한국국제교류재단

When their daughter has left, Son and her husband leave for work. On the way, theycheck their daughter’s after-school schedule. Today, Son takes her daughter to the hagwonby eight in the evening, and her husband will pick her up at ten. This weekday schedule iseasily manageable.

Weekends, though, are another matter. “On Saturdays, she has a class at ten in themorning. I take her to the hagwon and wait for two hours. When she’s finished, we get somelunch before her next class at one. Three hours later, I pick her up and come home. Then Itake her to a hagwon in Gangnam, an hour away from home, for a class at seven and pickher up again at ten. Fathers sometimes help, but mostly moms do the driving. Sundays aresimilar,” Son says.

Obviously there’s a reason for the cars lined up in the neighborhoods packed with privateafter-school academies that specialize in training for the college entrance exams. Motherswillingly become their child’s feet and move around with their child as if one. To study is thechild’s responsibility; the mother’s responsibility is to find the right hagwon for her child andplay chauffer, shuttling the child between hagwon and home. Many mothers willingly sharethe torment of staying awake late into the night for as long as their child is studying.

What’s it like to virtually become part of a 19-year-old student? Son seems to be walkingthat path rather calmly, the same path taken by the mothers of some 600,000 studentsevery year. We can assume, however, that she’s living an “aberrant time” of her life, whichcalls for her to suspend some of her values for the sake of her child’s future. I asked Son, ahigh school teacher, about this difficult period. As she talks about her daily life, touching onthe reality of the current educational system, one can sense the inescapable exhaustion ofour time.

Son Ae-ran and her daughter examine the list of new courses offered by a private academy.

“Most kids in this Mok-dong area think that attending a hagwon every night is completelynormal. Even children in elementary school study until ten at night without much resistance,though they will often rub their sleepy eyes. Because all the other kids are doing thesame thing, no one thinks they are the only one having a hard time,” Son says.

Mok-dong, where Son lives, is a middle-class neighborhood filled with apartment complexes,located in the northwestern part of Seoul. It is known as the “hagwon Mecca,” alongwith Daechi-dong in Gangnam. Students typically throng to hagwon after school lets out.Hagwon are places where not only their learning but also their time is entrusted. Studentspassively follow the schedule set for them without any question. They don’t try to managetheir time on their own, and cannot anyway. Mothers may be skeptical about such anarrangement, but apart from those with exceptionally strong principles and inner strengthmost don’t have the courage to steer their children in a different direction.

In terms of their hagwon, Son compared Mok-dong with Incheon, where she is a teacher.Incheon is an area that hovers near the bottom in the nationwide trial exams for the CollegeScholastic Aptitude Test.

“Students are going through the turbulent period of puberty. When they have problemsand start to rebel, the mothers in Mok-dong usually take note and try to find a solution.Actually, the hagwon don’t allow the students much time to go astray,” Son says. “Butthe situation is different in Incheon, especially in areas with many factories, like where myschool is located. The students who don’t attend hagwon have a lot of free time after school.They are not trained to use the time to study on their own, and their parents don’t havetime to provide guidance. Unsure of what they want to do, they just hang around with theirfriends, but the problem is that they lack the kind of friends who could have a positive influenceon them.”

The power of the hagwon is absolute, ruling over even the emotions and actions of adolescentstudents. Aware of this power, mothers are constantly swayed and intimidated.“Mothers are ceaselessly worried. They compare their child’s grades with those of othersand fret that their child might fall behind by studying alone. The academies know this verywell, and even fuel such worries,” Son says.

Mothers therefore often switch from one hagwon or tutor to another in search of somethingbetter. To obtain the information about hagwon available only to the upper-crustminority, they put effort into forming relationships and even seriously consider special privatelessons costing several million won per session. What comes out of this obsessive educationalfervor is distorted advance learning through private lessons. For example, in areaswhere private education is overheated, an elementary school child might already be studyinghigh school math. When this kind of abnormality is regarded as standard, those who fallbelow this standard are wholly excluded.

Son talked about living with this extreme obsession: “In the midst of all the informationinciting parents toward private education, it is important to maintain balance. There’s nolimit if you get too ambitious. But even for me, it was unavoidable to have my child learn oneyear in advance.”

As her daughter goes through her tough final year of high school preparing for the university entrance exams, Son encourages her and tries to make sure she doesn’t lose her self-esteem.

Is there no masterful policy that can alleviate this fever?

“My daughter is taking the natural sciences track. Students with higher grades tend tochoose natural sciences, and the competition for grades is extremely fierce. If you makejust one mistake on a math test, you can instantly drop from the first level to the third level.Studying is like walking on thin ice,” Son says.

In these circumstances, changes in college entrance policies have hardly any real effectin easing the burden on students, regardless of whether the school’s grade point averageis given greater weight than College Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, or whether extracurricularactivities and achievements are encouraged alongside school grades. Whatever thecase, parents, students, and the private education sector scramble to adjust to the new policies.The students can never experience the joy of learning, and their inner world suffers asa result.

The students on the other end of the spectrum suffer as well. “These days, there are many supoja [students who have given up on math],” Son explains. “They didn’t learn thebasics properly in elementary and middle school and can’t follow the lessons in high school.Math lessons have no meaning for them. But there is something they are really interestedin and can get good scores in. That’s online games. Naturally, they become obsessed. I oftensee students who play games till late at night then come to school after barely managing tocrawl out of bed.”

Even those students who are unable to reach the top in academic competition havetheir own ambitions and self-esteem to uphold. But our society is not generous enough tounderstand their loneliness and offer support to them. All things eventually come underthe charge of the mothers. Son says, “I try to pay attention and take care that my child canmaintain her self-esteem. We talk a lot about how to be humble and still have a proud heart.With self-esteem, she can endure and survive any hardship. She can believe in herself.”

It seems Son’s efforts are working, for she says her daughter is going through the tunnelof her final school year without much trouble.

“My daughter is the type who keeps her troublesto herself, so I try to read her heart better and help her out,” she adds, her eyes revealingdeep understanding. Her peace is probably from the alchemy that transforms the harshand unfair burdens of our times into a mother’s boundless love.