Education in the news

My father pointed out to me an article in the New York Times about a Korean school where pretty much all the kids go to Ivy League schools and average over 2200 on SATs. He somewhat halfheartedly seemed to be suggesting that there was some merit in their approach. Here's the article, but to summarize it's about 2 elite schools where the students do pretty much nothing but work for 6 AM until at least midnight every day.

Honestly, I find the whole thing disgusting. Aside from the 17 hour days that these kids put in, the focus on Ivy League as a brand name that's desirable as a something to affirm your sense of self worth is almost as disturbing. I've got nothing against hard work. I demand it of my students and of myself, but this just seems wrongheaded in every way. Is this the point of education? Maybe I'm missing a subtext that Korea is a place one wants to escape and that this is an ideal way to do so. Or maybe you can argue that this is kids' work, to do nothing but study until they are old enough to do other work. You can argue that, but you'll never get me to agree.

The article features an admission by the headmaster at one of the elite schools that American schools probably do a better job at educating the whole person, as opposed to pure academics, and I guess this is the point. What is the objective of the schooling exercise? Let's keep in mind that schools serve no present positive purpose (I know people do research at schools, but that's not what I'm talking about). Schools are a classic investment model, where you invest early to achieve desired returns later. I think that with these kids, the desired returns are new doctors and lawyers and university professors. This is a reasonable goal, but I don't think I want any of these types of people teaching or protecting the health and livelihood of my own kids.

One of my frat mates was a guy who studied night and day because he was determined to be a doctor. Watching him, we all thought about what a nightmare it would be if you found yourself in the emergency room one night and this guy was your doctor, because we knew that outside of academics, the guy was an idiot. If you were choosing a professor for your English Literature course, would you pick the one who had spent her whole life studying and practicing for tests and keeping her academic performance at the highest echelon and so had impressive degrees? Or would you prefer the one who took a year off after high school to kayak across the Amazon? Who will be better equipped to put material in context? Let me wrap up with some David Byrne lyrics:

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what you want them to...

...Facts are getting the best of us
Facts are nothing on the face of things.

Life has facts, but life is context. Sorry to borrow insight again, but in A Fish Called Wanda, Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) insults Otto (Kevin Kline), calling him an ape. "Apes don't read Nietzsche!" he replies and she retorts,"Yes they do, they just don't understand it." The world needs people who understand things, not people who know things.