Our education in crisis

     There is one boy in the class, who is well-rounded, gets a good score on school exams, but is so sick of the pressuring school environment. What he sees in his ordinary school life is students penalized and hit by teachers and teachers giving out offensive comments to students. He is not interested in asking questions, or giving out his opinion, since a fear of making mistakes surrounds him. His interests only lie on getting a good score on tests and not getting recognized as a troublemaker by teachers.

     This is how I was used to be when I was a middle school student, even until 1 year ago. The coercive boys-only school environment was what made me afraid of talking to teachers and presenting my opinions. I totally sympathized with my heart when Robinson said “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not be original”. I actually was afraid to be wrong during my middle school life since I would get penalized or hit, and this really prevented me from giving out my own personal opinions which could have been creative. In fact, when I came to KMLA, where there are a lot of ongoing interactions between students and teachers, I was somewhat reluctant to share my opinions or ask questions freely.

Unfortunately, this is a reality in many ordinary Korean schools, although my middle school was more serious. There is no such environment suited for enriching student’s creativity; especially in high schools in Korea, teachers are only interested in making students enter top-level universities. When going down streets, people can easily notice big banners where high schools show off their students’ successful college admission results. This is how education is like in vast majority of Korean schools. Creativity is not required; students must succeed on admission tests, without making mistakes and fallacies. Parents are also what exacerbate this situation. They are desperately interested in what sort of universities their kids enter. In short words, nobody who is engaged in the whole system of education is interested in raising student’s creativity.

Most important reason, however, lies on Korean society as a whole, not on individuals such as parents and teachers. Korean society had experience such a great and unprecedented development in economy, during 1960s to 1990s. A skilled worker was in great need, as mass production of goods was significant to economic development. As Robinson claimed “industrial development gave an importance to subjects such as math”, Korea was of no difference. Plus, uniformity and standardization, which are concepts directly opposite to raising creativity, were highlight. Considering opinions of individuals are useless for mass production, it is obvious that creativity was shadowed by the need to implant unified knowledge to students. Some people claim that this social development is a universal phenomenon that took places all around the world. However, Korea went through this stage very rapidly and recently unlike any other countries. Therefore, our society tends to neglect the importance of creativity more seriously.

Now, what is the importance of creativity? We should bear in our mind that 21^st century is when service industry is the main industry of a whole society. Fashion, advertisement, arts and tourism, which all needs creativity is some examples of service industry. Nobody likes to wear clothes that are ordinary and banal. Nobody is attracted to such a dull advertisement. A lot of important jobs in contemporary society require one to have a creativeness, an ability to create new things that possesses value. Some people would wonder if their children is not going to enter any design schools or apply for auditions, getting a good score on mid-term exam is the most important task. However, let’s say there is a professor who teaches biology at university. If his lectures are boring and repetitious without any stimulus that interests students, he would become unpopular among them. Also, if his researches are not novel, then his papers would fail to attract any interests in the field of biology, where numerous theses are presented day by day. This just elaborates how creativity does work in most jobs of 21^st century.

Luckily, I believe KMLA’s situation is much better than any other ordinary schools of Korea. Most importantly, the ratio of teacher to students is much lower than normal Korean schools, where 40 students are sitting in single classroom. In other words, students have more chance of communicating with instructors, which can lead students to develop their creative opinion. Also, teachers in KMLA are ready to listen to students’ own opinion, whereas in many Korean schools, teachers are just busy at finishing the assigned pages. For students, they can find themselves engaged in diverse club activities, which is related to sports and arts. These activities are not just nominal, but help student learn who they are and find their own individuality. It is true that KMLA students, or KMLAnians face a wall of university entrance just like ordinary Korean students. Nevertheless, I think life in KMLA is much more suited to enhance students’ creativity.

From a young student’s view, a lot of things seemed so different when I first attended Canadian school. Entering the classroom for the first time with a bit of tension, I noticed that tables are all in different shapes and arranged in a position which makes it easier for students to have discussions and communications. It was contrary to what I had seen in Korea, where all schools are designed same with gray-colored and square-shaped classrooms which have 40 identical chairs and desks. The classroom itself isn’t yet sufficient to encourage students think creatively. These trivial things directly show how creativity is devaluated in Korean education. Without any shadow of hesitation, I strongly believe if Korean society does not seek its way to raise students’ creativity, its future is hopeless without any competitiveness.