Midterms at Uiseong Middle School

Last week was midterms week at Uiseong Middle School.

Yes, you read that right: Midterms. In middle school. Cue the “Korean education system’s intense” jokes.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the students showed up at 8 a.m. and took three back-to-back, hour-long exams. Math, Science, Korean language, Chinese characters, Social Studies, Ethics, Art, and, of course, English.

The school was eerily quiet. No chatter in the hallways. No recess. Not even a ten minute passing period between exams.

Students finished their exams at around 11:30 a.m., ate lunch, and went home. Teachers went home shortly after.

The exams determine each student’s class ranking and are hugely important for high school admissions. Yes, every student is ranked, 1 through the bottom of the class. And yes, the admissions crunch – normally not seen in the U.S. till senior year in high school, when students apply to college – happens earlier here, in middle school.

I remember asking one of my Korean friends from college about the academic intensity of his high school, and at the time he surprised me by saying high school was hard, but middle school was the worst. If I remember correctly, he described middle school as a “hell.”

At lunch, one of the teachers asked me about testing in American middle schools.

“It’s completely different,” I said. It’s funny, though – I’d never really thought about the procedure of administering exams in the U.S., and it took me a second to arrange all the differences in my mind.

To start, in American middle schools there are not school-wide midterm exams. Typically the only school-wide exam period is at the end of the semester, with final exams. I didn’t even have final exams in middle school (I didn’t have finals till high school).

In my middle school, exams varied by teacher. The teachers would make their own exams and decide when we’d take them. I might have had a math test on Friday; my friend, on Monday, depending on which teacher we had.

Some teachers were notoriously easy. Or hard. There was the easy English teacher (with the light homework load and easy exams), for example, and the hard English teacher (who gave a lot of homework and made tricky tests). Relatedly, test difficulty varied by subject level: Was I in the regular or honors class?

Korea’s testing system eliminates the inconsistencies across classrooms: Every student in each grade takes the same midterm exams.

It’s more standard, but also more intense. Every student’s ranked, so there’s tremendous pressure not just to do well on the exam and get a high score – but to beat the kid sitting next to you. Your raw score doesn’t matter. Only your ranking.

And the stakes are higher in Korea. Your ranking in middle school determines your high school which determines your college. If you don’t feel like joining the rat race in middle school, it’s easy for that determinism to turn into apathy: Why try, if I know I’m never going to make it to the top of my class?

I made a comment at lunch to one of my teachers that the intensity felt overwhelming, even just as a spectator. Middle school seemed too early to have midterms. I think I used the word “crazy.”

“The kids like the tests though,” the teacher said.

“They like seeing how they compare to their classmates? Getting validation for all their hard work in a score or class ranking?” I wondered aloud.

“No,” the teacher laughed, “They like the tests because they get to go home early.”

It’s easy to look at these tests – the rigid structure, the pressure for students to outperform their peers – and see only a hyper-competitive education system.

But at the end of the day, the kids are kids. They don’t like tests, but they do like going home at noon.