I have literally seen elementary school children in Japan slicing vegetables with a normal kitchen knife. All the kids learn knife skills. It's amazing, but I

I have literally seen elementary school children in Japan slicing vegetables with a normal kitchen knife. All the kids learn knife skills. It's amazing, but I suspect not something that would be easy to export, culturally. When I taught English to high school students in Japan, I had a couple of courses where we took over the kitchens and the students had to figure out how to cook meals with English recipes. I was very impressed with most of them. Certainly every student had basic cooking skills and could be trusted with every aspect of kitchen safety (and I was in a low level school). One of the downsides to the Japanese school lunch approach is that it puts a burden on teachers. They are "on duty" during lunch time on a rotating basis. Japanese teachers get very little down time and extras like this are just expected of them. Lunch is taken very seriously at the schools. In high school, lunch is not provided. A local bakery comes by to offer a variety of baked goods at a reasonable price, but you can't really trust that there will be decent food left by the time you get there (it is always a mad rush to be first in line at lunch time). Parents are expected to make a packed lunch. The teachers will often look at the students' lunches and if they are not good enough, the parents will be called in. In extreme cases I have seen teachers teaching parents how to cook nutritious packed lunches. Again, it's a good policy which I think would be impossible to export. Imagine being called up by your kid's teacher and having to go in and be lectured because you failed to make a good enough lunch. I've actually seen parents in tears during their reprimand. Also imagine teachers staying late (unpaid) so that they can teach parents how to make lunch... In many ways, Japan is an amazing place...