Post-74: Failure is Impossible, No Matter How Hard You Try

6/4/2013

I was surprised to learn that it is impossible, in South Korea, to "fail a grade".

I mean, if a Korean does very poorly in (say) 1st-grade of high school (=10th grade in the USA), failing all tests, and shows not even a basic understanding of the material taught, he will still go up to 2nd grade of high school with the others of the same age. There is also no "summer school", as we have the in the USA, to make up failed classes.

What is the incentive to learn, if you will just advance to the next grade no matter what?", I asked.

Two answers were forthcoming: "Making parents happy" and "getting into a good university".

I found these answers uncompelling, and it reminds me a lot of what I wrote in post-73.

5 Comments

jaredway link

6/14/2013 11:49:43 am

I really believe the answer to the question of "why" students never fail a grade-level in Korea is pretty evident: it would mess up the age-based conception of social rank that is so deeply embedded in the society that you can't even talk to someone until you know the right verb form to use, and that's dictated by your relative ages.

Flunking kids out of grades would mix up grade-level age-based cohorts. Public school in Korea, as I've observed elsewhere, is first about socialization and only second (if at all) about education. That's why they have hagwon - because they still believe education is important.

Peter

6/17/2013 07:40:15 am

Oh, I agree entirely about the age-based reasoning on grade-flunking.

I think the idea I got from you a long time ago that "most" of education in Korea is not about education was a profound insight. Perhaps most of, even the hagwon system is not about education. Koreans are smart, and must realize that teaching language like one might teach math is not effective, but year in and year out they keep producing, making, buying, and using vocabulary books to memorize words they will never remember.

jaredway link

6/14/2013 11:53:06 am

I meant to add as a third paragraph to the above: I actually had a conversation about this with some of my higher level elementary students, and they explained it exactly this way. When I suggested "holding kids back" in grade-level due to academic shortcomings, their response was near panic: OMG what about how could you have friends, etc. Remember - "friend" in Korean can only mean someone in your age cohort. You're not allowed to be "friends" with someone even one year younger or older.

Peter

6/17/2013 08:00:04 am

What this means is that there is very little motivation, at the lowest levels, to achieve much, anyway.

Similar: In the lower levels at my present job, there is actually now a hard-limit of two 'semesters' per level before they MUST level. (I think most hagwons have this set-up.) That's no matter *what* the kids do, no matter how well or how poorly they perform, they will definitely "level-up" every three to six months. It really, really doesn't matter whether or not they try hard. Most have figured this out.

Errin

10/27/2013 01:09:55 pm

You cannot get held back or advance a year in the UK either. Some students are not academic, does that mean we should stigmatize them? We use differentiation in our classes to make the material and lesson objectives accessible to everyone. There is an ethos of inclusion. I've taught students that can barely read due to dyslexia who excel at maths and are otherwise bright, but do poorly at the written tests that would hold them back in the American system. Should their growth in the subjects they love be stunted because they can't help, despite trying, being bad at some stuff, and have to repeat a year or two? There are arguments for both systems, but you have to see that not everyone who fails is lazy and holding them back could do more harm than good. Certainly in the younger years where age gaps are massive and learning is hugely affected by brain development and emotional maturity it seems silly to hold people back indefinitely. There are some exceptions, the school I'm placed at does mix years 1 (age 5 and 6) with year 2 (6-7) for phonics classes, but they wouldn't mix any students that are more than 2 years apart. There was also a student in A that was held back a year voluntarily. She had lived abroad and her parents felt she would have been disadvantaged if she'd stuck to her year group as she was quite far behind the others. I think many parents in Korea opt to send their children early or late because of the weird way age works over there, so even though they don't hold students back, there can still be over 1 years age difference between pupils in the same year group. My friend A, taught a 2 year old with baby hair in the same kindergarten class as a 4 year old.

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Post-74: Failure is Impossible, No Matter How Hard You Try

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