Day 81: Anything???

I've noticed a really significant difference between how Korean and Western kids learn and study at school recently. My Korean students are all exceptionally talented at memorizing things, whether that be words, or sentence patterns, or numbers and formulas, but when it comes to anything creative, it's a whole different reaction..... If it's basic memorization or reiteration or repeating what I say or a straight forward question and answer, they excel at it. But anything that involves a question with an open answer, or having to create or imagine something, their reactions range from downright confusion to near panic.

The other day I gave out an assignment to some of my younger kids that involved creating a picture - any picture - out of 3 basic shapes, that would later be coloured and cut up into a puzzle that they could play with later on. It was extremely simple and because it was a lesson in creativity, there really was no wrong way to do it. However, I had to explain it to the kids over and over that they could draw anything they chose. Their puzzled faces kept asking "ANYTHING??? I don't understand, Scott-Teacher..." It wasn't the word 'anything' that was confusing them - I tried to explain it a number of ways, but it was rather the concept of having complete freedom to draw up whatever they liked that seemed to leave them stunned.

After a few minutes of conversing amongst each other, most of the class seemed to understand the assignment and went right to it. But several of them just couldn't grasp the concept. They kept waiting for me to give them something specific to draw or create, but I didn't, as that would defeat the whole purpose of the lesson. I started to draw my own puzzle, and a few of the confused students started to draw *EXACTLY* what I was drawing in my creative puzzle onto their own sheets! When I told them not to do that, to instead create a picture of their own, I was again met with blank stares. One of the boys was so confused and upset that he actually started to cry and even after being consoled refused to try the assignment again.

This isn't the first time something similar to this has taken place in the classroom. It seems that the Korean students are taught almost to be like robots, or just 'mere receptors of information' that they can dispense back at any teacher's will. Sometimes I wonder if my kids really *understand* any of the English that I'm teaching, or if they're all just simply memorizing it. There is a huge difference between actual understanding, and mere memorization, and my Korean kids have really illustrated this. In Western schools, creative thought is given a high priority and we're taught from an early age to explore this aspect of learning. Maybe it's something that's lacking, or missing altogether in the Korean education system? I wonder if it's a Korean thing, or an Asian thing? I'd be curious to hear about other people's experiences with ESL and how the concept of creativity went over in their classroom....