A Professional Liar and His Law of Productivity
"How do I get my kids into Ivy League schools?" Working in the hagwon business, it is THE fundamental question teachers and consultants must be held answerable to their clients. The inquiring looks of the students and their parents are surely never to be satisfied by any explanation, no matter how long, sophisticated, detailed they are...but the question still had to be answered. Amid the non-ending competition for clients among different hagwons, the standard answers about extracurricular activities, SAT scores, and essays, at some point many many years ago, have became nowhere near sufficient....
In a market where anyone who lived and went to school in the States can claim (and often do so shamelessly) him or herself to be an "expert in American education system," the shadowy arts of "unconventional persuasion" becomes not only handy but also completely necessary and required for the very economic survival of the so-called "experts" in the hagwon business. "But the admision standards for American colleges have not changed for 50 years!" The truly honest ones can confess; and they are totally right...
Yes, it is not the admission standards that have changed, but the students themselves. The standards ask for diverse backgrounds and unique characters, but the meanings of the words "diverse," "unique," and myriads of other such buzzwords have changed. All thanks to the newly wealthy and evermore education-conscious parents, especially here in Asia, evidences of individuality sufficient to wow the admission officers 50 years ago are surely now just commonplace listing that can easily be bought with cash and listed on applications.
Sports, musical instruments, academic awards, volunteer trips to distant parts of the world...all are just "been there, done that" for high school students of these days, carried on without a slight concern for the financial burden their families have to shoulder. And as professional businesspersons in the hagwon business, we have no qualms about suggesting more "meaningful" activities for their parents to burn their hard-earned cash for, as long as they can hear that chances for their spoiled children to get into Harvard are just got that much bigger...
I recently read an article reviewing the "necessary evil" of China's gaokao (高考, national college entrance exam) system. The author argued that the system currently in place, because of the fair historical values of social mobility through education, is truly sacred. I tend to agree that such is true for Confucian cultures such as China and Korea, but to see the American college admission process as such is plain ridiculous. It is simply not a matter of efforts and input but a matter of...well, lying, just like we the hagwon consultants have been doing to the clients for years and years.
It is about taking that little grain of truth and decorating it with so much flowery details that the original truth is actually not visible without a fair amount of digging into the details. "Its ok," we say, "just leave your kids to us. We will make sure to raise his scores by 300 points and eventually get them all into the best colleges in the States. No promises of Harvard, but anything only slightly below, we see no problems." If the kids show half as much confidence on their applications and in their interviews as we show when we say such things to parents, well, maybe there really won't be any problems.
Then the reality hits. The kids are generally without big dreams about what they wanted to do because their parents forced them to do everything. Hagwon is not that sacred educational institute that we in the business hold them to be, but instead mere social environments, where kids come to make new friends (and perhaps more), with a slightly academic facade. As the kids get familiar with each other and the teachers, the learning practically stops amid non-ending mayhem and a blaming game starts amid shattered expectations.
I would call this point the "consensus of mediocrity." Kids don't give a damn, teachers don't give a damn, and consultants don't give a damn. They enjoy the relaxing environment that prevails in the hagwon and gang up to bend reality in front of the parents. Few rounds of pointing fingers later, money flows to the hagwon and kids make new friends in a truly win-win situation. I think if "productivity" here is measured in anything besides changes in SAT scores, we all here could be better at "creating value out of nothing" than those guys down in Wall Street....
In a market where anyone who lived and went to school in the States can claim (and often do so shamelessly) him or herself to be an "expert in American education system," the shadowy arts of "unconventional persuasion" becomes not only handy but also completely necessary and required for the very economic survival of the so-called "experts" in the hagwon business. "But the admision standards for American colleges have not changed for 50 years!" The truly honest ones can confess; and they are totally right...
Yes, it is not the admission standards that have changed, but the students themselves. The standards ask for diverse backgrounds and unique characters, but the meanings of the words "diverse," "unique," and myriads of other such buzzwords have changed. All thanks to the newly wealthy and evermore education-conscious parents, especially here in Asia, evidences of individuality sufficient to wow the admission officers 50 years ago are surely now just commonplace listing that can easily be bought with cash and listed on applications.
Sports, musical instruments, academic awards, volunteer trips to distant parts of the world...all are just "been there, done that" for high school students of these days, carried on without a slight concern for the financial burden their families have to shoulder. And as professional businesspersons in the hagwon business, we have no qualms about suggesting more "meaningful" activities for their parents to burn their hard-earned cash for, as long as they can hear that chances for their spoiled children to get into Harvard are just got that much bigger...
I recently read an article reviewing the "necessary evil" of China's gaokao (高考, national college entrance exam) system. The author argued that the system currently in place, because of the fair historical values of social mobility through education, is truly sacred. I tend to agree that such is true for Confucian cultures such as China and Korea, but to see the American college admission process as such is plain ridiculous. It is simply not a matter of efforts and input but a matter of...well, lying, just like we the hagwon consultants have been doing to the clients for years and years.
It is about taking that little grain of truth and decorating it with so much flowery details that the original truth is actually not visible without a fair amount of digging into the details. "Its ok," we say, "just leave your kids to us. We will make sure to raise his scores by 300 points and eventually get them all into the best colleges in the States. No promises of Harvard, but anything only slightly below, we see no problems." If the kids show half as much confidence on their applications and in their interviews as we show when we say such things to parents, well, maybe there really won't be any problems.
Then the reality hits. The kids are generally without big dreams about what they wanted to do because their parents forced them to do everything. Hagwon is not that sacred educational institute that we in the business hold them to be, but instead mere social environments, where kids come to make new friends (and perhaps more), with a slightly academic facade. As the kids get familiar with each other and the teachers, the learning practically stops amid non-ending mayhem and a blaming game starts amid shattered expectations.
I would call this point the "consensus of mediocrity." Kids don't give a damn, teachers don't give a damn, and consultants don't give a damn. They enjoy the relaxing environment that prevails in the hagwon and gang up to bend reality in front of the parents. Few rounds of pointing fingers later, money flows to the hagwon and kids make new friends in a truly win-win situation. I think if "productivity" here is measured in anything besides changes in SAT scores, we all here could be better at "creating value out of nothing" than those guys down in Wall Street....
Comments
Post a Comment