Education

From Time Asia: Asia's Overscheduled Kids.

Working as an English teacher for little kids in a Korean hagwon for a year and a half, I was a part of the system. Some of my students, who would come in for an hour and a half, two or three days a week, told me they had two or three other hagwons besides ours; they would go for art classes, music classes, math classes, science classes, and so on. This was IN ADDITION to regular school.

One little girl in another teacher's class (she might have been 9 or 10 years old) claimed to sleep 4 hours a night. She seemed wide awake and happy enough. Maybe it didn't bother her.

The article talks about the possible liberalization of the educational system in various Asian countries; I haven't actually observed much loosening up from where I am. Meanwhile it seems like American society is moving in the same direction as Asian society, especially among the upper classes who can afford it. Every so often, especially while living in the DC area, I heard about how people with money sign their children up for a full schedule of extracurriculars, beginning when the kids are preschool age.

I honestly can't speculate on whether this is a good thing or not.