Cram School Bullying East Asian School Kids

MANURADA

4440156322

One day in Japan, a 14 year-old boy invited a younger schoolmate, 11 year-old, out for some fun, luring him to a quiet hill where he strangled the boy and sawed off his head, then placed it into a plastic bag and dropped it off at the gate of his school with a note from his mouth “Revenge against the compulsory education system and the society that created it.” This is one incident from a considerable pieces of evidence showing that school kids in East Asia have committed violent crimes and even committed suicide resulting from the extreme stress resulting from too much study and too much emphasis on achieving academic goals. Cram school, a place which teaches kids in the wrong way while promising to help them reach their dreams, is bullying many East Asian school kids, adversely affecting their lifestyle and personal development, family relationships and overall quality of life.

Many cram schools claim that parents and their kids come to enroll in the supplementary courses because they are unhappy with the traditional school system. But, do they come to enroll with none of former information of the cram schools? Does the ad of the school influence on them? Of course, cram school ads exploit parental concerns, emphasize competition and reinforce preconceived idea about the importance of grades rather than learning. For instance, famous cram school brochures include the highest score of their ex-students to illustrate that they can help kids to reach high scores just like they had done before. Moreover, cram school obviously takes advantage of kids’ dreams and parents’ dreams for their kids because they know that Education in East Asian countries is perhaps the most decisive factor for personal career success in these competitive societies. Society’s expectation like this is the flawed nature of the education system. As a result, parents would feel instability about their kids grades, so they try to find anything which can guarantee them that their kids would pass an entrance exam. Parental concern makes parents and their children to be as cram school preys. However, there is a statistic of Office of National Education Committee in Thailand shows that most students who decide to enroll in cram school already have good grades in their regular schools. Why? “Nearly 90% of kids want to have something they can boast of being better than everyone else.”(Survey of Elementary School kids) “Approximately 60% of Japanese high school kids go for supplemental lessons.”(Daily Life of Japanese High School Kids) Do those who operate cram schools ever realize the effects of their ads and their promises? In South Korea, a woman was arrested by police because of her part time job as a prostitute. She told the police that she needed the extra money to pay for extra tuition for her kids. Why did she have to do so? No mother wants their kids to be alienated; if other parents send their kids to the school, why shouldn’t she. But of course, the cram school fees are very expensive because “the more they guarantee, the higher fee parents have to pay.” Cram schools can place a heavy burden of family finances.

However, cram schools have claimed that many regular schools fail to teach their students adequately. They make students bored because of old styles of teaching which focus on memorization and teacher-centered instruction. Traditional teachers only read textbooks to their kids and the kids have to listen and answer their teachers’ questions. Nevertheless, the traditional system still creates some communication between teacher and student while cram schools do not. If we take a look at the cram school way of teaching carefully, we would see that cram schools perpetuate the system. Cram school instructors tells their kids all they need to ...