it's not just US public schools that are rotting

Headline:

Respect wanes: Teaching no longer highly coveted job in S. Korea

When a 23-year-old man surnamed Choi entered an "education university" to receive teacher training in South Korea three years ago, he believed he was stepping into a highly-coveted profession. Like many before him, he saw teaching as a stable, meaningful job.

But today, as he finds that teachers are no longer respected as educators or moral guides, Choi is reconsidering everything.

Overwhelmed by the declining authority of teachers in schools and concerned about the profession's long-term prospects, he has taken a leave of absence and is preparing to take the national college entrance exam again — this time to pursue a degree in pharmacy.

“Teachers can no longer teach in the way they used to,” Choi said. “They are constantly challenged, monitored, and disrespected. Classrooms have become increasingly difficult environments to manage. Teachers face verbal and even legal confrontations from students and parents."

Choi’s doubts echo those of many young Koreans. Once considered a prestigious calling, the teaching profession in South Korea is losing both its appeal and its authority.

This erosion of teachers' authority in classrooms has driven young people away from teaching and dragged down the competitiveness of education universities nationwide.

It's bad all over. Young Koreans aren't exactly known for high ambition in terms of career achievement: no, their desires are more for jobs that are steady, stable, lifelong, and hard to get fired from. That's the impression I got from hundreds of college students at the various universities where I used to teach. So yes, being a teacher was a big goal for some; for others, it was becoming a government functionary or entering a big corporation where, even if they didn't rise far in the ranks, they could be more or less sure the corporation would be rich enough to take care of them.

Contrast this with American youth who get into teaching: those kids are motivated in no small part by idealism and actual care, whether they're ideologically messed up in the head or not (and most are). Of course, those of us who stay in the business usually end up jaded and cynical as we realize what a joke the education racket is; I suppose the cynicism could be seen as a lingering sign of care. Education, as an institution, is failing people the world over; maybe Korea sensed this long ago when the need to send kids to hagweons (specialized, extracurricular cram schools for math, music, etc.) suddenly became intense.

But these days—since the 90s, really—those of us who work in hagweons can tell you that education even outside of school walls is a joke. How many of my girls at Sookmyung Women's University even remembered half of their Chinese characters? How many Korean college students could point to Morocco on a map? I had one girl at Dongguk University who came into class wearing a Boy of London shirt with a logo that, except for the swastika, was basically the Reichstag eagle, and she had no clue. And she had the temerity to get mad at me for being astounded by her ignorance! When I taught at the Catholic University of Daegu, I had a semester during which bored, stupid students frequently sneaked peeks at their cell phones as if they were American high schoolers.

Yes, it's true: things are rotting everywhere. I'm glad I'm old and have heart failure; I won't live to see the house of cards fall. What a sad time that will be.