Exchange with South Korea may add up to changes in math classes at Westminster

Many schools have a summer reading requirement, but students at Westminster Christian Academy in Town & Country may be practicing math during their summer vacation as well.

A summer math requirement may be one of the results of Westminster’s partnership with a school in Seoul, South Korea.

Currently, Westminster is hosting 24 middle school students and several teachers from the Saemmul Christian Academy in Seoul, South Korea, for a one-month educational exchange.

Westminster administrators and teachers see this as the next step in finding out what makes South Korean students achieve in math at such high levels.

In the last international ranking of student math achievement South Korea ranked third behind China and Singapore. Meanwhile, U.S. students scored below average and ranked 25^th out of 34 countries that participated in the test.

As a result of the educational exchange, Westminster may consider implementing some of Saemmul Christian Academy’s techniques into their own curriculum.

“We sent teams of teachers to Seoul the last two summers,” Westminster’s Academic Dean Scott Holly said. “Last summer we sent a couple of math teachers and we asked them to visit a school and see what is it they do that we can learn from, so this is stage two in that entire process.”

Head of the Upper School Jim Sefrit said the school is in a fact-finding mode.

“They’ve had some great results, and we’d like to have some great results – even greater results than we’ve had and we’ve had some phenomenal results with our math students,” Sefrit said.

Dale Beachy, eighth grade team leader and math teacher, and Se Ryung Jung, a math teacher from South Korea have been comparing math programs. Beachy said he sees several significant differences beginning with the amount of time students spend on math.

“The average is 16 hours per week,” Beachy said. “So you’re talking seven hours in class and then nine hours outside of school, so much more involved and focused practice time.”

Jung said that math lessons and practice are all laid out clearly in a national curriculum mandated by the government. Students are also required to meet with teachers once a week, even over the summer, to turn in their practice work.

In addition to the government math requirements, Beachy said many of the Korean students attend classes before and after school that are even more challenging than the mandated math program.

The government directed emphasis on math started after the Korean War and is based on the country’s geography and economy, according to Dani Butler, Westminster’s director of international programs. Butler said that South Korea is smaller than Missouri and its 40 million people occupy only 30 percent of the land because the rest is mountainous.

“There’s no farmland, no natural resources. All we have is the ocean and brainpower,” Butler said. “So for the last two decades ship building and I.T. (Information Technology) have been the number one and number two businesses in South Korea.”

Both the American and the Korean teachers said that math textbooks are similar but the approach is different. Jung said that while U.S. students study a different part of math each year; for example, pre-algebra in ninth grade and geometry in tenth grade and so on; Korean students are taught each area of math each year starting at a low level and progressing to more advanced levels of each subject. That means all Korean students graduate with a knowledge of math that ranges from the basics all the way through calculus.

The teachers said another difference is in the way each country uses technology in the classroom. Jung said Korean students use paper and pencil for solving problems while U.S. students make more use of calculators and computers. On the other hand, the Korean government has set up an extensive program of video lectures available on television or online that students can access 24/7 to help them with their practice.

Westminster’s math faculty and administrators are setting a series of meetings to consider the things they have learned from the South Korean educators and students. Beachy said the summer math practice requirement is one of the ideas under consideration.

According to Beachy they are also discussing possibly delaying the use of calculators in math class until ninth grade and setting up a math lab where students could go for extra help or advanced instruction from math teachers and volunteers who are well-versed in math.

Beachy said no timeline has been set for possible implementation of any of the ideas being discussed.