Growing without a Score

Watching a YouTube video about life in New Zealand, one comment stayed with me. The creator said they felt anxious about the way New Zealand doesn't give clear rankings or scores — understandable, coming from a Korean education system where everything is measured and ordered. It's a feeling I can relate to. It's probably the same reason many Asian parents seek out schools that still use streaming: beyond objective outcomes, there's a reassurance in being able to see, concretely, where your child stands. Schools like Macleans College and Rangitoto College — high-achieving schools that maintain streaming — already have Asian student populations of between 35 and 54 percent.

For me, though, NZ approach has felt like a relief. The stress of ranking children against each other, of reducing growth to a number, falls away a little. Instead, school points to the direction of a child's development — how they're doing, how they're changing, what can't be captured in a score.

That said, I don't fully agree with the idea that primary school is a time to simply be happy and set learning aside. No parent educates their child purely for happiness. But the aims of education here do feel different — and research suggests the difference matters.

Competitive school environments tend to raise academic achievement while lowering students' life satisfaction. A study of Korean students in grades 9–11 (Rudolf & Lee, 2023) confirmed this trade-off — the researchers described it as students paying with their wellbeing for academic achievement. How sad it is. Children learning, before they've finished growing up, to trade their wellbeing for achievement.

New Zealand has chosen not to make that trade. Primary school isn't a foundation for scoring higher in maths, science, and social studies — it's time spent building the scaffolding for a self-directed life. Equal weight is given to physical capability, social skills, and learning to live alongside others. The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007; currently being refreshed as Te Mātaiaho) formally defines five key competencies students are expected to develop: thinking, using language and symbols, managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing. The goal is not subject-score achievement — it's the capacity to live well.

So children are constantly offered options: sports, arts, new activities. Min tried basketball, tennis, and guitar in our first year here. And beyond organised activities, children simply run on beaches, hang from monkey bars and flying foxes, and climb trees barefoot — becoming comfortable in their own bodies without anyone scheduling it.

Active hobbies aren't the only kind that count. Our children lean more towards piano and art than sport, and that's just as good. It doesn't require exceptional talent or the latest instrument. A child who loves making things, reading, watching films, playing games, and has one familiar instrument already lives richly. Research consistently finds that participation in extracurricular activities and hobbies positively affects children's self-esteem, social competence, and emotional wellbeing (County Health Rankings, 2024; OECD Social and Emotional Skills Survey, 2024).

A similar contrast shows up in how extracurricular activities are approached. In Korea, children who went to piano academy three times a week held formal recitals twice a year — weeks of preparation for a single piece, performed before an attentive audience. Art academies did the same: galleries hired, work curated, families gathered. Children experienced their drawings hanging as real art. The confidence and sense of responsibility that came from that was real.

When I first sent a child to guitar lessons here, I was a little taken aback. Five or six children, once a week, thirty minutes together. At the end of term, the whole music school holds a recital — and children go up whether they're ready or not. No extra rehearsals beforehand, no extra practice sessions. Most lessons here — guitar, art, sport — run once a week, thirty to sixty minutes.

When I asked a private tutoring centre about holiday programmes, the response was: "We don't run holiday programmes because we hope children can rest properly during the break." Their measure wasn't adult efficiency — it was children's growth and wellbeing.

A country that doesn't push competition from an early age. Some might say: that's exactly why there's no talent left, why skilled people leave for Australia and the UK, and why immigrants fill the gaps. There's something to that. A society that doesn't adequately reward effort does tend to stagnate. In 2024, New Zealand recorded a net migration loss of approximately 30,000 people to Australia — the largest since 2012 (Stats NZ, 2024). When the effort doesn't come back, the exhaustion is real, and the decision to leave is understandable. A society that pools rather than flows — some fish find the stillness comfortable, while others dream of following the current somewhere new.

I'm someone who believes in diligence and intensity, deep in my Korean bones. But I believe each person's intensity has its own purpose. Some push hard for achievement. Some for personal satisfaction. Some for the rest that will come after, or for the people they love. And some simply cheer from the side.

At the same time, I always come back to this: the small pleasures of daily life are what make a life feel worth living. That's why I still find hope here. A society where choices are respected, where people can be kind and warm to one another — that society is still healthy.

New Zealand ranks in the top tier among OECD countries across key wellbeing indicators — Life Satisfaction (7.6/10), Trust in Others (6.5/10), and Social Interactions (7.8 hours/week) (OECD Better Life Index, 2023/2025).