SEOUL — Clasping his headphones and closing his
eyes as he sang into the studio microphone while
performing a peppy duet with one of South Korea’s
hottest actresses, spiky-haired Cha Kil-yong looked
every bit the K-pop star.
But Cha is not a singer or actor. No, he’s a unique
kind of South Korean celebrity: a teaching star.
And the song he was singing with Clara, a Korean
mega celebrity, in a music video that wouldn’t be
out of place on MTV? It was called “SAT jackpot!”
In this education-obsessed country, Cha is a top-
ranked math teacher. But he doesn’t teach in a
school. He runs an online “hagwon” — or cram
school — called SevenEdu that focuses entirely on
preparing students to take the college entrance
exam in mathematics.
Here, teaching pays: Cha said he earned a cool $8
million last year.
“I’m madly in love with math,” said Cha, looking
the height of trendiness in his crimson shirt and
pants and tweed jacket, in his office in Gangnam —
a wealthy part of Seoul famous for its conspicuous
consumption and featured in the song “Gangnam
Style.”
It’s hard to exaggerate the premium South Korea
places on education. This is a society in which you
have to get into the right kindergarten, so that you
can get into the right elementary school, then into
the right middle school and high school, and finally
into the right college. Which, of course, gets you
the right job and scores you the right spouse.
There’s even a phrase to describe the Korean
version of a helicopter mother: “chima baram” —
literally “skirt wind,” to describe the swish as a
mother rushes into the classroom to demand a
front-row seat for her child or to question grades.
Many Korean families split and live on opposite
sides of the world in pursuit of a better education:
The mother and children live in the United States
or some other English-speaking country, the better
to secure entry to a prestigious university
(preferably Harvard). The “goose father” continues
working in South Korea, flying in to visit when he
can.
All of this combines to make South Korea’s
equivalent of the SAT the most important event in
a young person’s life.
As such, the vast majority of teenagers here do a
double shift at school: They attend normal classes
by day but go to hagwons for after-hours study.
Increasingly, online hagwons are replacing
traditional brick-and-mortar cram schools. The
hagwons have become a $20 billion industry.
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This devotion to studying is credited with helping
South Korea consistently rank at the top of the
developed world in reading, math and science,
although the latest rankings from the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development also
show that Korean students come last when asked
whether they are happy at school. South Korea also
has the highest suicide rate in the developed world,
which many suggest is related to a high-stress
focus on education.
Some politicians and educators are questioning
whether things have gotten out of hand. But even
parents opposed to this punishing system find it
difficult to opt out — their children complain that
they can’t keep up if they don’t go to a hagwon.
That’s good news for instructors like Cha, who
started teaching at a hagwon to pay his way
through his PhD program.
About 300,000 students take his online class at any
given time, paying $39 for a 20-hour course
(traditional cram schools charge as much as $600
for a course). He teaches them tricks for taking the
timed exams, including shortcuts that students can
take to solve a problem faster.
Asked what makes him stand out, Cha said:
“Suppose you give the same ingredients to 100
different chefs. They would make different dishes
even though they’re working with the same
ingredients. It’s the same with a math class. Even
though it’s all math and all in Korean, you can use
different ingredients to come up with different
results.”
His studio is set up with a green chalkboard and
desks, and behind the camera are piles of props —
including hippo and Batman masks and a gold
sequined jacket.
“You’re not only teaching a subject, you also have
to be a multitalented entertainer,” said Cha,
declining to give his age and offering only that
he’d been working for 20 years.
On SAT day, he visits schools to offer
encouragement to test takers. He also does
television ads, endorsing products such as a red
ginseng drink meant to boost brain power.
Kwon Kyu-ho, a top-ranked literature teacher, also
appears with K-pop stars and has a lucrative side
business in celebrity endorsements, lending his
name to a chair meant to help people study better.
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Maintaining his position doesn’t require just good
lessons. Kwon, 33, also gets regular facials and
works out, and he said some teachers even have
stylists..
“I always wanted to be a teacher, but I feel that
regular school teaching has its limits. There is a
certain way you have to teach,” said Kwon, whose
lessons appear on the sites Etoos and VitaEdu.
“And, of course, I’m making a lot more money this
way.”
He wouldn’t disclose how much he earned, only
that it was “several millions” of dollars a year. The
secret of his success, Kwon said, was finding the
parts of tests that make most students stumble. He
focuses lessons on those problem areas.
This style of education has its upsides, he said.
“I think one of the benefits of private education is
that teachers compete with each other and try to
develop higher quality content,” he said. “We have
money. We can invest in ways that normal
schoolteachers can not.”
As President Park Geun-hye promotes a “creative
economy” as the key to taking South Korea to the
next level in its development, many analysts say
the country would do well to take a more creative
approach to education.
Lee Ju-ho, who was minister of education until last
year, is among them.
“All this late-night study could lead to problems in
enhancing their other skills, like character,
creativity and critical thinking,” he said. “Hagwon
is all about rote learning and memorization.”
Lee said all the problems stem from the college
admissions procedures, which have been slow in
looking beyond test scores to other criteria such as
extracurricular activities and personal essays, as is
common in many Western countries.
“We really need to change,” said Lee, who is now a
professor at the Korea Development Institute’s
School of Public Policy and Management.
Below are picture of Cha and his Teaching Toys
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