For those of you who weren't subjected to the Kumon learning method, here's a picture painted from several years of Tuesday and Friday torture. Upon entering, you're greeted by the too-sweet smell of Japanese erasers (the little ones that comes in various fruit or Hello Kitty shapes) mixed with that warm paper smell that seeps out of Xerox machines. You hand over your plastic white box, and your (hopefully completed) homework is whipped out and replaced with fresh problem set packets, including the one you will complete in class. You sit at the appropriate table for your level, whereupon an instructor uses a stopwatch to time how fast you can complete your packet. The problem sets are grossly repetitive - the aim of Kumon is to drill the problems into your head, until you reach the optimal speed vs. accuracy intersection. After you're done, you make your way over to another table where you time yourself as you match these magnetic circles numbered 1-100 with the corresponding numbers listed numerically 1-100 on a board. (To this day, I don't understand why it was so important to be able to quickly identify and match numbers.)
It was not a place I wanted to be, yet every Tuesday and Friday after school, there I was. So I was highly amused by the new logo that Kumon rolled out a couple years ago (pictured above). I could not think of a better face to represent what a child feels like at Kumon. According to Closer to Fine, the corporate press release (now pulled from site) stated that the emoticon is supposed to be a "hand drawn 'Thinking Face'" supposedly reflecting "Kumon’s philosophy that every child possesses unlimited potential." Something was definitely lost in translation, because that face looks more like the helpless ennui and melancholy of a child forced into extra-curricular tutoring, tight-lipped at the prospect of having his packets graded by an elderly man with two thumbs on one hand (true story).
I am dying to hear some focus groups of former Kumon students discussing the new logo. For me, it's the perfect reflection of my Kumon experience at the expense of the brand. Unfortunately, prospective students (read: their parents) may read into it differently.
2 comments:
Funny you mention Kumon. I come from a Kumon family. Not only was I subjected to doing it starting from the ripe age of 6 but my mom had the bright idea of starting her own center a couple years later so we could do it for free with her. She just celebrated her 13th year as a Kumon instructor and my sister last year joined her becoming an instructor in Moraga. When they rolled out the new logo my mom and a bunch of her fellow instructors disliked the logo. They all hated the face the most but corporate in Japan felt the logo needed a change. My mom has definitely seen a decline over the last few years in enrollment due to the nature of the economy and not the logo. I actually liked the old one better. That face just doesn't do it for me.
Bridget - So great to get the perspective of a Kumon center owner. It's easy to forget that it's a corporation with a franchise system. Do you feel like Kumon helped you in the end? I started in jr. high and always felt like I was playing catch up.
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