School In Harlem Shows Success Using Korean Educational Model
Here is an interesting story about a school in Harlem that is based on the Korean educational model to include making it mandatory for students to learn Korean as a second language:
“One of the big values I took away from Korea is that even though the Korean education system is one of the best in the world, nobody here thinks that the Korean education system is good enough and nobody is satisfied with being one of the best countries in the world,” said Seth Andrew, the 31-year-old New Yorker who founded a revolutionary school in Harlem that boosted the education level of under-privileged students in New York following a Korean model.
Andrew spoke as a guest speaker at an international education conference in Seoul on Thursday, where he was critical of the educational system in the United States, stating that there are 15 million low-income students, only half of whom graduate from high school.
And he said that “the belief that you can do better” has propelled Democracy Prep, which has lottery-based admission and free tuition and now sees over 5,000 students apply for the school in one of the poorer congressional districts in the United States.
At the conference, he was once more reunited with the educator who gave him heartfelt respect for the Korean educational model — the principal of a middle school in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, he had taught in over a decade ago.
Andrew, who was on a 10-day trip to Korea with his wife, stated that a huge inspiration for following the Korean educational model was thanks to the positive experience he had as an English teacher here, where he was moved by the hospitality of the Dong-sung Middle School principal and faculty.
“They welcomed me to their community with open arms, took me out to meals and made me feel like family,” he said, and he was awed by the environment in which teachers are treated with reverence.
He brought that experience with him to the United States, where he founded Democracy Prepatory Charter School in Harlem, New York, in 2005, which has slowly expanded to six campuses from kindergarten to the high-school level and has plans to expand the school by two campuses a year. Students in the Democracy Prep Charter High School work longer hours than the average New York student and are required to learn Korean as a second language.
by GI Korea