Koreans kids

yesterday, while one of my students was diligently designing and drawing a tower on the board as part of a classroom assignment, he had a brilliant idea.....he decided to use a word that i usually use to describe work that he does, "sucks".....when he realized that his marker wasn't working very well, and another student's marker was, he felt the only appropriate response could be "here other ones, those are good, but mine was sucks"

i'm beginning to understand Korean culture a little bit more, and am having severe reservations about how beaurocratic and anti-creative it is.....many young people here only remain reserved because they have to.....they study hard and work at improving test scores for 12 years in order to write 1 exam.....one 8-hour exam that essentially determines their entire future.....but when you introduce an issue that can be debated and is culturally important, and you explain what it means, then have well-thought out and logical arguments to present.....and under normal circumstances, they would never be afforded the opportunity to convey these types of thoughts.....the education system here is well-documented at creating excellent businessmen and problem-solvers.....in fact, internationally, South Korea produces students representing the world's best problem solvers, the world's 2nd best readers, and the world's 3rd best scientists.....however, this says nothing of original thought and creativity.....this is a system that creates wonderful beaurocrats, but a distinctly limited number of philosophers, free-thinkers and artists.....the style typifiying the lives and education of Korean children is a non-stop over-education of repetition until the age of 18.....and in accordance with the language used by one of my students, this system "was sucks", not because it fails to help students achieve excellence, but because it does not allow time or margin for almost anything other than achieving test scores