"Korean Students Lack Creativity"

[tako]

<p>A brief feature article on Keith Eckerling, college advisor at Korea International School (KIS). </p>

<p><a href=“`Korean Students Lack Creativity - The Korea Times”>`Korean Students Lack Creativity - The Korea Times;

<p>What was interesting to note, however, was the fact that he said that “Korean students need to be honest when they write essays or resumes for U.S. college admission” - as if it needed to be pointed out. </p>

<p>Another point of interest:</p>

<p>

Lastly, Eckerling pointed out that Korean students are not trained well in thinking creatively and independently despite their high motivation and academic achievement. ``I think that in terms of critical thinking they are lacking compared to many U.S. students. This can be seen in mathematics. Korean math students can compute with the best students in the world, but their English language proficiency along with their drill and memorization methods often hurts them when solving word problems,‘’ he said.

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<p>What do you guys think about what he says? The article is quite biased, but he does bring up some, er, interesting points.</p>

[Pyrotechnic]

<p>Well, I think I generally agree with his observations. But I don’t think Koreans are genetically risk-aversive. Seriously, Koreans love to venture into things - you gotta come to Japan to realize how entrepreneurial Koreans are (sometimes Koreans can get too entrepreneurial, watch out.:)) It’s the Korean system that turns the venture-loving Korean students into bookworms stuck into libraries studying for the aptitude tests etc.</p>

<p>Koreans jokingly say:</p>

<p>

There can’t be Korean Bill Gates, since when a guy drops out of college, he has to go to the Army within 6 months.</p>

<p>There can’t be Korean Steve Jobs, as when a guy fails at his first venture, the only choice left for him is to land a job at Samsung and work his ass off for 20 years to pay his debt.

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[frrrph]

<p>I had several Korean students in one of my classes last year and this exact question came up. They felt the Korean educational system was extremely narrowly focused on prepping for standardized tests, rather than preparing them for the more discussion-based education they encountered when coming to the States. </p>

<p>One also suggested there’s a lot of bribing and cheating on applications going on, something I’ve seen crusaded against here on CC too. If it really is such a huge problem, I doubt it goes beyond the most affluent layers of Korean society, and I don’t think we should go into this assuming Korean students (studying in the US) simply lack creativity or initiative - rather, they have not had the chance to explore this kind of learning style. And any cheating and such schould be dealt with as a societal rather than individual problem.</p>

<p>Personally I think I would explode from the demanding, monotoneous style of teaching these students presented me with. I don’t know how they survived it, but if true, it’s worthy of applause.</p>