When a new semester starts, parents and students begin to worry about the students’ grades. They squirm to find the best “hagwons,” academies or private educational institutes, to improve their GPA and standardized testing scores. As the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)’s research shows, Korean students attend after-school classes organized by commercial companies and paid for by the parents six times more than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average students do.
“Piggy moms” is a special term in Korean to describe those mothers with gauging interests in their child’s education and having a lot of knowledge about the private academic institutions. Often times, they are overly involved in their children’s educational and academic life. Everyone knows that "piggy moms” want to help their children, but some students get stressed by their parents’ involving. According to Hallym University College of Education and Mental Health Sciences, Korea has a higher teenager suicide rate compared to the average rate in OECD countries in 2015. Students’ main sources of anxiety, before they committed suicide, were the pressure from their parents to receive good grades (26%), depression (19.4%), domestic violence (19.3%), conflicts between peers and school bullying (13.8%), problems related to dating and relationships (4.7%), and complex of appearance (4.3%). (Source: http://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20150801009012)
Results from this report does not necessarily allude to the fact that parents should stop associating themselves with their children’s academic life because many of those mothers certainly help leading their sons and daughters closer to the path of success. However, Hallym University’s research suggests that parents should perhaps take into account the well being and satisfaction of their children, and whether or not their parents’ hopes coincide with theirs.
(Students take a rest and sleep during break time in hagwon)
To get a firsthand account from a student, I interviewed Lim Young-Jae who attended three hagwons for math, science, and English. He recently transferred to an international high school, from Korean school.
Q1) What was your daily schedule like when you went to a Korean high school?
I used to go to hagwon right after school. It started at 4:30 p.m. and ended at 10 p.m. I had dinner which was just food from convenience stores during break time. Whenever I came back from hagwon, I did my homework or studied. I went to bed around 1:00 - 2:00 a.m.
Q2) I heard you had a hard time from depression for a while. Was it related to your “hagwon life”?
I wouldn’t say my depression was because of hagwon, but it did affect me in some way. I know many of my friends and students in Korea are living a very busy life. So I followed them and believed that it is my only way to live to be successful in Korea. In spite of myself, I was under stress by my school, my hagwon, and myself who pushed me so hard.
Q3) Would you recommend hagwon for other students who need help academically?
Yes. I mean hagwon was not suitable for me, but for some students hagwon would help them to improve their grades and study skills. The most important thing is to make sure that they attend hagwon by their will not by their parents, teachers, or friends. Nevertheless some people can better job without going to hagwon. In my case, I got better grades after I quitted hagwon because I learned how to plan for studying and how to improve my concentration level by myself.
(Interviewing Lim Young-Jae)
As Lim Young-Jae said, students and parents should know that hagwon is not the only way to raise grades and all individuals should develop their own study style which would help them a lot academically. Furthermore, parents should make an effort to communicate with their children about their well being and make sure that they are not forcing them to perform as other students do and comparing them to the others.
