Cram School Confidential: Korean Students Becoming World's Best

KID'S IN THE USA MOAN & GROAN BEING IN SCHOOL 6 HRS. A DAY...NO WONDER THE FAR EAST KIDS ARE SO FAR AHEAD...

honestly?i live in tennessee and i LOVE school.i wish my parents had enough money to send me to a year round school.no,im not a geek,im as popular as they come,but everyone i know cannot wait for school to start.

This is just plain disturbing. I thought we were taking the fun out of being a kid in this country, but South Korea has taken it to a new level. It's nice to be able to compete in the job market, but there's more to life than a job. I always went to public school (a bottom 5 percentile high school) and Florida State for college, where needless to say, I enjoyed myself immensely. Sure I studied a lot, but not at the expense of enjoying my youth. A couple of years later, and I'm a CPA in Chicago, doing just fine. Perhaps being a shut-in at an Ivy League school (a couple of which I was accepted to) would have added a few grand to my salary, but I would never trade my experiences from college and before for any amount of money. Well, maybe I would, if it was a lot of money.

I've lived here more than five years... Korean students aren't that far ahead. Most Koreans study only to excel at tests. For example, a Korean student might make a near perfect score on the TOEIC or TOEFL, but the same student is often unable to communicate in English. Therefore, test scores aren't a good indicator of ability - just that they've learned how to succeed at tests. Also, the students shown in this video are exceptional and come from wealthy families. If you compared students from wealthy areas in the US, I'd bet their test scores were similar.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the suicide rate of Korean pupils? I wonder if there is a correlation.

These great claims for Korean education have been made before and all erroneously equate standardized test scores with understanding a subject, creativity and critical thinking - three things the average Korean student lacks. If that wasn't the case, Korea wouldn't be ranked 14th in number of top universities.

This is why H1 visas are never enough in the USA.

there are plus-minus in korea education system.1. idiot-retards of usa high school students. last or next to last in all exams of nations on math, science.first or last, your choice, google TIMSS 2. retard free thinking, free minds to live in a free world. how many Noble prize winners in korea, china, Not too many. No einstein, Newton, charles darwin, farady. Rote-learning will produce a nation of clones. 3. colleges: all a college does is Sell Admit tickets. Yes, No about coming to class. College will gone in 10-years.

there are plus-minus in korea education system.1. idiot-retards of usa high school students. last or next to last in all exams of nations on math, science.first or last, your choice, google TIMSS 2. retard free thinking, free minds to live in a free world. how many Noble prize winners in korea, china, Not too many. No einstein, Newton, charles darwin, farady. Rote-learning will produce a nation of clones. 3. colleges: all a college does is Sell Admit tickets. Yes, No about coming to class. College will gone in 10-years.

Poor S. Korean Kids......They don't know why they need to study.. Just competing each other for better test score... Do you know that, S. Korean schools give grade base on ranking instead of A's and B's... US kids are very very lucky..

g unit

i grew up in korea. Many people who were subjected to such education system end up being twisted, parochial, immoral and elitist.. that society does pay a very high price trying to get all these people working together in harmony.

yea...usa does it the right way. everyone else is wrong. we're justified for our low test scores and drop out rate but korea isn't and simply torturing their kids.

It was a thing of the past that US was able to get away with minimal education and people with liberal arts degreee were able to make decent living. In those opportunities for good education was not available in other countries.The rules have changed now and US school system that keeps schools open for barely 180 days a year is eventually going to fail our society. No country or society can excel without an edge in science and technology and US school system is coming up short seriously in this area. Korean companies (Samsung, LG, even Hyundai) are already beating US companies in quality of products no matter what people might say. Whatever edge US universities have currently, is mostly based on help from these talented students from foreign countries which consitute majority of graduate and PhD scholars. Us lazy americans can keep denying the reality by burying our heads in sand but I am sure we won't be able to do that for ever.

It was a thing of the past that US was able to get away with minimal education and people with liberal arts degreee were able to make decent living. In those opportunities for good education was not available in other countries.The rules have changed now and US school system that keeps schools open for barely 180 days a year is eventually going to fail our society. No country or society can excel without an edge in science and technology and US school system is coming up short seriously in this area. Korean companies (Samsung, LG, even Hyundai) are already beating US companies in quality of products no matter what people might say. Whatever edge US universities have currently, is mostly based on help from these talented students from foreign countries which consitute majority of graduate and PhD scholars. Us lazy americans can keep denying the reality by burying our heads in sand but I am sure we won't be able to do that for ever.

I work at a university in Korea. I have taught at hagwons, a private high school, and taught adults as well. I agree that students in the US need to study more, however, it's drastically overdone in Korea. What that "feel good about Korea" story isn't telling you is that the government is trying to kill off the hagwons here because it's such a financial burden on the parents. They are making headway, but now the hagwons are opening up overseas in places like the Phils., where the Korean government has less control. As you can imagine, the public schools here (which are generally not good, and totally teacher-centered in delivery) hate the hagwons. Students go to them because, for example, many Korean public school teachers teach English grammar in Korean -- they lack the ability to teach English conversation. The staunch left-leaning, anti-American Korean Teachers Union forces the gov't to keep these inept teachers at work. Sadly, Korean kids literally do not have a live to themselves after elementary school. Most of them don't get to play much, and many reach university with the mental maturity of American middle school students. It's not something Koreans should be proud of. It's a national shame, in my opinion. Worse, as another poster noted, Korean students cram for tests. They don't learn life skills. They learn how to pass tests. Luckily, test makers are adjusting. The TOEFL test changed, and now Korean students are forced to show that they actually can speak English. By the way, the kids in that interview mostly lived overseas. That's where they learned how to speak English. Most students here spend hours every day -- years of their lives -- "learning" English from Korean teachers who can't even speak it, so they teach the grammar in Korean. Do you get my point? It's shocking how inefficient this is. Most hagwons employ Korean teachers who do this, as do public schools. So what you have is an incredibly inefficient learning system where Korean students spend years waste their time, parents waste their money and children don't get a chance to be children.

I work at a university in Korea. I have taught at hagwons, a private high school, and taught adults as well. I agree that students in the US need to study more, however, it's drastically overdone in Korea. What that "feel good about Korea" story isn't telling you is that the government is trying to kill off the hagwons here because it's such a financial burden on the parents. They are making headway, but now the hagwons are opening up overseas in places like the Phils., where the Korean government has less control. As you can imagine, the public schools here (which are generally not good, and totally teacher-centered in delivery) hate the hagwons. Students go to them because, for example, many Korean public school teachers teach English grammar in Korean -- they lack the ability to teach English conversation. The staunch left-leaning, anti-American Korean Teachers Union forces the gov't to keep these inept teachers at work. Sadly, Korean kids literally do not have a live to themselves after elementary school. Most of them don't get to play much, and many reach university with the mental maturity of American middle school students. It's not something Koreans should be proud of. It's a national shame, in my opinion. Worse, as another poster noted, Korean students cram for tests. They don't learn life skills. They learn how to pass tests. Luckily, test makers are adjusting. The TOEFL test changed, and now Korean students are forced to show that they actually can speak English. By the way, the kids in that interview mostly lived overseas. That's where they learned how to speak English. Most students here spend hours every day -- years of their lives -- "learning" English from Korean teachers who can't even speak it, so they teach the grammar in Korean. Do you get my point? It's shocking how inefficient this is. Most hagwons employ Korean teachers who do this, as do public schools. So what you have is an incredibly inefficient learning system where Korean students spend years waste their time, parents waste their money and children don't get a chance to be children.

Lazio I'm not sure the school age suicide rate in Korea, but for all ages Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world.

I'm Korean, and when i was a teenager I went to hagwon in America every summer, every year. Hagwons exist all over the United States and most Koreans in the US are 'forced' to go by their parents. It's a difference of culture. Some things that Koreans may do might seem extreme, but that goes for Americans as well. http://www.weeklyta.blogspot.com

Oddly enough, I noticed that these young kids don't seem to be preoccupied with dressing like gangsta and hip hop playas. On the teenagers, I noticed a lack of tattoos and body piercings. Isn't it amazing that so many trashy white kids in the USA feel obliged to get tattoos of Asian characters...and these Asian kids feel no need! (Kinda makes you wonder about the American kids with those Chinese tats. How fluent are they in reading Chinese or any Asian language for that matter? Not very!) But hey, it's ok. I do some hiring myself. Send those bright, young, clean-cut Korean men and women over here to the USA; I would must rather work wih them than the belly-aching kids our American schools are turning-out these days. Maybe we can ship some Gen-Y kids over to Korea for some instruction.