Academies, Camps, and Summer Schools

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Over the summer, many AISG students spent their times studying in academies, camps, and summer schools. Summer vacations are usually meant for taking a break from academics, and having fun.

The reason that students spend their summertime studying may stem down to the competitive nature of the grading system in AISG. Many students strive to obtain the best possible grade and challenge their personal limits to achieve their desired academic results.

This desire for good grades does come from a good place, however, as
students want to set themselves up for a good future. However, this desire may have gone too far to the point where students spend vacation time on academics.

Taeyoung H. spent his summer in an SAT training center in Korea. He states that the experience was cruel and inhumane. He additionally comments, “I had classes for 10 hours every day, and they didn’t let me
leave even when I finished all my homework.” He also had to take a vocabulary exam with 120 words everyday, and was “not allowed to leave until he passed.”

Not only is this bad for the students’ mental health, but it also is not
even a particularly efficient method of studying. The time spent at the academy doing nothing could have been more efficiently spent relaxing at home, which actually refreshes the brain from the pressure of study. you could keep this part but you would need to add a background information or a source to support your claim. 

Another “victim” of summer classes is junior, Sean P. Sean P. also spent eight weeks over the summer in an SAT training camp. He states that the SAT training camps are “forceful and impractical.” Sean P. mentions, “I think the [teaching] system is very ineffective and useless. There is one teacher for [every] 40 or so students.” It is commonly known that the most efficient form of teaching is when there is a low teacher to student ratio, with one-on-one trainings being the best.

The problem of having overcrowded classes is not just a predicament in the particular academy. 

The premise of academies and study camps cannot be considered defective, as it is to help students that have trouble keeping up with academics just by attending school. However, students and parents have started to exploit this system and turn it into places where the atmosphere is so competitive, and education becomes ineffective.

These camps now focus more on teaching students new content to prepare them for future academics, which is a change influenced mainly by the desire of over-competitive parents. This has caused the desire to attend these camps to spike over the last few years, as academics
are being more prioritized everywhere.

Academies and camps are originally made to accommodate only for a small percentage of students who need help with academics. However, as the premise of the system began to change, the pool of students wanting to attend these academies also started to rise. Instead of putting a limit on the students they are able to accommodate, most academies have decided
to take all the students that have applied, and cram them into the limited space available to them in the classrooms.

Not only does education and rate of learning become highly ineffective when a classroom is crammed, the environment also becomes incredibly uncomfortable and competitive, demoralizing the students.

The chase and desire for better academics have sprouted summer camps, but the same desire has caused summer camps to become inefficient and make students to become repellant to the education system.