Freedom from Exam Hell

Plough editor Chungyon Won introduces and interviews In-soo Song, a Korean educational reformer.

Chungyon Won: It was 1989 and I was in tenth grade. As I headed off to school, my heart was thumping. The evening before, using ribbon from my parents’ stationary store, I had cut hand-length pieces and wrote on them in marker: “True Education!” Before class, I passed them out to my friends with pins. When we went into the classroom and our Korean teacher saw the ribbons pinned on our shirts, his eyes welled up.

I was called to the guidance office where the guidance counselor asked me why I had made the ribbons and who had told me to. I replied that I had done it on my own and because I wanted to, which was true. The Korean teacher who I had done this for was great. In class when we needed to study for tests, instead of just giving us self-study time, he would read beautiful poems or a chapter from a novel. He taught us that life was not all about grades and talked to us about what makes the Earth turn. He told us to get enough sleep and not skip meals.

The atmosphere at school was usually heavy and the self-study time was boring. In the evenings my friends would head off to hagwon, or cram school, an institution in Korea that provides additional education in a variety of subjects with the objective of preparing students for examinations. But Korean class was different. We listened carefully to what our teacher taught and absorbed all he said.

One night, as we listened to the nine o’clock news, we heard that teachers from all over the country had formed an illegal labor union and that those teachers who had participated were to be fired. Our Korean teacher never said anything to us, but we had the feeling that he had been involved and we wanted to help somehow.

After that, our teacher did not come back to school again. The government fired about 1,800 teachers. After that, I struggled through years of suffocating high school education before entering university. In 1999, it was welcome news to hear that after another series of difficult strikes, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union had finally been legalized.

As a survivor of Korea’s infamous “university entrance exam hell” who is now a father of four, I am naturally interested in better approaches to education. I came across an organization with the strange name “World Without Worries About Private Education” (aka “No Worries”). When In-soo Song, the founder of the organization, had first become a teacher, he loved being with the children, though the reality of their struggles under “exam hell” pained him. In order to change this, he refused to continue the underhanded practice of accepting gift money from parents, and instead made efforts to understand the children’s lives better. Still, many colleagues criticized him and he often felt isolated and sometimes despaired.

In 1992, he experienced a conversion and decided to pursue his newfound Christian calling within the schools he had worked in. Since he had been limited when working alone, he joined forces with like-minded educators and together they started the “Good Teacher Movement” with the purpose of reawakening educators to their task as the owners of education. Today he also represents Spring of Education, an organization which has the goal of changing the company culture of hiring based on restrictive academic specifications and academic pedigree. Although he has not taught in a classroom for twenty years, In-soo Song is ever a teacher at heart. I caught up with him earlier this year.

Chungyon Won: After you became a teacher, how did you start to think that the reality of education needed to change?

In-soo Song: I became a teacher in 1989, though originally I had not wished to pursue teaching. At the time, teaching was held in low esteem; one national survey ranked it twenty-sixth place among occupations, just ahead of barbers. I majored in English at the College of Education and then taught children for the mandatory three years.

As it turns out, teaching was much more enjoyable than I expected. The children showed interest and every day when I arrived at school I would find a bouquet or small present on my desk. Sometimes there would also be a letter; since they were never signed, I would inspect the homework to find the handwriting of the owner. I think receiving such love and respect from these children made those years some of the most important of my life. This year I turn sixty, and if you told me to go back to the best times in my life, I would return to my first years as a teacher.

But there was one problem. As a teacher I was happy with what I was doing, but I was troubled that my students were not happy. These children, who gave me love and respect and whom I loved and respected, were miserable at exam time, when the pressure of the entrance exam was greatest. Seeing these children struggling thrust me into turmoil.

The core of that turmoil was this: “If I as a teacher am happy, but the children I teach are not, is my happiness genuine?” If you think about it from a parent’s perspective, it makes it very simple. If you as a parent have a good relationship with your spouse, if you are healthy, earn plenty, and have meaningful relationships in society, in short, you are at the peak of your life; but if at the same time it seems like your child is crying in secret, always struggling with something, sometimes even self-harms, you won’t go to a friend and say, “My child seems to be struggling and has some problems but apart from that I’m having the time of my life.” No parent thinks like that. As parents, our existence is linked with our children’s lives, and their happiness and misfortune is our happiness and misfortune.

It is the same for a teacher. As a teacher, whether or not I live a fulfilled life is completely linked with my students’ lives. With that in mind, as an English teacher I put great effort into trying to relieve the suffering of the children I taught. My class was made up of students who had come up from middle school struggling with grammar as well as those who did not grasp English at all, but within a month or two, they all came to enjoy English. Tenth and eleventh grade students always said this to incoming students: “Now that you are in this high school, don’t give up. There are two courses that everyone succeeds in. One is gym and the other is English!”

But I was still not satisfied with just doing a good job of teaching the students in my class. I wanted to address these problems affecting all the students in the school, and across the country.

What is it like for Korean children and young students today?

Today, children are exposed to the abusive situation of being sent out to hagwons until midnight or one a.m. every day. Families spend over $700 monthly on shadow education fees, which places a big burden on households. Through excessive study and competition, children are undergoing great psychological and physical stress.

Even so, coverage of our children’s difficult realities rarely makes it into the news. This is because they are the weak and disadvantaged. Our society is so sensitive to the suffering of the loud and strong. If they encounter any discomfort, the outcry they make results in headlines in the media. Yet the cries of the weak, the disadvantaged, and the most vulnerable of society go unheard. This is a serious problem.

Parents worry that if they do not send their children to hagwon, they will fall behind their classmates, so they spend large amounts of money on shadow education. Do you have anything to say to parents who feel this anxiety?

This anxiety has substance and there is a reason for it. To attend a foreign-language high school, ninth graders must take an English listening test that has such high-level English problems that they are practically unsolvable. Therefore, at a minimum, from third grade on, students must start studying for the TEPS and TOEIC. When parents want their children to attend a specialized high school, then the anxiety that their child cannot afford to play like other children begins. Anyway, these practices fan the worry. The question of whether children should need to receive extra private education at all is another matter entirely.

It is helpful to know what private education is beneficial and what is excessive. Obviously, hagwons do not provide this information, so when we started No Worries, we began a three-year investigation into the true extent of the shadow education market. We interviewed the interested parties of the hagwons and looked into the truth behind the ahead-of-curriculum learning they offered, reporting our research in a pamphlet titled Wasted Hagwon Fees, which we then distributed. Today, over 1,200,000 copies have been sold. Of course, that is at the low price of 35 cents per book, but for a citizens’ movement, this is an unheard-of number. With the accurate information provided, parents can make more informed decisions.

Photograph by Jerry Wang / Unsplash.

Can we save our children from the hell of college entrance exam tests? What can we do to make that possible?

Well, the socio-scientific method is simple. First, solve the wage gap between high school and university graduates. You could use blind recruitment that doesn’t look at educational qualifications. Or you could guarantee college admissions through university standardization. Through these measures, the entrance exam competition could be eliminated.

Unfortunately, these things are not going to happen in Korea. If someone stepped forward to resolve these problems, their efforts would likely fail. Even so, I say that we can save our children from the university entrance exam hell. There may not be a socio-scientific solution, but it has become the purpose of my existence.

In May of 2007, I was working as a Sunday school teacher for middle school and high school children. One young pastor noticed that the children who had stayed up all night studying for a test were dozing off during the sermon. He asked them, “You guys are struggling because of studying for tests? That is because of competition on the university entrance exam, right? But do you know why no solution is being found to the problem of university entrance exams?” His answer to that question pierced my heart like a dagger: “It is not because the problem is complicated or because the solution is difficult. It is because over the past forty years in Korean education, not one single person has appeared who was willing to embrace this as their task and give their life in service to God in that way.”

Usually when we think about how to solve a problem it is easy to analyze the structural cause and come up with a good strategy. However, that pastor talked about people, not some idealistic alternative. The key to the solution is simply whether there is someone who is dedicated enough, or whether there is not.

What changes has No Worries achieved?

The changes that come to mind are the regulatory laws that were enacted and the foreign-language high school system reorganization. First-grade Korean education was increased from twenty-six to fifty hours so that Korean education would no longer be necessary in kindergarten. Additionally, if we think back to our school days, at graduation ceremonies we remember the banners hanging that said who had entered which university. There are often banners hanging on hagwon walls that give actual results for the university entrance examinations. Seeing how many children and parents were hurt by this practice, I made up my mind to prevent this. Members of our organization took photos of university entrance exam banners hanging at hagwons in their area, reported them to the Ministry of Education, and filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission. The government accepted the complaint and such practices have been discontinued.

Of course there have been difficulties. In 2017 we worked to inform people that the specialized high schools were a burdensome problem in our society, and we formed a strong movement. When the government started to move toward solving these problems, the specialized high schools and parents of students at these schools began attacking our organization. Coincidentally, at that time one of the directors in our organization had a child attending a hagwon for six months in order to send him to a high school for the talented, which became publicly known. As a result, No Worries was criticized for being a hypocritical education organization. Over the next three years many members left and it was a difficult time for us.

When one makes efforts to work for change in society, and has an influence, then attacks and difficulties will follow and I was prepared for it.

It is not easy when a father and mother have very different views on education. How can it be possible for them to educate their children without confusion?

There are times when two people’s views on education are different. That difference can be over the education in school, how the children should be raised at home, or how religious education should be undertaken. Children are sensitive to these differences. When children enter adolescence, this is even more the case. At that point they will choose between Dad and Mom, the one who has the strongest viewpoint or the side that will offer the most comfortable life.

For example, if a wife wants to have family worship services, but the husband does not, what will the children do? They will be on the side of not wanting family worship.

It is dangerous to leave those differences alone. No matter how hard one spouse tries, if the other spouse is not in agreement, in the end, whether it is faith or education within the family, it will almost always fail. Among the solutions to the educational problems we face, I feel that unity in the family is important. No Worries has offered lectures related to this, and I know wives who have coaxed their husbands who have different views to participate in order to change their minds. Also, we have what we call “graduation journeys,” celebrating the completion of the lectures, where people with a spouse with a different viewpoint can bring them along for two days and a night and disarm them through discussions with many other people.

It is a very difficult thing, but it is very important that in order to protect and teach their children well, parents who have different viewpoints do their best to work together. Each couple needs to maintain a framework for the raising of their children, whether they are able to adjust their differences through thinking or through discussions, and I think there is a framework for every family.

It is often the case that families that have a faith adhere to preconceived ideas: maintaining regular devotion time, attending church faithfully, and holding frequent family worship. Regardless, when a couple is not of one mind and the stronger opinion pulls the children, there are often bad outcomes.

Teachers in Korea feel the pressures from shadow education and simultaneously are burdened by the need to apply new educational technologies. In this situation, many teachers are exhausted because building the relationships with students and parents is increasingly complex.

In a sense, I think that our education system is undergoing the most difficult time in its history. Up until the early 2000s, there was a strong bond of trust between children and teachers. This was the same for the relationship between parents and teachers as well as among the teachers themselves.

However, since then, due to problems piling up, one on top of another, the trust in the education community has diminished greatly. This is why I tell my junior colleagues in the Good Teachers Movement that now is the time to raise the banner of a new teachers’ movement.

In 2000, we could discuss things like university entrance exam competition and shadow education reform on the foundation of trust in the education community. But now that foundation has crumbled and we are facing the problem of how to restore the relationship of trust between teachers and students and between parents and teachers.

In the past, dedicated teachers who received low performance appraisals from the office of education or the school were protected by the students and their parents. Whatever stigma the teacher had, the students thought, “Our teacher is someone who loves us,” but now there are many teachers who have worked hard but have been hurt and have stepped back.

It is hard to say what the solution is in one word. The schools’ educational initiatives have been upended by the hagwons, mandatory teacher rotation, new technologies, and individualized education, and all of these problems are difficult and complicated.

Even so, don’t we need to choose one direction and hold to it? This may seem a digression, but I want to talk about it anyway. When some of Korea’s megachurches provoked a scandal by upholding the practice of hereditary succession among their leadership, the Korean Christian Ethics Movement that I was involved in protested. We wrote statements and even picketed. When we were unable to effect change, however, many groups that had worked for church renewal retreated in exhaustion.

That’s when I made up my mind that the methods used by the church renewal movement were not enough. I needed to give up the expectation that problematic institutions would be awakened by statements, criticisms, or candid advice. We needed a movement where our example was the message. Because of this I helped start a “layman’s church.” We no longer were shaking our fingers and saying the megachurches were wrong, but our existence was a message that was conveyed to other churches.

It can be the same for teachers. How can we revive the essence of being a teacher so that we teachers can, by our mere existence, be a message that reaches colleagues, parents, and students?

If I should ever return to teaching, I will pour everything I have into loving the children I am with. When we do that, we naturally enter deeply into the children’s worlds and are better able to understand their lives. In this way, the children will show us the wounds they have kept hidden from other adults, and when we hear their cries and see their suffering we will understand and experience oneness with them, and our eyes will be newly opened so we can see how to help them.