Is It Worth It?

My senior year of high school. 2002. Just one more year of high school madness and it will be all over. I finished taking the SAT's last term and ended the summer on a high as I scored enough to apply to the schools I wanted to. It was time to wait..and finish high school.



I started by waking up at 6AM from Monday to Friday. School started at 7:30AM, so I had to get up, shower, eat a good breakfast, and drive to school. I had eight periods (including lunch) to eat as much brain food as possible. I took important subjects like English, Spanish, and Trigonometry to prepare for college. School ended around 2:15PM. I was on the high school soccer team in 2002, so we had team study hall until 3:30PM, and it was off to practice. Practice was two hours, and on Mondays and Wednesdays, I had to go to work right after practice. Coach was nice enough to let me go a little early so I could make it work on time. I had to get into uniform at work (Chick-Fil-A), and I worked the night shift from 6-10PM. My boss was kind enough to let me have a sandwich for dinner for five minutes since he knew I came from soccer practice. The store closed at 10PM, and even though I could leave at that time, sometimes one of my bosses asked me politely to stay and help clean the store. Being a team player, I usually obliged.



I drove home, where my parents usually did not fall asleep until they knew that I was home safe, being loving as they are. Then I would hit the books, because I hardly touched my homework throughout the day. Trig equations (sin, cosine, and tangents), the intricacies of the Spanish language (college-level Spanish), to my hardest and most rewarding class, AP European History with Mr. Shaffer. And don't forget wonderful English and its poetry, short-stories, and their papers you had to write with them. This self-studying time was crucial if I wanted to maintain good grades while keeping my life balanced. I would arrive home around 10:30PM and would not finish my homework until 1AM, or at the latest, 2 AM. My mother sometimes would come out in the middle of the night because she noticed the light in my room still turned on...and would ask me to go to sleep. Being half-Korean that I am, there is no stopping until I got my homework done.



Then I would get up at 6AM, bleary-eyed and weary. I would do it again. Oh so tired. Yet the cool thing was, I didn't have to work every night, so I would at least get my homework done in the early evening so I could go to bed at a decent time, meanwhile I could on the Internet, chat with friends, or play videogames. Also, I would hang out with my friends sometimes throughout the week. Or, I would attend Wednesday Bible study at my church. Despite the rigors of school, I had fun things to do. I did not have to be so tired every single day.



Now imagine the aforementioned schedule, except you have to do it every single day. Yes, every single day. Except without soccer practice or games (which are fun) or a part-time job...all you had to do was study. Get up at 6AM, go to school by 7:45AM, and essentially don't leave school until after 9PM, and then go to all-night "cram school" (private school businesses called "hagwons") where you get supplemental education until the wee hours of the morn, and then do it all over again. It would make you insane, right? Where in the world would people commit to such an atrocious, physically and mentally demanding schedule?



Welcome to Korean high school. I have talked extensively about my life at the high school before, mentioning some of the joys and lows of working in the Korean public school system, getting to work with energetic young Koreans who are force-fed English grammar nuggets most of their days. I mentioned the really animated and fun Sports Day at Hakik Girls High School and some of the fun aspects of working with these smart and clever young ladies. I mentioned just being a foreign teacher at a Korean high school is an honor and a cultural experience that I will never forget.



For all the unique aspects of this job, its still a job, and it has to be done. And just like any job, no job is perfect. Jobs are performed daily so that society can benefit, and then even the problems within the job are just small stepping stones to achieve perfection. At my job, I see a system where my students are merely going through the motions and not producing what is most necessary: knowledge.



In the grand scheme of things, sometimes I see a merciless school system that beats down on my children daily, a major competition vortex where there are losers and winners, just like in any society. Yet in Korea (and in many other East Asian nations), what's sad to see is that the throes of competition and selection are thrown at them at an early age, and its a debiliating thing. It makes for very mentally-fatigued and sometimes frustrated children.



I remember my student from class 1-6, Min-jung. Min-jung is a tall, elegant girl who usually has a smile on her face during my class time. Then came mid-terms. While she entered my classroom and sat down, I stopped by her table and said hello to her, where she just stared at me back with an expression of an owl. She literally dark circles under her eyes. Her friend Yun-young fired at me, "She has dark circles, so tired!" Min-jung was studying until the wee hours of the morning to prepare for the midterms. Normally a healthy looking girl with bright skin, she looked like a ghost this morning.



Now you might say, "Well, anyone would study late hours to get some knowledge in there, right? What's the big deal? Many high school students do that anyway." What makes Korea's system strikingly different is the competition. What's the prize? University. In two years time, they have to take what is called the "Ssu-neung" Test, or Korean SAT's. In Korea, more so than America to a degree, university names are sort of a price label in value. So each student is aspiring to get into the top colleges in Seoul, which makes competition strikingly fierce. Students in your own classroom, even your own friends, are potential rivals in getting into the best schools in Korea.



Korean competition in schools can sort of be read in this Korean proverb: "Five hours of sleep, you fail the test, four hours of sleep, you pass the test." Wow. You see where this going. So Min-jung was just being in a cog in a system where one less hour of marginal studying could cause her to fall behind. It was only natural for her to study more.



Do you know about yaja shigan? Yaja shigan is a Korean shortenized word for "self-study." Well, its natural to self-study, right? Well, this is how it works, because the Korean high school day gets better with this.



School ends in 7th period at 4:20PM. Students have to clean up the school. Then, there is an extra supplemental class at from 4:40PM to 5:30PM. Then from 5:30PM there is a dinner (served by a contractor food company) until 6:20PM.



From 6:20PM, you must do yaja. Basically, its mandatory self-study. In your classroom until 9PM. "Well, you got to study, right? It must be the Asian way of doing things." A supervising teacher from each grade walks around the hall with a stick in his or her hands making sure they are studying. No slacking on this one. Kids who fall asleep are given very unusual physical punishments or are harshly reprimanded for not keeping focus. "Well, they're kids, they're young. Back in my day we studied x amount of hours, so they can to."



So let's go back to the beginning of the day then. Imagine being grilled and drilled on Korean grammar, English grammar, Japanese grammar (if you are a junior or senior at my school and if you choose to learn it), math formulas, ethics (an unique subject taught in Asian schools), English vocabulary, the history of the Three Kingdoms and the Joseon Dynasty, chemical and biological equations, gym, home economics, social studies, and let's not forget other creative subjects like art and music. And being with fellow students of the same gender all day and with its unique Korean social environment, you can see this situation as a pressure cooker.



There are only 10 minutes of break time between classes, with lunch and dinner the only real major times they can play or socialize fully. At my school, there are literally bars on the windows on the lower level classrooms on the outside, sort of a psychological re-conditioning symbol of saying, "no one escapes."

So as I write this, Semester 2 begins at Hakik Girls High School in two weeks. My 3rd levels (seniors) have the Korean SAT's in 100 days. That day will either break them or make them. They have no choice. Study less than your competition, and you fall behind. The school system suffers from the "anything you can do I can do better" syndrome. Everyone else does it, so I must too.

Yet there is hope. For the pressure that these girls go through, I do see some nice things about the system. Korean students in general, despite the competition, seem very loyal as friends and share many joys and downs with one another, sometimes more than their American compatriots. Also, some girls refuse to be battered by the system and make the most of it. For example, one of my best students, Hwang Yu-na, a class captain, goes home after school is over. No forced self-study. I suppose that her parents see that the self-study will not be beneficial and that she should do it on their own.

Other students and teachers as well are becoming more critical of their system. My students, Lee Yun-young, always tells me what's messed up with her system in perfect English. Some girls I know, see the cracks in the system and someday they know it will have to change.

Finally, there's me. I hope that I can bring hope to some of my children. My teaching style is very different, I use different techniques in the classroom, and I hope that I can inspire my children to think on their own because of the experiences that my young life has given me already. To think outside the box. I'm bi-racial, I'm created in God's image, I have friends from most spectrums of life and pathways, and I've traveled to many cool parts of the world. Finally, I'm saved. Matthew 5:16 "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

I'm not the light. Christ is. I think education can go hand in hand with the truth. The reality of this world can point us to God if we search for it. If these girls of mine can see some glimpse of the truth in me...that we are created, perhaps I can inspire them to search for it. "...for anyone who serves Christ this way is pleasing to God and approved by men." (Romans 14:18)

Is it worth it? For me and for them, it always is.