
(Venice, Italy) Educating youths
I had an opportunity to teach at Daewon Foreign Language High School (DFLHS) in Seoul. DFLHS is one of two top Korean high schools with such an enviable record of sending students to top American universities that the New York Times reported on it. My short stint has given me some insights into the extensive similarities, and mild differences, between DFLHS and top Singaporean Junior Colleges.

(Rome, Italy) Building Global Leaders
I taught at the Global Leaders Program, which prepares selected students specifically for top foreign universities, and had an amazing time at the school. The students were fun and as energetic as they could be for students attending classes from 7am to 11pm. I had the opportunity to do a skit, where I learned that poor acting on a grammar theme is a bad idea. I also presented on life at Penn, which seems more fun looking back than when I was living it. I managed to answer students’ citation questions from midnight to 2am on some days. Thanks to Seoul’s wireless grid, I could do it sitting outside of a convenience store, while drinking beer in celebration of my Mexican friend’s last day in Seoul. A lot the creativity in the teaching routine stemmed from my tireless co-teacher, Jinhee, an engineer from Princeton with a zeal to make each class as fun as possible.
So how does DFLHS students compare against Hwa Chong or Raffles students, who also study at many of the same universities? I think the best comparison would be from my observation of both student groups at my university. There have not been many DFLHS students at Penn in recent years, but Minjok Leadership Academy Students (DFLHS’s closest rival) abound. Both student groups from Singapore and Korea work hard at Penn. Students from both groups in general obtain good grades.

(Rome, Italy) Comparing peer groups
However, in talking to faculty and through my own observations, there tends to be more academic “superstars” among Singaporean students. This is of course a subjective term, and what I am referencing are the crazy students who graduate with two degrees in 3 years or 4 majors in 4 years. This is not to mean that Singaporean students are better, in general or individually, but that they tend to have more people excelling spectacularly. Furthermore, academics are just one measure of success, and the collection of degrees is an even more imperfect measure of academic success.
I suspect that the strength of the Singaporean pool stems from its larger prospective student pools. While entry into DFLHS is relatively egalitarian as it depends on an entrance exam (as far as I could tell), the dependence on English grades as a major differentiator tilts the balance significantly towards high income families who can afford expensive and high quality English tutoring for their children. Singapore has a similar problem with a different cause: richer students tend to come from English-speaking families, which gives them an advantage. However, in Korea, where English is not a lingua franca, getting good English grades requires a Herculean effort normally aided by immensely expensive tutoring (I have friends earning US$100 an hour for English tutoring).
Hence, DFLHS students come from a smaller prospective pool. The students from DFLHS are incredibly smart, but there are equally smart students who fail to make it to the school because of the English obstacle. Thus, while the Korean population is larger, the students who are prospective candidates to such top high schools are actually less than in Singapore. In turn, the students who go on to top American universities come from a smaller pool than in Singapore.

(Rome, Italy) Providing individual attention
However, I believe that the education at DFLHS fared better at some areas than my high school. I enjoyed how my high school ended at 2pm everyday and gave me so much space to explore and define myself (partly because I skipped school for almost half a year). However, aside from the long hours, I think DFLHS does an amazing job at educating students: students here seem to be much more proficient at writing research papers and teachers seem less pressured to meet absurd targets. I am teaching MLA citation rules to 10th graders here, something I had to pick up on my own after leaving high school. The teachers here, or at least in the GLP program, do not seem to have to meet “targets,” such as A Level grades, that could make or break a school’s reputation in Singapore. I think it takes pressure off teachers and allow them to focus on what is important for students instead. Classes here, at 25 students each, are also a lot smaller and allows for more individual attention. I remember how I slept through most of my classes simply because no teacher cared when I was in middle- and high-school.
I think some of these flaws in the Singaporean education system were being corrected when I left, so feel free to update me on the changes in the comments section.