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I Spent a Year Teaching in South Korea: What American Schools Can Learn from an Education Superpower
I stand in a classroom, there’s only one screen, one white board, and a whole lot of paper. Twenty-four kids sit with their hands to their sides and faces turned to the front, which is expected or else they lose a group point.
I bring out a stack of paper and point to the baskets of markers at the front: “we’re making English magazine covers today.”
This was a synthesis lesson for my sixth graders, it’s meant to incorporate culture, spelling skills, grammar skills, and knowing where to place an ad on front covers.
This was a highly successful lesson that utilized their creativity and practical skills to apply the English they had learned in that unit.
They are laughing, drawing, and making their own magazine covers ranging from gardening to sports related. The students would have lunch in a few hours, more classes, and then public school would end. Many would go to after-school academies afterward, and then the majority would study for who knows how long.
According to statistics and international tests like the PISA, which measures critical thinking skills, these are some of the top students in the world. The country scores in the top ten in almost every single academic…
