Maybe the title of this post should be "How To Present Foreign Knowledge Out of Cultural Context."
The February 19 issue of New York Magazine reported on some new findings from a Columbia University study that showed it just might be beneficial to not praise your kid too much for being "smart" but better to emphasize the "hard work" done. What's important in this is the fact that if performance flags, you can't say "you're not smart" although you can say "you didn't try hard."
The most important thing is that since there's an image of the kid "being smart," if there is failure, the kid feels bad. And when there are new things to try, new skills to falter at, the kid is often scared to try, for fear of not living up to that expectation. Of course, there would be none of that if the kid is expected to "try hard." The money quote in the article:
"I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts."
OK – all good, all good. I don't have a kid yet and it all sounds fine to me. I'm not writing here to debate the fine points of child-rearing; I am, however, writing to talk about cultural contexts and how amazingly little this is conveyed in the information that Korea gets from the West.
So when this report first came out in New York Magazine and started getting reported in American media, of course the Korean media picked up on it a few days later. It appeared, as far as I can tell, here first, then on television, then quoted widely in places such as cafes and blogs, and most likely on the morning radio news before being passed around the virtual water cooler.
What's the problem, then?
Well, the whole thing is taken out of cultural context. When it comes to education and child-rearing in the States, the cultural backdrop against which this article appears is one of excessive praise and a feel-good emphasis on "self-esteem," one that is starting to create a lot of irritation amongst academics and the intelligentsia, which, like most knowledge, will be followed up soon in the popular culture.
Even as some are starting to not only reject the Oprah Winfrey/Dr. Phil/"I am somebody" model of psychological "well-being" (here's another loan word fad I don't need to start getting on about), and some are starting to do so with extreme prejudice, there is still the fact that the "culture of praise" in America and Korea are almost polar opposites.
Look at the how this is illustrated in the photo illustration that accompanied the original article.
It's obviously referencing, as per the article, the fact that kids' sense of self, especially as it has to do with being "smart," are pumped up to outrageous proportions.
So what effect does this have in Korea, then?
This is an education culture that does not generally offer praise, in which a 95 on a test elicits the typical Korean mother question of "Where are the other 5 points?" The education culture in America tends to be, to a fault, "Good job! You're so smart!"
Of course, everybody doesn't fall into two categories, but the tendencies, for anyone who has been deeply immersed in both education cultures, is undeniable. I constantly was telling my high achievers in the foreign language high schools that I would have died for a (then) nearly perfect 1560 on the SAT. Or when I got a 94 on a given test in a difficult subject in high school, I was quite satisfied, since I knew how much work it took to get that grade.
I instinctively learned the way of the "law of diminishing returns," but didn't learn the law explicitly until college; Korean kids, on the other hand, have all learned of the academic existence of the law, but find it impossible to apply to their actual lives.
So I am not going to spend double the effort it took me to get a 94 on a geometry exam in the first place just to get a 98, because those precious hours could be spent doing something else. 3 hours of studying to get a 94 versus 6 hours to get a 98 doesn't make sense to me. I just slowly came to realize that I wasn't that good at math, I'd have to try harder to get a decent score than others, and that it would be silly to hold myself up to a standard of perfection in that area.
Everyone has strong and weak points.
But the Korean style of academic achievement doesn't recognize this. Parents don't recognize this, so kids can't. And until recently, the entire structure of the Korean education system didn't recognize this. What do I mean?
Everyone in Korea wants their kid to go to Seoul National University. Not really, but kind of. So the process of discovering that this might not be possible for the kid, or that the kid has decided not to pursue the life of self-torture and self-flagellation required to clear the hoops to get there, or that they want to have a career in modern dance, or go to Chungang University to be a photographer, is often a painful one.
This painful process is usually a struggle of watching the kid not match expectations of perfection, or at least the parents' lofty dreams. It is maintained by a cutthroat entrance examination culture, in which a 94 on a test does mean you're not in the top. It's tough for all around, and it results in kids getting pushed to extremes.
And even if kids are self-motivated, they're brutal in their self-flagellation. I had one student at my previous institution want to drop out because she was getting averages in the low 90's. She was actually considering dropping out, madly attending hagwons to catch up, then reentering the same school at the same grade level to compete. I called her plan sheer and utter madness – although all nice and counselor-like – and she later calmed down and used her obvious ambition to do well in the place she was at.
But this was just one of many scary Korean student stories I could tell you after a stiff drink. Well, you wouldn't need a stiff drink to get me started, but I do like stiff drinks.
Point is that, after this story gets oversimplified through the filter of careless reporters writing them up without even a note to the vastly different cultural contexts from which they appear in the West, people are talking on the street how "you're not supposed to tell kids they're smart."
Whaaaaaat? In an education culture that seriously needs to tell kids that they're good at anything, that test scores are not the reification of your worth as a human being, such that kids don't go taking flying leaps off of their apartment buildings every November?
You have to emphasize that crucial point, or it's being irresponsible. What, the photo illustrations that accompanied the original New York Magazine story, with the "I'm awesome" trophy or the little girl sitting atop a stack of them, wasn't a tipoff?
This is irresponsible and sheerly stupid reporting in an education culture that has elementary school children killing themselves because of academic pressure.
Let me repeat that for those who didn't get it. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN kill themselves because of academic pressure in this country.
And the Korean media is implying that kids need to be complimented less? See, that works in an education culture that might compliment kids too much, or too much in the wrong way; but I'm what I'm saying is that Korean kids are not, for all intents and purposes, complimented at all.
That's almost as dumb as saying that "A recent study shows that excessive kimchi consumption leads to stomach cancer" and then The New York Times food section writing up that "klmchi leads to cancer."
Helllllooooooo?
If I have to draw out the fact that in one country, people eat kimchi EVERY DAY and in the other, most people don't, then this entire point is lost on them.
Well, it seems lost on most members of the Korean media, which is basically reporting the "praise causes cancer" in respect to its "inverse power."
Which leads me to inaugurate a new category here, which I'll call "Korean Media Follies."
I'm going to praise myself for how smart I am now.
