Kiwi Kids are Lazy
There are must be hundreds of
kiwi parents who regularly lament how lazy their teenage kids are, well they
may have a point. Last year I traveled
to Korea and met with a group Korean high school students. I spent the day at their school and they
showed me around with huge enthusiasm.
They talked about their studies and their aspirations for the
future. Youngil High school was alive with
enthusiastic engaged learners and teachers.
The interesting thing was it a
beautiful sunny day, 36 degrees outside and in the middle of the school
holidays. Of a school of approximately 2000
boys over 1500 of them were attending voluntary ‘catch up classes’ during the
summer break.
They went on to describe, in
perfect English, a typical school day.
The boys I was talking to got up around 6:30AM, had breakfast then left
the apartment around 7:30AM to get to school for an 8:30AM start. After a full day of instruction they spent
another 2 hours at school taking extra classes. They arrived home around
6:30PM, some students had dinner and then had 2 hours with a private tutor,
others spent time with the tutor first and then had dinner. After that they spent 2 -3 hours doing their
home work. Most nights the boys I spoke
to got to bed around mid night. This
pattern wasn’t just around exam time it was a typical day repeated 5 days a
week for the whole school year.
I was fortunate to be invited
back to one student’s home for dinner and his farther confirmed the story and
if it had not been for my visit he would have had tuition that night. Shin talked about the importance of education
and getting into one of the top universities.
This would lead to better job prospects once he graduated. It was extremely important to the family that
their son do well and achieve the best he could, not only for him but because
it reflected well on the family.
I described the Korean students
day to a couple of secondary school boys during the summer break back in New
Zealand. They scoffed and the word “nerd”
was used more than once. “When do they
fit in sports or time with their mates?” they asked. It didn’t even occur to me to ask that
question when I met with the boys in Korea.
When I asked the Kiwi lads what
other languages they were learning they sheepishly replied none, the boys back
in Korea spoke Korean, fluent English and were learning at least one other
language.
So are we selling our kids short
by not emphasising the importance of education? There is plenty in the media
about ‘knowledge economies’ and ‘life-long learners’ but as a nation do we
really believe it? The National
Curriculum Standards have gone some way to refocusing primary schools on the
importance of academic learning but is our holistic approach to learning really
the best thing for our kids?
Interesting thoughts Marcus.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder where balance fits into this equation? When we look at the PISA results, this is reflected in Korea's 1st place in the number of students that complete a high school diploma. the number of hours Korean students spend each day in school should equate to a growth in their academic skills... to what cost? this is yet to be found in Korean society as this is a fairly recent phenomenon there. What life balance do they have? How will this impact their strong family values? Will future generations of Koreans be brought up by their grandparents, while their parents work 18 hour days? Will there be an impact on their health system as people are impacted by stress related illness... the list goes on!
I, on the other hand, am in agreement with Andreas Schleicher, who states that "measuring how much time people spend at school, or what degree they have got, is not always a good way of seeing what they can actually do".
The world today requires more than just hours spent in school on academic subjects. New Zealand students have far greater opportunities (per capita) of achieving success simply because they are not competing with several million "competitors" of the same age. Koreans must study longer and harder than their neighbours do simply to have a chance to get in the door of a would be employer! does this mean they have the skills to think, create, invent, design? Time will tell the effect on these dispositions.
A very provocative discussion, one with many sides and angles to take.
Myra
That is very interesting and I can see both sides of this story. Being half Asian and half Kiwi there was always a great expectation to succeed in education. My mother would tell me stories of her education in Indonesia and it was very similar to your Korean friend, basically school 24 hours a day. I think that the population and limited number of opportunities for these countries makes them strive even more to succeed. They need to stand out from the other millions of people.
ReplyDeleteIn saying that I believe that life should be lived and not just done which can be the way for some of these people. I personally think that yes some NZ teens are lazy but do they have the tools and support to not be? Or are they mimicking what is modeled to them? It is hard to decide what is best for each as life is so different in these situations.
Tough one