NYTimes: In South Korea, Questions About Cram Schools, Success and Happiness

[Anonymous]

I watched Dead Poets Society in the '80s and '90s and thought, 'Wow, the upper class in the US is intense.'

It’s just that the US has a much wider social spectrum, which provides more flexibility and options.
Countries like Japan and Korea have a narrower and more compact social spectrum, hence higher expectations and more competition.

There are pros and cons in each, of course, just like anything else.
The pros of a more compact social spectrum include lower crime rates, common social ground, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I watched Dead Poets Society in the '80s and '90s and thought, 'Wow, the upper class in the US is intense.'

It’s just that the US has a much wider social spectrum, which provides more flexibility and options.
Countries like Japan and Korea have a narrower and more compact social spectrum, hence higher expectations and more competition.

There are pros and cons in each, of course, just like anything else.
The pros of a more compact social spectrum include lower crime rates, common social ground, and so on.

Dead Poets is about the high school class of 1960. My dad went to a similar high school, in that class, and chose Yale over Tufts because Tufts required an essay and Yale did not. He studied engineering despite not reaching calculus in high school. I’m really not sure how that world is relevant to the one our kids are living in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I watched Dead Poets Society in the '80s and '90s and thought, 'Wow, the upper class in the US is intense.'

It’s just that the US has a much wider social spectrum, which provides more flexibility and options.
Countries like Japan and Korea have a narrower and more compact social spectrum, hence higher expectations and more competition.

There are pros and cons in each, of course, just like anything else.
The pros of a more compact social spectrum include lower crime rates, common social ground, and so on.

The US is quickly losing that wider social spectrum. It’s turning into every other place, where some people are ridiculously wealthy while most others are deeply in debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Albert Einstein never went to cram school.

And if your kid isn't albert einstein?

My kid isn’t Einstein, and she never went to cram school, but she still scored 1550+ on the SAT (with an 800 math) and 5s on all her APs.

I think the thing about Americans is that we think our A students will hit this bar regardless and our B students are better off finding another lane, not grinding and grasping for this one particular academic brass ring. I guess Korean society is less flexible, which seems sad to me (but perhaps that’s a very American attitude).

I know this will sound lame, but it is genuinely not difficult these days to score 1550+ and all 5s on APs because both the SAT and APs have been dumbed down from the time most DCUM parents took them in the 80s/90s. That most Americans are not scoring that way is telling you about the educational system here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I watched Dead Poets Society in the '80s and '90s and thought, 'Wow, the upper class in the US is intense.'

It’s just that the US has a much wider social spectrum, which provides more flexibility and options.
Countries like Japan and Korea have a narrower and more compact social spectrum, hence higher expectations and more competition.

There are pros and cons in each, of course, just like anything else.
The pros of a more compact social spectrum include lower crime rates, common social ground, and so on.

Dead Poets is about the high school class of 1960. My dad went to a similar high school, in that class, and chose Yale over Tufts because Tufts required an essay and Yale did not. He studied engineering despite not reaching calculus in high school. I’m really not sure how that world is relevant to the one our kids are living in.

Do you think the world has changed much? I don't think so.
Look at how much the upper class in the US obsesses over name-brand colleges for their kids.
This is a fairly recent example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal