The Koreans must love their kids

try north korea. at about age 12-13, the kids there all train every day for 3 hours a day for 6 months to be in the mass games, which are kim jong il's present to himself. and if they're too short or too tall, they just mind the coats for everyone else. then they go home to a house where there's unlikely to be any power and some food provided by the world food program. the school system is based on fear, and teaches them that everyone in the world hates them and the americans are jackals waiting to eat them. yet they seem to want reunification more than anyone!

vinylmesh wrote: »

I should have elaborated, but i felt it would clutter my post. Anyway, you are right, Irish schools do have an awful lot of days off, especially with our ridiculously long summer holidays. But having months of nothing but free time does not balance out months of no free time. The need for balance in ones life is a short-term need, not a long term one. In fact I would argue that the only healthy way to live would be to have this balance on a daily basis.
Days where the student is not free untill 8 or 9pm should be a rarity, not the expected and encouraged norm. Most in the workplace get off at 5pm and afterwards enjoy a healthy chunk of free time to persue their own hobbies, teenagers deserve no less imo.

In Ireland I don't see many kids studying till 8 or 9pm. Unless they're off to the Institute to learn how to get those A1 for studying medicine and whatnot.

Unfortunately you're speaking to someone who'll be working 70 hour weeks for the foreseeable future when I enter the workplace. But yes, work/life balance is very important.

See, I don't think it really works like that. If you just force information into your brain for the sake of an exam, it's not going to stay with you when you enter the workforce. That's not education, it's pointless.
Now, If i come out of college with a first class honours degree in chemistry am I any less qualified than someone who gets the same degree from the korean system?

My proposal would be to abolish transition year, making the leaving cert a 3 year course but leaving the material to be covered unchanged. With this extra year, everyone can leave school with a much greater knowledge, having learnt most if it naturally (rather than cramming-which means they'll remember it in years to come) and enjoyed a healthy balance between schoolwork and personal pusuits for most of the three years.

True - regurgitating info for the sake of an exam is not helpful, besides demonstrating your ability to memorise facts in the short term. However, from personal experience I can tell you that foreign students coming into the Irish university system (depending on the course taken) often get much higher results than Irish counterparts (of course, the fact that they pay full international fees may be a driving factor too).

For example, one third level institution awarded a Chinese student 100% in some of his college exams (despite his disadvantage in knowing less than perfect English) - this had never happened before in the history of that course. There must be something that they're doing right that we could learn from... One could say the price to be paid to get people who can excel is too high to pay but we should look carefully at whether our system can be tweaked to promote self discipline and study within our children. So I agree with your point that yes a first from TCD etc is just as good as from Seoul Uni (technically I believe they're ahead by a smidgen ) but my point is, the Korean student (under their system) who comes to, say, Trinity - tends to get a higher mark in our system then our domestically educated students (even with the language disadvantage).

As for transition year, I've got mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, well organised years (like in my school) are a fantastic way for a child to relax and learn some "life skills" - we did sailing, life guard training, work placements, first aid training, voluntary work, football coaching, Gaisc, IT skills etc at our school. I hear of stories from friends where they just went to the cinema as a year trip - that is of less benefit to students of course. Funding as always is the issue, the government *should* give greater funds to schools so they can have a more interactive TY but right now that can't be on the priority list.

I would like to see a reduction of the amount of holidays children get - this way we can keep TY (which I believe to be very useful) and still cover the material in a reasonable amount of time (in fact I would suggest that more material should be added to the curriculum). I remember being bored by the end of summer and wanting school to restart so we could get cracking on new materials.

I recall being able to play rounds of tennis in between my leaving certificate exams - hardly the example of a stressed out and under pressure kid I think

Thirdfox wrote: »

In Ireland I don't see many kids studying till 8 or 9pm. Unless they're off to the Institute to learn how to get those A1 for studying medicine and whatnot.

Right from first year till sixth year I was bombarded with the phrase "3 hours study" (4 hours study was even mentioned many a time in 6th year). Now i never did any study and avoided all the homework I could (and subsequently got no As), but an awful lot of people do put in near to the "reccomended" amount of study (especially girls), and most of my friends did from about mid-way through 6th year. I know of at least one boarding school where students are made do 3 hours of study after school each day for all of 3rd, 5th and 6th year. I'm assuming this is the norm. I also know that the homework my sisters were given in their school (it was a public school btw) easily took them up 2.5-3 hours with no study, just homework.

This amount of work is imo, unacceptable. Looking at your post below, clearly we disagree on what constitutes work/life balance. Btw, getting thrashed once a weekend does not give you a balance, the thing about students who get 600 points never going out is a myth. It's the regular day to day enjoyment of life that they miss out on.

Unfortunately you're speaking to someone who'll be working 70 hour weeks for the foreseeable future when I enter the workplace. But yes, work/life balance is very important.



True - regurgitating info for the sake of an exam is not helpful, besides demonstrating your ability to memorise facts in the short term. However, from personal experience I can tell you that foreign students coming into the Irish university system (depending on the course taken) often get much higher results than Irish counterparts (of course, the fact that they pay full international fees may be a driving factor too).

For example, one third level institution awarded a Chinese student 100% in some of his college exams (despite his disadvantage in knowing less than perfect English) - this had never happened before in the history of that course. There must be something that they're doing right that we could learn from... One could say the price to be paid to get people who can excel is too high to pay but we should look carefully at whether our system can be tweaked to promote self discipline and study within our children. So I agree with your point that yes a first from TCD etc is just as good as from Seoul Uni (technically I believe they're ahead by a smidgen ) but my point is, the Korean student (under their system) who comes to, say, Trinity - tends to get a higher mark in our system then our domestically educated students (even with the language disadvantage).

I would be one of those people who thinks the price is too high. Yes he might do better in exams, but that's because he's putting in an insane amount of study, an amount no-one should be expected to do. Formal education should only account for a small percentage of your knowledge/understanding. People should be free to engage in independant learning and develop their talents. And also, i've seen the exact opposite happen aswell, students coming over here getting caught up in the easy life and realising towards the end that they're ****ed.

As for transition year, I've got mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, well organised years (like in my school) are a fantastic way for a child to relax and learn some "life skills" - we did sailing, life guard training, work placements, first aid training, voluntary work, football coaching, Gaisc, IT skills etc at our school. I hear of stories from friends where they just went to the cinema as a year trip - that is of less benefit to students of course. Funding as always is the issue, the government *should* give greater funds to schools so they can have a more interactive TY but right now that can't be on the priority list.

I would like to see a reduction of the amount of holidays children get - this way we can keep TY (which I believe to be very useful) and still cover the material in a reasonable amount of time (in fact I would suggest that more material should be added to the curriculum).

Why? I think the leaving cert is enough for people as a minimum of formal education. If they want to learn more they can go to college. "Life skills" should be spread out over all years, not confined to one.

I remember being bored by the end of summer and wanting school to restart so we could get cracking on new materials.

Just because your intellectual interests were covered by the school curriculum doesn't mean everyone's is. I think you are exceptional in this regard.

I recall being able to play rounds of tennis in between my leaving certificate exams - hardly the example of a stressed out and under pressure kid I think

Well good for you, wasn't the case for lots of other people though.

Cianos wrote: »

Part of the reason why Asians are noticeably better at maths than Westerners is because of how their language deals with numbers. The words to represent numbers are easier to follow when it comes to counting so they start with a better intuition towards the concept of mathematics. For example, the number "37" is written "thirty seven" by us, but "three tens, seven" by them. So doing a sum such as "37+49" for us is a bit tricky and we have to think it through, whereas with their language it is a lot more fluid, "three tens, seven plus four tens, 9". Because there are less symbols in use (eg for us there is the symbol of 30, 40, 7 and 9 but for them it's just multiples of 10, then 7 and 9) the brain can comprehend the task a lot more naturally.

Even If it is so, the language is just 10% of their succes in maths. 90% is very very very had studying from early age. Believe me, I know.