Well the typical monsoon weather has started with a bang, literally. Huge thunder storms and thunder claps all morning and it has properly poured down! School has been excellent again today, much of the same, there is a bit of stress around with final examinations starting next week. So I thought today I would be a bit more reflective on my time so far…
“Transformation took place through a dedication to education” – Prof. Peck, Sat 29 June
Korea has changed massively over the last 50 years, one of the fastest countries to develop, definitely, and this is due to the dedication to education parents and students show. Every parent wants their child to succeed at school and every child want to go to the top universities, they are expensive but this doesn’t hold the 90% back.
However, as successful as this education system appears on paper, Prof. Peck explained and I have witnessed that it does lack creativity. I have been thinking about his honest statements on Korean Education: students here are brilliant at learning to succeed in exams, they quickly learn information and then apply it to an answer, but their is no original thought or creativity from this text book process.
Prof. Peck talked honestly about how Korean students are intelligent but industry requires more creative minds, not those that can copy already excellent products. Surely, knowledge is something, but is this formal way of learning exam answers inhibiting young learners creativity?
The lessons I have observed this week have not yet ‘wowed’ me in a T&L sense, but I hope this is due to the urgency of next weeks exams. Professor Peck’s concern is coming from the top of Korean education and he mentioned we may well see both a traditional style and a new creative approach to teaching apparent in practice as the latter is slowly being distilled into schools. It humours me to think; Korean Education wants to take ideas from our system in the UK and Mr Gove has suggested our structure should be more like theirs. A vicious educational circle perhaps.
