Study Less, Live More

By Rick Ruffin

Studying is killing the people of South Korea. It is killing their joie de vivre and stifling any sense of humor the people may possess. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Studying is like a huge cloak that looms over the land, darkening everything. It is all a young Korean has to look forward to.

Everyday, I see the same tired faces schlepping their books to class. I see the same bodies hunched over their books in the libraries, sleeping. It is saddening, to say the least.

When I first came to South Korea, I couldn't understand why Koreans considered sleeping a hobby. But now I understand.

For people whose lives have been robbed of free time by a culture that worships sitting in the classroom, sleeping is the only form of pleasure that exists.

Where is the sense of humor in Korea? It's gone. Perhaps it never existed. People have their heads so entrenched in their books they fail to see the irony in everyday life.

Koreans study so much, they have forgotten who they are, why they are here, and what there is to life. This is what one of my students told me.

You cannot think when you spend 12 hours a day in school, or at the workplace, with teachers, supervisors, whoever, constantly telling you what to do. Your body starts to go limp, and your mind goes numb.

When I was a student at the University of Texas, long, long ago, my freshman English rhetoric teacher noticed the blank look on my face. She invited me to her office. ``Look," she said. ``If you don't like studying, don't go to school. It will (screw) your head up.''

That was the best advice anyone ever gave me.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child deemed the Korea environment ``unhealthy for proper child development'' because the children here spend their entire childhoods inside a classroom.

And 24/7 studying not only removes any spark one may have for living, but it is incredibly inefficient. Students are in class only physically. Their minds are elsewhere, probably dreaming of some fantasyland where books do not exist.

These are not simply my thoughts, but the thoughts of hundreds of contributors to The Korea Times and other daily newspapers throughout South Korea.

Take the recent Thoughts of The Times contribution, ``Hagwon Culture in Korea.'' The writer argues that learning would be increased by fewer, not more, hours spent in the classroom.

Kim Jeom-ok goes on to cite the horrible culture of ``parallel education,'' that saps 20.4 trillion hard-earned won out of people's hands each year. Excessive studying makes up one-tenth of the economy, she writes.

Parallel education means standing in front of a class and rattling on to zombie students who stopped paying attention long ago.

Parallel education means paying teachers with few credentials, no training and almost no experience to pontificate on something as if he/she were an expert in that field.

In his recent article, J. Edwin Sunder ― in a piece published in this very newspaper ― asked the question: ``Is Teaching Not a Profession in Korea?'' The answer is unequivocally ``No.''

There are too many hacks, teaching to legions of brain-dead zombies, who are fooled into thinking that they are spending their money wisely.

What would happen if people stopped studying excessively and paying exorbitant fees for the rights to sit yet another exam?

Life would go on. That's what.

Sure, there would be some short-term economic problems as the ``parallel education'' house of cards suddenly collapsed. But once the economy realigned, Koreans would realize that they have more time to think and to enjoy life.

And gross domestic product (GDP) might actually go up. And who knows, maybe some innovation might actually take place?

But then again, perhaps Koreans don't want change. Perhaps they enjoy studying and taking tests until they die, as evidenced by Kim Rahn's Korea Times article on Feb. 5. It's about a 68-year-old woman who has been trying to get a driver's license since 2005.

She's been paying 6,000 won every day for the right to take a test, which she inevitably fails. She hasn't missed a day yet ― 771 times so far ― since the article was published.

And, if we free all those children from the constraints of studying all the time, who knows what might happen? Graffiti, juvenile delinquency, vandalism, gangs ― the horror!

Well, perhaps not all countries can, or should be, the same. Variety is the spice of life.

The writer, a graduate of University of Texas, Austin, now writes from Gangneung, Gangwon Province. The author has lived on four continents and speaks five languages. He brings experience and a broad understanding of the world to the classroom. He can be reached at rick_ruffin@yahoo.com

[출처 : 코리아타임스]