school is on the commonly found block day schedule, perhaps label the binder with "A" day colors and "B" day colors. Some families prefer to give kids 2 binders, one for "A" day and one for "B", and I say that is a BIG no no. Kids frequently bring the "A" binder to school on a "B" day and then they can't get work done. Or, if they have free time, there is no way they can do work from "A" day on "B" day. One binder with clearly labeled tabs.

4. Clean out the binder bi-weekly with kids.

5. An agenda, preferably kept in binder. If no agenda, a way to right down weekly assignments.

If you start your child our right with an organized system, and do frequent cleanouts of binder, backpack, locker and room, your kid will learn to be organized and will have a much better experience in middle school. Think back to your middle school days--you would have appreciated any step up you could have had, am I right? Do your kid a favor--get them organized.

Keys to organizing your middle school student

I've found that a middle schooler will find self-confidence and success as they learn to organize. On more occasions than I can remember, I've walked past these teens' searching through their lockers for that hairbrush or crumpled assignment, only to find it at the bottom of the whole mess. There are two keys to helping your child with organizing in middle school. These two things must be repeated for the whole two year stint (or three year, if it is a junior high). The first one I'll share in this blog, and I'll share the next one, Establish a simple binder system, in the next blog of this two-blog series.

1. Clean up the storage areas (locker, backpack, and under the bed)

Cleaning up the storage areas
I had to laugh and shake my head along with the mother of one of my 9th graders. This kid was student council president, happy to be at school, friendly with everyone and their dog, and the most absentminded of his kind. His mother was going out of her mind--somehow this good student was failing several of his classes and she couldn't figure it out. She'd seen him do the homework, she'd planned makeup times with his teacher, and he swore he had no idea where his work could be. Where did she end up finding it? At the bottom of his locker, stuffed in a corner under his bed, and stuck to other papers in his backpack. Does this situation sound similar? Could this child be one of yours? Then this tip is definitely going to be a lifesaver for you.

When your child's grade shows a missing assignment and he/she swears they did it, before you call the teacher and demand an answer, send your child to their binder. If nothing turns up, then send them through their whole backpack, having them turn it upside down and throwing it all out on the ground, like their halloween trick or treat bag. If you're lucky, they'll find it there. And if not, then send them into the jungle of their room (though not due to any lack of nagging on your part) and have them look under the bed, in the closet, and in whatever other rat hole they somehow managed to create. Guaranteed, your child will even find assignments they thought they already handed in! And, even if nothing turns up, if you mention this story to their teacher, you will find a teacher who is much more willing to look through her jungle of papers to find it because of the effort your child already went through theirs.


The next step is to get the main homework storage areas decently clean. Are we expecting perfection? No way--these are teenagers, right? But you can expect to be able to see the bottom of their room, locker, closet, etc. You can mandate a "Spring Cleaning" of their school work to become a quarterly event, after the end of the last term.


Is it easy as a parent to put yourself and your child through this hassle? No way. But will your student learn to place their papers in the right place after doing it half a dozen times (and, finger crossed, perhaps less)? Let's hope so. And maybe yes. And even if they don't, at least they know that you love them and that you will help them if they need it.

Helping Parents See the Teacher's Perspective

I don't really know what to say. I am a middle school teacher. I value education because it prepares a person to face life. I think it's important for a person to become a lifelong learner. I like to teach students who want to  learn--if I have a student who wants to figure out a problem, I will do whatever I can to help them figure it out. It's important for parents to understand the teacher's perspective concerning their student's progress. So I started this blog to share my perspective, and I hope to learn things from parents that will help me understand students, as well.