한국에 오기 전 필자의 고향 미국 테네시 주에서 자동차 범퍼 뒤쪽에 붙어있던 스티커를 본 것을 기억한다. 그 스티커에는 “교육이 비싸다고 생각하신다면 무지에 대해 고려해 보십시오”라고 적혀 있었다. 동서고금을 막론한 이 심오한 진리를 필자는 절대 잊을 수 없다. 효과적인 교육은 한 개인의 삶을 풍요롭게 해줄 뿐만 아니라 그 사람으로 인해 그가 속한 지역사회·나라·세계에까지 많은 공헌을 할 수 있도록 해 준다.

그것을 증명하기 위해 한국을 살펴보자. 한국인들은 오늘날 전 세계 인구의 1% 보다 적은 인구로 이뤄져 있다. 또한 한국은 미국 인디아나 주 크기 정도의 땅을 갖고 있다. 한국에는 석유·철광석·금·다이아몬드와 같은 자원도 없다.

이러한 조건에도 불구하고 한국의 GDP는 전 세계 12위권 안에 든다. 그 이유는 한국의 생산성이 그 자원에 기초한 것이 아니라 국민들의 교양 있는 의식(cultivated mind)·무한한 상상력·근면에 기초한 것이기 때문이며 한국의 교육체계는 이 모든 것들을 가능케 했다.

공공연하게 그리고 은밀히, 한국은 초등·중등 교육을 통해 젊은이들에게 세계 최고의 교육을 제공하고 있다. 그리고 많은 학생들이 하버드대·스탠포드대·시카고대·텍사스대를 포함한 미국 최고의 대학에 입학하기도 한다. 필자가 수업하는 한 대학의 강의실에서는 거의 모든 학생들이 유창하게 영어를 한다. 종종 학생들이 흥미와 통찰력을 가지고 주제 토론을 하는 것을 발견하고 수업 시간에 내준 작문 시험에서 대부분의 학생들이 작문에 능한 것은 물론 몇몇은 감명 깊은 영작을 한다.

그러나 이 모든 것은 그저 주어진 것들이 아니다. 적어도 교육받은 국민들을 양성하고자 하는 철저하고도 신중한 실행에 의한 것이고 그 비용은 국가의 큰 지출 중 하나가 되기도 한다. 그리고 이러한 체계가 성공하고 지속 가능하게 하기 위해서는 모든 투자자들이-정부·부모·기업 등- 현명한 통찰력을 가지고 막대하고도 꾸준한 투자를 아끼지 않아야 한다. 

결국 젊은이들의 교육에 있어 국가의 지속적인 경계와 끊임없는 지원이 요구된다. 정상에 오르기는 쉽지만 그 자리를 지키는 것은 쉽지 않기 때문이다.  예를 들어 40여 년 전, 미국 공립학교 체계는 세계에서 경쟁자가 없을 정도로 뛰어났다. 그러나 지금 미국 공립학교는 심지어 오래전 한국 학생들이 능가한 최소한의 기준에 미치기 위해서도 확실한 정비가 필요한 상태다. 여전히 미국의 대학 체계는 세계 최고이며 세계 상위 대학들은 미국에 있지만 이들 대학의 학생 절반은 다른 나라에서 온 학생들이다.

한국 학생들은 국제학생의 전체 비율에서도 많은 수를 이루고 있다. 몇 년간 필자는 한국에서 지내면서 많은 한국 한생들이 명문대에 들어가기 위해 미국에 가는 것을 보았다. 그 학생들이 다시 한국에 돌아와 의사·변호사·기술자·건축가·경영자 그리고 교수로서 그들의 일을 시작하는 것을 보고 기쁜 것도 사실이다.

의심의 여지없이 한국과 한국인들이 교육체계에 투자한 돈·시간·정성이 이제 보답을 해주고 있으며 국가와 국민들은 그들이 투자한 것으로부터 끊임없이 이득을 얻고 있다. 이런 이유로 한국인들은 한국의 여러 대학들이 세계에서도 제자리를 차지할 수 있을 것이라는 꿈, 그리고 그것이 곧 이뤄질 것이라는 꿈을 가져도 될 것이다. 오늘날 전 세계의 뛰어난 학생들이 공부를 위해 미국에 가는 것처럼 그들이 한국으로 오는 날이 올 것이다.

하지만 이것은 시작점에 불과하다. 한국은 선택의 여지없이 대학에 더 많은 투자를 해야 한다. 한국이 가지고 있는 지력(brain power), 이것은 가장 좋은 자원이기 때문에 교육에 더 많은 투자를 해야 한다. 30여 년 전, 내 고향 테네시 주에서 보았던 범퍼 스티커의 문구는 한국과 잘 맞아 떨어진다, “교육이 비싸다고 생각하신다면 무지에 대해서 고려해 보십시오.”

<영어 기고문 원문> ※한글 번역본은 영어 원문을 재구성한 것임을 밝혀둡니다.

"Yes, Education is Expensive."

Lyman McLallen

In the late 1970’s in my home state of Tennessee in the United States ? more than twenty years before I would come to Korea ? I remember seeing a sticker on the rear bumper of car that read: IF YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE, CONSIDER IGNORANCE.

I have never forgotten that sticker, for it speaks a profound truth for all times and all places. Ignorance is expensive, immeasurably more expensive than even the most costly education, if it is effective. An effective education is worth immeasurably more than it could ever cost, for not only does it give a person the means to make a good living, but it enables that person to make substantial contributions to her or his community, nation, and indeed the world.   

To illustrate this, let’s look at Korea: Koreans make up significantly less than one percent of all the people living in the world today. Korea occupies considerably less than one-tenth of one percent of the Earth’s land ? Korea is about the size of the U.S. state of Indiana ? and on its land, Korea has no resources such as oil, iron ore, gold, diamonds ? practically nothing of economic value.

These figures suggest that Korea’s GDP couldn’t possibly rank in the top dozen of all nations ? yet it does, for its productivity is not based on natural resources, but on cultivated minds, unlimited imaginations, and hard work, and these things don’t just happen by themselves. It takes nothing less than careful and deliberate actions to raise generation upon generation of educated citizens, and the cost is one of the biggest expenses of the nation. As added benefits, though, Koreans enjoy one of the longest life expectancies of any nation on Earth, and the quality of life and opportunities for development during those long years of life are beyond anything imaginable by most people on the planet.

Clearly, the education system in Korea makes all of this possible. As mentioned above, though, none of this is free. For this system to succeed and continue to be sustained, and thus sustain the nation, all the stakeholders ? government, parents, and corporations too, for without the schools and universities, the corporations could not exist ? must make huge and continuous financial investments, with wise oversight, of course, to see that the youngsters and the nation they will inherit get the most out of these precious investments.

In Korea, the government funds public education and the parents pay for the after-school institutes where they send their children to further enhance their learning so that they can get into the best universities in the nation, and in the world. The universality and range of subjects taught at these institutes is something that the United States simply does not have. It is a testament to the dedication and foresight of Korean parents ? mostly mothers ? to see that their children get the very best education possible. Both publicly and privately, Korea provides among the best education in the world to its young people through the primary and secondary levels.

And from its universities, many students matriculate to graduate and professional programs at the top universities in the United States, including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of Texas. In fact, I never knew a Harvard student until I came to Korea. Currently, I know at least a dozen former students who graduated from universities here in Korea and are now at Harvard. Most of them had never left Korea until they went to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

What is an superb system today, though, will surely be inadequate sooner than later. This is why eternal vigilance and unceasing support is demanded of the nation when it comes to educating the young.

But it pays off, exceedingly well.

In the university classes I teach, just about all of the students are proficient with English. Though I must speak clearly and deliberately with them, I don’t have to use baby English and speak slowly as if they are simpletons, and because of their advanced ability with English, the students and I are not reduced to working with the commercially marketed textbooks of mostly rote target-language instruction.

I find to my delight that university students in Korea can understand all but a few of the articles and editorials in The New York Times, which is where I get most of the material we use for class.  Yes, the students must occasionally turn to their electronic dictionaries to look up infrequently used words, and I must explain for them what many of the idioms mean, but apart from that, they have no trouble understanding the readings, and the discussions the students have in class are lively (albeit with just a little help from their teacher). I often find that the students discuss the topics with interest and insight.

What’s more, from the written tests I have them write in class, I have learned that most of them are competent writers of English, some even eloquent. Almost all of them are good enough with their written English to make it through some of the most demanding writing requirements at good American universities, something that even native speakers find difficult to do.  

By contrast, even at the top universities in the United States, few American undergraduate students have command of another foreign language to the extent that the average university student in Korea has command of English. All of the students in my classes are linguistically superior to me. They can understand English; I can’t understand Korean.

So what’s the big deal? Why am I concerned about education in Korea?

The big deal is that it is easier to get to the top than it is to say there. For example, as late as forty years ago, the American public school system was unrivaled in the world. Today, it needs to be completely overhauled to meet even minimum standards that Korean students surpassed long ago. Still, the American university system is the best in the world, and most of the top four or five hundred universities in the world are in America. Almost half of the students at these top American universities, though, come from abroad.

Korean students make up a large percentage of that group of international students, all out of proportion to their numbers. In the years I have lived in Korea, I have seen many students go to the United States to study at the best universities, and I have been happy to greet these same students when they return to Korea as American trained scholars and professionals to begin working in as doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, business executives, and professors here in Korea.

Without question, the money, the time, and the care that Korea and Koreans have put into their educational system have rewarded them well and the nation and its citizens continue to reap the benefits of this investment. These Koreans with advanced degrees from American universities have effected a transfer of knowledge and expertise from the best universities in America to Korea. Because of this, Koreans can dare to dream that many universities in Korea will take their rightful places among the best universities in the world, and they can dare to dream that that will happen soon. From what I see, the day will come when many of the best young students in the world will come to study in Korea, just as they go to study in America today.

But as good as this is, it is just a starting point. Koreans have no choice but to make even more investments in schools and universities. They have no choice but to investment even more in the children’s education and thus their future, for brain power is the only resource Korea has, and it is the best resource for any nation in the world. As much as it is in any place, that bumper sticker I saw in my native Tennessee over thirty years ago is profoundly true for Korea today: IF YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE, CONSIDER IGNORANCE.