[A READER'S VIEW]The ability to socialize

I offer this letter as an addendum to Susan Oak`s "Who is the education system for?" (Sept. 9 edition). I couldn`t agree more with Professor Oak. I was recently hired as an English-language lecturer and greatly anticipated my return to a university community. I had taught at university level in my home country, and the opportunity to once again be standing in front of a classroom full of tomorrow`s leaders excited me. It was a university, after all, and fresh ideas would be tossed about, and stimulating arguments would echo from my classroom.

But my grand ambitions were all for naught. As Susan Oak mentioned, with all that rigorous studying preparing for the "November Nightmare" (a moniker I have heard tossed around for the mighty university entrance exam), somewhere along the lines these kids have failed miserably in one of life`s greatest tests: the ability to socialize.

Bent on producing astronomical test scores parents have let this lesson slip by the wayside. But if these same parents could witness their children - now almost adults - in a university setting they would cringe with embarrassment.

The first oddity that struck me in my first week at school was that the males and females separated themselves in the classroom. It resembled an elementary school dance with 12-year-old boys and girls teetering about uncomfortably on opposite walls. After asking the class to work in mixed pairs, a palpable nervous energy filled the air.

Asked later to practice a short, three-line rehearsed dialogue by mingling with the other students, this directive was received with blank stares. "Is it really true? He wants me to walk around and talk with other people? Is he out of his mind? Can`t he just put some grammar rules on the board?" I had to guide reluctant students to a partner, and when asked to switch partners and continue, I was met by even more dumbfounded gazes. Again I was forced to play matchmaker. In essence I was the science teacher at a school dance, ensuring everyone had a partner.

What left me speechless was that most of these students were not freshman (not that that would have been an excuse).

They were adults. And to answer the critics in advance, the language barrier was not an issue. That was far from the issue.

This was not a beginner level class, and all of these students were comfortable with the dialogue.

I was forced to speculate, then, how these students will behave in the real world. But as an after-thought, is this not the real world? Isn`t a university just another place where adults have come together with a common purpose, akin to a business meeting, Sunday service, a bar or club, or a committee or organization?

With these students trained only to regurgitate information, it feels like anything but. And the students themselves are hardly to blame. The education system itself has to shoulder the heaviest blame, as does a society that creates this unbalanced focus.

Susan Oak is entirely correct in her observations. Drastic changes in the education system need to come about. Success for Koreans at the international level will not emerge from memorizers and regurgitators. Instead, success surfaces on the heels of those individuals who can socialize at an acceptable level in a world where conviviality and the ability to exchange ideas often marks your place in the public eye, and not in the diploma hanging in the privacy of your home.

Gary Fogal is a lecturer at Hongik University. - Ed.

By Gary Fogal