I have a number of related reasons for being here, for teaching here. Last year I saw a seeming dearth of teaching jobs for an older, entry level social studies teacher in the USA. The thought of gaining some experience teaching students in another country, a year to learn about some aspects of another culture could certainly add to my curriculum vitae.
I have learned that teaching methods here vary quite a bit from those in the USA, but the intentions of teachers a generally the same. Most of the very good teachers I’ve met (in Korea and the USA) want to teach students as well as they can. But there are some interesting differences. In Korea there is a huge focus on students developing into disciplined super students, with a great deal of time spend after school studying. This Korean model of education would certainly create very compliant workers, bureaucrats, all of whom would be very comfortable doing exactly what they are told. This is certainly something that would be of value in a production economy, but with all the changes happening in the global economy (regardless of downturns), this seems to me to be something that really doesn’t hold up to any real scrutiny.
From my vantage point here in Jeonju the American education system seems very far away. I see from my online ‘travels’ a lot of focus on ‘new technology’ equally covered with polemics about how terrible schools have become. My best guess from this far away is that both of these points are presented in an equally breathless tone. It seems that both the Korean and American systems a ‘fighting the last war’ versus trying to practically determine what students really need to learn…
In some of my internet travels I have found a few links that I found to be thought provoking ( a couple are actually provocative!).
http://www.edutopia.org/future-school
http://www.instigatorblog.com/10-things-they-need-to-teach-in-highschool/2007/04/18/
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_gatto.html
http://retardzone.com/2008/10/24/top-10-politically-incorrect-reasons-our-schools-are-failing/
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~sto/files/studcent.html
http://www.techlearning.com/article/7468