Today in one of my classes we were engaged in a very spirited debate about education in the United States. It started with people discussing that they noticed that people from foreign countries know more about American History than we do. I told them about a story of an exchange student who was very nervous about taking American History since they were not from this country. They took notes during the review for the first test, and studied that night. The day of the test the exchange student was very surprised that the test was the same as the review. She scored 104% which amazed many of her American counterparts. They asked her, "how did you do so well" Her response was "how did you not do well"
This led us to a discussion about do we take school seriously in the United States? We had students who were very glad that they had a diverse well rounded education. That they had opportunity for sports, clubs etc. Others pointed out that you had these same opportunities exist in some of the stronger educational countries but they occurred outside of school hours.
Where we have a pep rally for our sports teams in the United States, in South Korea, all the lower classman stand outside the school and applaud the seniors as they walk in to school to take the equivalent of our SAT's. They build school pride around academics
We then discussed why teachers are not respected as much in the United States as they are in foreign countries. Which also led to a discussion of how different cultures view authority. It was the type of discussion that could have went on the entire period so I would like to see if we can get that same type of discussion going in the blog.
What are your thoughts about education in the United States?
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ReplyDeleteWhy teachers are not respected as much in the US compared other nations like South Korea is because of its culture. People tend to think that teachers here in the US are people that failed at other things. Being a teacher is treated as a safety career rather than a top choice.
ReplyDeleteAmerican culture tends to spotlight the sports and entertainment rather than academics/intelligence which could be a reason why teachers are not really respected. People don't really talk about the world champion for chess but they talk a lot about the Super Bowl and the World Series.
In Korea, however, if one was to become a teacher, that person would gain instant respect because academics is number one priority. I don't really agree with Korea's educational system though. Yes, it's great that the teachers are respected, and it’s awesome that the students are consistently top-performers in international exams. But students are pushed to think that education is the only meaningful way to live life. If they are not successful academically, they feel as a failure. South Korea has one of the highest, if not the highest, suicidal rate in the teen ages because of such burden. But I guess the topic I brought up is a different discussion.
Back to teachers: there are no incentives to be a teacher for people. Teachers do not get paid much which is probably the biggest buzz kill for most people because people can go be engineers or doctors and make double, maybe triple the amount of money teachers would make. This is also a separate issue. Because the culture is so fixated on buying the latest trend of fashion or games or whatever, money is the primary goal. Teaching may not offer the most money but it could give memorable relationships with students.
I think we can figure out a way to make school more engaging and interesting (I haven’t really thought of how – someone smarter than me can do that), then the US education can improve massively. Many peers that I know seem to compare school with prison. School does feel very limiting and pressured instead of something that students genuinely, intrinsically, want to go to and look forward to. Perhaps, if students were guided to enjoy school rather than feel like school is a mandatory thing, students will care and put in real effort.
Okay, I kind of went everywhere - hope whatever I said made sense.