Jang Yun-jeong, 28, grew up in a world where numbers defined her worth. From academic achievements to salary and social status, her standing was calculated in terms of scores, grades and ranks. At school, where comparison was at its most ruthless, Jang received report cards after every midterm and final exam, which displayed her rank in each subject within her class and the entire school.
These numbers made her constantly aware of where she stood relative to her classmates. "Feeling the need to outperform my classmates, I became increasingly obsessed with scores and rankings," Jang said. After graduation, grades were replaced by other metrics like age, salary and assets.
It was only after she left South Korea that she truly grasped the pervasive influence of numbers on her life here. "In Canada, I felt myself becoming more distant from numbers," Jang, the author of an autobiographical book of essays titled “Lost in Vancouver,” told The Korea Herald. As someone who works in the field of education, Jang said she was impressed to find an education system that does not rely wholly on numeric evaluations to assess a student's performance.
From what she has observed so far, all levels of education in Canada, from elementary school to university, use an absolute -- not relative -- grading system in which each student is graded according to fixed standards instead of a comparison with others. This environment encourages not only academic performance but also participation in extr.
