Let Them Play!

Education in Korea is paramount. Basic schooling in the elementary schools are fine, but most families that can afford it will send their children to one, two, three or more private academies. This is why I'm here. That's obvious.

I was taking pictures today at school. We were practicing for graduation and I wanted to get them in action. I got a lot of pictures, but this one stuck out to me.



I don't remember taking this picture, but when I looked at it I noticed the contrast. Sarah, the girl in the front, looks like she is a normal cheerful little girl. Jenny, the sad one in the back, is looking down. Their faces speack volumes in my opinion.

These two girls have so much ahead of them and life is still so fun and innocent for them. However, soon they will be thrown into an educational cycle where studying and coursework is all that they know and essentially they will lose their childhood. The parents are to blame, but the parents can't be blamed.

They are trying to make their children well-prepared for a globalized world whether they know it or not. By doing so, they are taking one of the most precious things away from their children. The fun and silliness that was all of our childhoods was just an amazing time. We played, we swam, we climbed trees, we camped and we skidded our knees. We did kid things. School was never our focus. Fun was our focus. Life was our focus. Getting to know the world was our focus.

We all wanted to be firemen, doctors and astonauts. We thought that our moms and dads were our heroes. I'm not saying that Korean kids don't get to do these things and that they don't think this way too. I'm just worried that the focus of life for these kids is not going to be enjoying it, but resenting it.

Here is an example from three random kids.

Helena is an eight year old girl. She likes school and really wants to do well. She has a lot of friends and seems to laugh a lot. I used to teach her before she moved to Canada. Her typical week: elementary school 9am-2pm; English school 3-6pm; piano lessons 7-8; art academy 830-930. She did that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On her off days she studied and practiced it all.

Angela is one of my top speakers. She's getting closer to fluency and is 11 years old. She goes from elementary school to my school to math school every MWF. On her off days she only goes to elementary school, piano lessons, and math school. She typically finishes her day at 9pm.

Ben is a smart 10 year old boy. He is the cool kid in class. Everybody likes him and some want to be him. Why? Is he good at sports which usually helps popularity in America? No, he's the smartest in the class. He is super-nerdy and cool. He goes to elementary school to english to chinese to science. He finishes at 10pm EVERYDAY.

Are these kids happy? Yes. They are happy because they do not know any better. 고운 remembers this life. She is thankful for it, but sees how trivial most of it was. In high school she stayed at school until 10 or 11pm; studying and doing homework. Her biggest problem with it is that she often wonders if it was worth it? Was spending all of her time in the books worth the loss of some potenially fun childhood times?

It was and it wasn't. Education is good for everybody and if she had not done ALL of that studying, then the Korean system would have rejected her. She did study and it didn't reject her. Her intellect always amazes me. It's practical and tangible.

I'm not saying the system is flawed. America could take a few pointers as South Korea continually produces some of the brightest thinkers in the world, but maybe a little free time would be nice.