That my English Hagwon (academy) caters to the incessant demands of our students’ mothers has always been a no-brainer observation. Within my first month, my weekly lesson plans, which are distributed to each student, were suddenly rejected for not containing “enough detail.” The lesson plans themselves were not inadequate. I simply needed to expand on the information contained therein, giving the illusion, since most of the mothers can’t read English, that I was teaching far more than simply “Unit 4″ of the textbook.
In a similar vein, I could not write the word “review” into a lesson plan, as such a word suggests the abhorrent concepts of repetition and practice– things these nine year old students, strapped as they are to the Korean bullet train of education, simply don’t have time for. “Onward to successful high school and college entrance exams!” The Mothers collectively cry out into the night (and yes, in Korea, a child’s education falls squarely within the mother’s sphere of duty).
Of course, this tireless cycle of pacifying The Mothers results in an equally tiresome game of constant illusion and even outright deceit. Along the way, any semblance of sound pedagogy or commitment to academic standards is flushed down a Korean squatter toilet. Nothing speaks to this deception more than our method of grading students.
During my first round of midterm exams, a co-teacher of mine nervously told me I needed to fudge the marks a little bit. I was not, as might be assumed by educators the world over, supposed to give a mark per question. Instead, I was to add up the number of errors on the twenty five question test and then subtract that from an exam grade of…um…how about seventy five? Consequently, “Philip”, who properly deserves 18/25 (72%), in fact scores a spectacular 68/75 (90%). Hurray! Such intelligence!
Of course, there is a business plan behind this charade and it is very simply the plan to keep students at our school. Were “Philip” to actually be rewarded with his duly-received 72% on his English reading midterm, he would be promptly yanked from our school, relocated to the next academy down the street, and given a private tutor, so great would be the fallout.
Given the nature of the business, I don’t mind tending to my students’ education while my employers seek new and innovative ways to convince The Mothers to entrust their children to our system. But what I saw last week makes all of the above seem like slightly bitter coffee, not ideal but drinkable nonetheless. The following, however, is like twelve-year-old, ground Russian coffee, dripped through with cat piss, and served chilled:
I was stuffing report cards into my students’ envelopes, when it occurred to me that I should be aware of what, exactly, my students were receiving. I glanced at the report of a particularly difficult student who, despite my mathematical machinations, had still not fared well on his final tests. To my surprise, there were four columns detailing the foreign teacher’s comments. I, being the foreign teacher, had never been asked to write any comments for this report card, so I was, naturally, quite curious to read what “I” was saying:
HOMEWORK: The student completes all assignments with great accuracy and effort every day….
EFFORT: This student has consistently worked hard during the term….
I flipped over the next report, one of a deserving student with excellent grades, to see what “my” comments were this time:
HOMEWORK: The student completes all assignments with great accuracy and effort every day….
EFFORT: This student has consistently worked hard during the term….
The same. I looked through the rest of the reports. All the comments were the same; even the Korean Teacher’s comments were identical script! My eyes, rife with a mocking skepticism of the document in-hand, turned to the fancy-schmancy bar graph at the bottom. The y-axis detailed the student’s possible percentage grade, while the x-axis listed their four subjects (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). I expected each bar graph to be as equal in content as the generic comments were, but in this I was bemusedly surprised. The bar graph actually corresponded to their final grades listed in the report! Fortunately (unfortunately?), it didn’t take long to spot the deceit. Running alongside each bar was another off-colour bar of slightly lesser value. Could it be that the lesser bar represents an imaginary class average? A quick inquiry proved my hunch correct. No matter the student’s (already fudged) grade, whether high or “low,” the class average is a consistent four to six percentage points less!
Surely this is a crime somewhere else in the world. The benefit, I suppose, is counter-cultural, in that I am no longer a grade-focused, test-dependent teacher. The system is as it is, and the children are merely victims to its lies, as are The Mothers, who are victims of this culture of education even as they help perpetuate it. I can only laugh at the waste of paper and return to maximizing every forty minutes I spend with my students.
