Creativity: Teacher, please tell me what free-thinking is the right answer and how to spell it.

Korean students are programmed to forgo any creativity and are consistently rewarded for turning off that part of their brain. This creates an ongoing struggle for right-brained English speaking teachers who want nothing more than their students to speak up and say something self-created, anything.

Last week I presented my students with what should have been a fun assignment. Each received a worksheet with six photos from my personal vacation adventures but no explanations. They were fun pictures including one of me on a horse, one with me in front of a great bonfire and one with me swinging an enormous hammer. The students' assignment was to write sentences or parts of sentences to create some kind of story with the pictures.

Admittedly, making a cohesive story in a second-language might be a tricky task, but the kids had a full week to work on it and I only expected a sentence for each picture, six total. I told the students, "make and interesting story, or even a crazy story," and of course had my Korean co-teacher explain the directions again in Korean.

But students used the class time I gave them for the assignment to ask (or at least try to ask) what specific things in the picture were, what I was doing in the picture or where the picture was taken. I tried to tell them, "it doesn't matter. Write whatever you want, whatever it looks like." But these kids weren't having it.

In the end, all but two or three students wrote exact descriptions of the pictures; "Tane rides horse," or "Tane on mountain." The concept of using their imaginations to take the vague yet interesting pictures and make something of their own was completely lost.

The system trains students to respond this way. In virtually all classes except mine, students sit silently in rows as a teacher lectures. The closest they get to participating in the class is a call and response or repeating something the teacher says. Otherwise, they're simply expected to memorize the information the teachers provide and spit it back out for the test.

And this isn't just in school. I've met several Koreans my age who are currently applying for jobs. But in Korea, applying for a job doesn't mean interviewing or showing you have experience that prepares you for innovative challenges. To get the best jobs in Korea you must take a test. All the major companies have entrance exams applicants take and based upon their scores they're either hired or not.

On a personal note, I'm getting tired of trying to get my students to think or act 'outside-the-box.' My classes of 30+ students are too large for me to kill myself trying to get a single free thought. If Korea is hoping for 800 more cogs in their machine, this school is ready to help.