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Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

228 points by lnguyen 7y ago

Copyrighted 7y ago
I've had some decent experiences at university. I enjoyed talking with professors in my field, meeting some incredibly talented people, and learning things I probably wouldn't have learned outside of uni. High school was useless and terrible though.
hindsightbias 7y ago
Perhaps it’s time for a new monastic lifestyle - Gibson and Stephenson should write a book together.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... it went interestingly last time! (C-f for "You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight. " )
  - hindsightbias 7y ago
    That was great!
adrianmonk 7y ago
Wow, this jogged a very long dormant memory of a record I used to have when I was a kid: "The Boy Who Would Not Go To School" (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjv0CLtd7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjv0CLtd7g). Which is apparently kind of a (vinyl) audiobook adaptation of the 1935 classic children's book "Robert Francis Weatherbee".
oddity 7y ago
If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get older and gain knowledge but not respect or autonomy, the school to job pathway looks more and more arbitrary and unnecessary (the common question of "But when am I actually going to use this?" I remember hearing often in school). Maybe there's the benefit of finding friends, but now they have the internet from a young age, and I think the social justification has evaporated. Why bother forming friend circles with people you must talk to, when you can find friend circles from a larger pool with people you want to talk to? For many (most?) kids, it doesn't seem like they, individually, have a reason to go to school. Instead, their parents have a reason and the kids' only reason is to not anger their parents.
- dblohm7 7y ago
  Your post accurately describes how I felt from grades 4 through 12. The only thing that got me through it was knowing that the better I did, the farther away I could get from it. Even then, I spent my final year gaming the system to earn the highest grades from the least amount of work.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    I've been out of school for over a decade and I'm still gaming the system to earn the highest for the least amount of work. Pretty excited for retirement tho...
- S3an12 7y ago
  But why did Japan's snap first? North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. Children aren't much happier here either. Teen depression and teen suicide is rising at a rapid pace as well. The first reason that comes to mind is that there is less of a stigma of leaving these public schools in Japan than in NA. It seems such a common occurrence that everyone has just accepted it. Here everyone is so anti non-traditional that even home-schooling is seen as an archaic form of education.
laurieg 7y ago
A friend of mine teaches middle school in Japan and he recounted this story of a parent teacher meeting. A girl, who was by all accounts a decent student, had not been doing some of her homework recently. He brought it up in a casual and supportive way. The mother busy into tears and apologised profusely, exclaiming that she was so sorry for sending such a terrible didn't to this teacher's class etc. As this goes on the daughter now starts crying in response. My friend said this is a scene repeated again and again. Enormous amounts of pressure from both the parents and the teachers (he is something of an exception) is crushing children.
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  There's a reporting segment running now on I believe CNN Asia about Singaporean schools and "kiasu" culture. Reporter: "How do you balance schoolwork and play?" Singaporean Mom: "That is a good question. But my kids will thank me after they are successful in life." In other words, no balance except as an abstract thought. :)
  - chii 7y ago
    > after they are successful in life... where the definition of success is based on the parent's perception of what success means. The child's opinions nor desires don't come into the picture.
    - krige 7y ago
      Ignoring the extremes, why would a child's opinion be taken into account in a situation like this? What experiences does the child have that makes their opinion valid in parenting issues?
      - plutonorm 7y ago
        Because respecting a child's autonomy leads to emotionally healthy, happier and more successful adults?
      - pjc50 7y ago
gexla 7y ago
I have been recently taking a break after a long hard project which took up most of my time. Now I pretty much do whatever I feel like from the start of my day. Luckily I have enough small, easy work to pay the bills while I figure out what I would like to be doing longer term. The free school in this article seems to match what I'm doing for "work" now. The more strict, controlling school with controlling parents is a closer fit to what I was doing previously. Maybe it's the parents and the parent's system which is broken.
42droids 7y ago
Do we have resources on alternative school systems? I remember, for example, that Elon Musk runs an alternative school. Anybody ever attended one? Would love to hear experiences.
ArcMex 7y ago
If I could go back, would I attend school again? Yes but not for 18 years. Six maybe. There are things that I learned from school that I appreciate so I am not against going to school completely. This is similar to how I feel about my desk job. I am not opposed to working 4 hour shifts from Mon to Wed over a period of 10 years max.
emanuer 7y ago
My 9 years old son has refused to go to his public Tokyo school for two years now. I am from a German speaking country and the idea of a child not to attend school is absolutely unimaginable. His mother (Japanese) has always insisted that this is not uncommon in Japan. His head-teachers also insured me that this is not uncommon. As I am not living in Japan I had to accept these circumstances. I was somewhat calmed by the knowledge that the school provided counseling and other dedicated programs for the development of my son. I thought the counselors cared quite well for him, when I was allowed to witness sessions. When I took my son to my home country for two months he transformed. He was quiet and reclusive in the first weeks, but turned into a much more playful, outspoken and socially interested young boy towards the end. Since then I discovered that his mother has been hiding a worsening mental illness from me. This affected my son greatly, he felt the need to care for her. He even has hundreds of YouTube videos in his history explaining children of what to do when your parent is mentally unwell — discovering this really broke my heart. Per my request, my son was taken into the custody of the Japanese child protective services 3 months ago and I am currently in Japan fighting for sole custody of him. My tale is a single data point, but I have come to believe the many stories of mental problems of Japanese children and young adults are not solely attributable to the pressures of society. I rather believe that mental health problems being a taboo in Japan may be the root of many problems. Per my understanding it is incredibly shameful to admit to mental health problems and doing so brings serious ramifications. So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated and their children suffer the effects, perpetuating the cycle. In our case, the school—very subtly—tried to inform me about their worries concerning his mothers mental health problems without ever speaking about it directly. They only spoke freely when a court appointed expert demanded them to. My son has an entire network of child psychologist, youth counselors and also me waiting for him in my home country, who will all encourage him to treat mental health like physical health; Everyone gets sick sometimes. For the body you take antibiotics, for the mind you take time of to become aware of what is happening. You seek professional help in both situations and being depressed, is a shameful as getting the flu, not at all.
- hrktb 7y ago
  > So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated You are right that people don’t often admit mental illness in public or to people they don’t trust. That’s not that different from western countries in my experience, there is a stigma associated to even depression. Perhaps agoraphobia would be the line where people just nod and ask for details, otherwise they tend to draw a line and flag you as “crazy” or lazy if they have no prior experience or exposure to mental illness. The worst part would be from a career perspective, where your employer getting that info would be at best neutral, at worst cost you opportunities you would have no chance to prove you missed because of discrimination. Now, Japanese people get treated. It’s not difficult to get a prescription, and you don’t need to shout on the roofs your getting treatment. I had a number of co-workers that were diagnosed with depression and were under treatment for a few years already. Close friends knew it, otherwise it was no one’s business. Like for everything, the first step is to recognize you need help, and that’s a step a lot of adults fear to take.
deleted 7y ago
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Edward9 7y ago
Maybe it's time for a global reform on schools' approach. I see more and more that children aren't willing to attend school. And I think that's because the approach is the same in the past 30-40 years, at least in my country, Nothing changes, the literature is the same, the teaching methods are the same. I feel that there's a need of change.
jopsen 7y ago
> In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear. Wow, Not to be judgmental, but maybe Japanese schools are a bit too strict... I've never seen evidence that strict discipline creates good humans. Last I checked modern pedagogy teaches us otherwise.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  I think Japan has been pretty strict for some time now and they have some of the lowest crime (and cleanest cities) in the world. Not saying it's directly related but I wouldn't rule it out.
- unsignedint 7y ago
  This is certainly more exception than norm. But overall, strict rules on where it would be considered more of personal choices elsewhere were governed by such rule. Back in where I was in middle school (close to 30 years ago, so certainly things have changed), I had: 1. Mandatory close clipped hair for male (repealed within first year I've attended -- I heard it took like 4 years of school council's effort do make this happen.) 2. Socks must be white 3. Shoes must be white There were somewhat implicit rules against hair dying, and eating lunch box early (latter being more universal norm) -- both actually caused big scandal when someone actually did those...
  - jopsen 7y ago
    > This is certainly more exception than norm. I certainly expected so, I should probably have picked a less exceptional example from the article.. Still regulating color of shoes and socks seems a bit unnecessary. Granted school uniforms are common in some parts of the world (personally, I would find it rather extreme).
deleted 7y ago
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m4r35n357 7y ago
The title says "children", people! 10 year olds, NOT college students.
timwaagh 7y ago
school is pretty terrible. if it wasn't for my parents being as strict as they were i would have let go way before uni. personally i'd rather see the whole system scrapped. it's easy to single out japan as its system has some very particular demands. but the fundamental flaws don't stop at borders.
known 7y ago
So why are so many children avoiding school in Japan? Family circumstances, personal issues with friends, and bullying are among the main causes, according to a survey by the ministry of education.
known 7y ago
Is obtaining a collection Certificates/Competencies a reasonable alternative to those kids?
known 7y ago
I think schools should teach/protect kids from Machiavellianism (manipulate/deceive others) Psychopathy (lack of remorse/empathy) Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) Narcissism (egotism/self-obsession)
- electriclove 7y ago
  Agreed! If you find one that does this or have recommendations on how to teach about this, please share. As a parent, I want to impart knowledge on these things to my kids. We have always focused on teaching compassion and kindness. The real world is full of all kinds of people, with all kinds of values or lack of, and all kinds of parenting or lack of.
  - known 7y ago
    Sorry, I don't know; Wish someone writes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks type of book for kids;
  - known 7y ago
    https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/23/1543203/why-so-many-japanese-children-refuse-to-go-to-school https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/23/1543203/why-so-many... has some more details
  - known 7y ago
    Kids should be taught about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_tricks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_tricks whenever we feel they're ready to absorb/rationalize them;
whiddershins 7y ago
I tried as hard as I could not to go to school, beginning with second grade. In retrospect I maybe wish I had done an advanced degree, but avoiding junior high and high school still seems the rational choice.
- undoneAgain 7y ago
  The truth is, there was no open path for you, and from your perspective, you saw that the doors were closed and the gates were locked. I see this with every interview. Smirks, eye rolls, laughs. It wouldn't have mattered what you tried. You were held down, ruined by a denial of access, systemic in nature.
- shantly 7y ago
  A US kid who hates school but has above-average general intelligence (so, not the prodigies who teach themselves Attic Greek at age 6 and go to Harvard at 12, just normal 1-in-50 or 1-in-25 smart kids) can probably bail on high school when they're 16, get into a community college (test scores ought to do it), take all the courses for an associate's degree, then snag a GED when eligible and officially pick up the degree. Doing all that plus having a part-time job is almost certainly a smaller time commitment than high school is and you'll get basically the same education or somewhat better, except you'll already have a degree and a ton of transferable credit toward a bachelor's at age 18.
Iv 7y ago
"As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it's a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves." Got some first hand experience here. Hard to not be a bit sarcastic. Geeze, I don't know... Is it that the students of Japan are suddenly becoming stubborn (or "weak") or is it that a system that: - does not fight bullying - does not fight racism - does not allow students any free time for any hobby - does recommend to sleep less in order to study more - does not allow to repeat a class and solely looks at date of birth to put kids in a class could, possibly, have some impact on the well-being of kids? But worry not: Japanese TV knows how parents can solve that! It recommends shouting and forcing sport on your lazy stay-at-home kid!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- whyBother 7y ago
  Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Even if the incidents are egregious, this is not even among the top twenty reasons that "many" refuse to attend. As far back as the 1980's it was widely reported that Japanese expectations for children's performance and good behavior drive them to mental illness, from the top down, starting with the demands of parents.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    > Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Racism and discrimination aren't just reserved to the color of skin, it's often built around whole ancestries of groups and their traditional social standings [0]. For the same reason, the Nazis killed people that were just as white as themselves, as most scientific racism [1] went way past defining races merely by the color of skin [2] and anti-Slav sentiments are something very present in many Western European countries to this day. Case in point: The Nazis, and many other white-supremacists, consider themselves to be Aryans, supposedly descendants of the lost continent of Atlantis [3] and apparently the top of their imagined race pyramid. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Nazism_and_white_supremacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Nazism_and_white_suprema...
nabla9 7y ago
> In Japan, more and more children are refusing to go to school, a phenomenon called "futoko" Articles about Japan always bring up Japanese names for things. What is the reason for this? You don't usually see the same for other countries: In German more and more children are lonely, a phenomenon called "die Einsamkeit".
- derefr 7y ago
  I think the thing journalists find interesting is that Japan is creating these particular words at all, when most languages/cultures don’t bother. (Edited: removed some badly-sourced assertions.) We have an English word “truant”, referring to someone who happens to not attend schooling; but we have no English word for someone who actively avoids the education system. This is an uncommon construction; I don’t think there’s another language besides Japanese that has such a word. This is a problem that has only risen to the level of intensity to need public knowledge and communication about it in Japan—at least, so far. It’s interesting that they need such a word enough to not only create it, not only to make it short, but that it seemingly is a word any average Japanese person might now know. The fact that this word exists as a “layman’s term” says a lot about the phenomena. The fact that it replaced an earlier, less PC word for the same thing says even more! (But, besides the subtle statement being made by introducing an element of cultural linguistic evolution, journalists are probably also trying to be “the person who was responsible for introducing a loan-word into English.” Since English doesn’t have this word, but might need it sooner-or-later, maybe we’ll use the Japanese one, like we did with taifuun, karaoke, or emoji. Probably the journalists who first used those words in English-language articles feel very proud of themselves.)
  - quelltext 7y ago
    > Rather, “futoko” is a noun to refer to the children themselves. Futōkō (不登校) refers to the act/phenomenon of not going to school, i.e. truancy, not the children.
  - ihuman 7y ago
    > We have an English word “truant”, referring to someone who happens to not attend schooling; but we have no English word for someone who actively avoids the education system There's also "playing hooky". While it still refers to the action, IMO its more about someone actively avoiding school/work.
andreygrehov 7y ago
When I was a kid and lived in Ukraine (my home country), I went to a home school. Tutoring happened at a teacher's home. Each class was 4-6 people max. Such were the rules. They hired teachers from the same neighborhood so that kids could easily walk from one teacher's place to another. Sometimes we had to take a bus. It was amazing. Obviously, zero bullying and stuff like that. After class, we could get some fresh air while walking from Math class to, say, English class. Since people's homes are very different from each other, it was also fun. There was no "standard" school interior so to speak. We also had a better "connection" with our teachers. At home, everyone felt safe and teachers were kind, calm and al that. Sometimes a teacher could bake a pie for us or something similar. It was cool. I live in New York now and we found a somewhat similar school for our kids. The entire school has 15-17 students. Each class has 3-4 students max. Tutoring happens at a multi-family house, which is also a place where the principal of the school lives. My kids LOVE the school. They celebrate every single birthday of each other, with cakes, gifts and al that. They visit theaters, museums, movie theaters, farms, zoos, you name it. They also do classes that are not popular in US, like Geography, Biology and they want to add Chess and Yoga. My older one is 5 years old, he f#cking wants to travel. He wants to visit Paris, London, Romania. I can talk forever about our kids school, but to finish my comment, I'm a believer that this type of "semi-decentralized" education is the right path. I could be wrong though, but so far, it works out great.
- Invictus0 7y ago
  Would you mind sharing more information about the school?
  - buf 7y ago
    Also interested
  - andreygrehov 7y ago
    Feel free to mail me.
adamsea 7y ago
"Many schools in Japan control every aspect of their pupils' appearance, forcing pupils to dye their brown hair black, or not allowing pupils to wear tights or coats, even in cold weather. In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50693777 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50693777
JoshTko 7y ago
This is another clickbait article from BBC on how "Japan is weird". The number of kids in the free schools seems tiny at about 0.2%.
m3kw9 7y ago
Asian school tend to have super high workloads even during summer holidays they give you work to work over your Holiday. The pressure is immense as they rate you from first to last, and parents do not like their kids to be in the last 75%, let alone last. They see it as a disgrace to the family. Sadly someone’s got to be back there. The pressure is immense. This is just a single point amongst others I don’t have time to type
unsignedint 7y ago
Here's my anecdotal view on Japanese school. I have attended one from 1st to 2/3 into 7th grade (or 1st year of middle school) before I moved out to the States. School in Japan (and to extent the society) really focus any students not standing out in a group. I was always considered by teachers, and peers, that was "different" from others. (Basically I Was kind of guy who would be left out when asked to "make a pair" in odd numbers.) Fortunately, I could survive, as I wasn't really bullied much (happened time to time) and had small group of good friends, some support from someone older at school, and also befriended with some of teachers. Despite of this, feeling that I'm the one who can't blend in, that sense of shame and frustration was always reinforced. Without support, I would have had taken alternative way of school to be honest. (and to this day, it just gives me chill how bad things could have been if I actually had to stay in school in Japan for the rest of my education and beyond...) School system in the US is not that greatest thing either, however, at least people left me alone for how I am. I attended to Japanese supplemental school on Saturdays (that I was nearly forced to attend) for a little more than two years and I didn't enjoy it for the same reasons I had problem with school in Japan.
292929292 7y ago
At one point or another, the human race is collectively going to have to admit that schooling has reached absurdity. Unless you were a monarch or a very wealthy aristocrat, the amount of schooling that children across the world receive today is entirely unprecedented. Using US children as an example, look back 100 years ago from now. Only about 60% of US children were enrolled in school, the number of days in a median school year was about 120 (as opposed to 180), and the median 25 year old only completed 8.2 years of schooling (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf). With that in mind, take a look at this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index In the US, the number of years spent in school on average is now 13.2. In 100 years, the number of school days has increased by (13.2 * 180) - (8.2 * 120) = 1392 days. Now consider the life of a modern US child. It is already decided before they're born that they will spend 9 hours a day (8 at school, 1 for HW), 5 days a week, for ~13 years of their youth in an office environment. In this office environment, children are expected to be quiet and stationary for the wide majority of that time. If a child disobeys, it will be recorded on several surveillance cameras, and the event will basically be remembered forever. Despite being able to surveil every pupil, bullying is still somehow a commonplace event. For the bullied, they have no recourse because they are forced to interact with their bullies on a near-daily basis. How anyone can convince themselves that this is a natural environment for children is beyond me. To be completely clear, I'm not saying I have an easy solution for this. This is simply the reality of competing in a highly technological, global economy. The need for menial labor is dropping everyday, and the demands of specialization are becoming increasingly stringent. But like a man eating tree bark in a famine, the necessity of the action doesn't magically improve the circumstances. Whether anybody likes it or not, it is a hard fact that governments around the world are forcing children to grow up in environments where they can not move, can not talk, can not play, and must complete copious amounts of paperwork. Schooling has become the elephant in the room for several modern dilemmas. On this site in particular, there have been numerous articles circulating about the depression epidemic, the loneliness epidemic, record-breaking virginity, record-breaking obesity, etc. etc. While unlikely to be sole cause for any of those issues, it is a blindingly obvious contributor. If I force a child to stay at a desk every morning until night for several years, it should come as no surprise when the child's health and mental state starts to fail. Yet if I do that in the name of education, this is a surprising result? This is an untouchable subject for politicians, except when arguing to _increase_ its size and scope. It is too easy for political opponents to smear such candidates as "anti-education", and a large group of teachers / school administrators consider such proposals to be an attack on their job security. Unlike other job sectors, these teachers / school administrators have a regular captive audience of children for 8 straight hours. Even unintentionally, their political attitudes are bound to be reflected in their students. So, the attitudes continue, and the cycle stays unbroken. To hazard a guess, I don't think the end of this cycle is going to be an intentional political action. I think it is much more likely to be a collapse, based on the carelessness that this issue has been given up to now. Eventually, the constraints placed on children are going to become unbearable, and the rewards at the end of the pipeline will become too meager. If this happens, there will a large number of people in a single generation going insane en masse. Unfortunately, that would probably collapse more than just the school system.

228 points by lnguyen 7y ago

I've had some decent experiences at university. I enjoyed talking with professors in my field, meeting some incredibly talented people, and learning things I probably wouldn't have learned outside of uni. High school was useless and terrible though.

hindsightbias 7y ago

Perhaps it’s time for a new monastic lifestyle - Gibson and Stephenson should write a book together.

hprotagonist 7y ago
https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... it went interestingly last time! (C-f for "You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight. " )
- hindsightbias 7y ago
  That was great!

adrianmonk 7y ago

Wow, this jogged a very long dormant memory of a record I used to have when I was a kid: "The Boy Who Would Not Go To School" (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjv0CLtd7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjv0CLtd7g). Which is apparently kind of a (vinyl) audiobook adaptation of the 1935 classic children's book "Robert Francis Weatherbee".

oddity 7y ago

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get older and gain knowledge but not respect or autonomy, the school to job pathway looks more and more arbitrary and unnecessary (the common question of "But when am I actually going to use this?" I remember hearing often in school). Maybe there's the benefit of finding friends, but now they have the internet from a young age, and I think the social justification has evaporated. Why bother forming friend circles with people you must talk to, when you can find friend circles from a larger pool with people you want to talk to? For many (most?) kids, it doesn't seem like they, individually, have a reason to go to school. Instead, their parents have a reason and the kids' only reason is to not anger their parents.

dblohm7 7y ago
Your post accurately describes how I felt from grades 4 through 12. The only thing that got me through it was knowing that the better I did, the farther away I could get from it. Even then, I spent my final year gaming the system to earn the highest grades from the least amount of work.
- anon9001 7y ago
  I've been out of school for over a decade and I'm still gaming the system to earn the highest for the least amount of work. Pretty excited for retirement tho...
S3an12 7y ago
But why did Japan's snap first? North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. Children aren't much happier here either. Teen depression and teen suicide is rising at a rapid pace as well. The first reason that comes to mind is that there is less of a stigma of leaving these public schools in Japan than in NA. It seems such a common occurrence that everyone has just accepted it. Here everyone is so anti non-traditional that even home-schooling is seen as an archaic form of education.

laurieg 7y ago

A friend of mine teaches middle school in Japan and he recounted this story of a parent teacher meeting. A girl, who was by all accounts a decent student, had not been doing some of her homework recently. He brought it up in a casual and supportive way. The mother busy into tears and apologised profusely, exclaiming that she was so sorry for sending such a terrible didn't to this teacher's class etc. As this goes on the daughter now starts crying in response. My friend said this is a scene repeated again and again. Enormous amounts of pressure from both the parents and the teachers (he is something of an exception) is crushing children.

redis_mlc 7y ago
There's a reporting segment running now on I believe CNN Asia about Singaporean schools and "kiasu" culture. Reporter: "How do you balance schoolwork and play?" Singaporean Mom: "That is a good question. But my kids will thank me after they are successful in life." In other words, no balance except as an abstract thought. :)
- chii 7y ago
  > after they are successful in life... where the definition of success is based on the parent's perception of what success means. The child's opinions nor desires don't come into the picture.
  - krige 7y ago
    Ignoring the extremes, why would a child's opinion be taken into account in a situation like this? What experiences does the child have that makes their opinion valid in parenting issues?
    - plutonorm 7y ago
      Because respecting a child's autonomy leads to emotionally healthy, happier and more successful adults?
    - pjc50 7y ago

gexla 7y ago

I have been recently taking a break after a long hard project which took up most of my time. Now I pretty much do whatever I feel like from the start of my day. Luckily I have enough small, easy work to pay the bills while I figure out what I would like to be doing longer term. The free school in this article seems to match what I'm doing for "work" now. The more strict, controlling school with controlling parents is a closer fit to what I was doing previously. Maybe it's the parents and the parent's system which is broken.

42droids 7y ago

Do we have resources on alternative school systems? I remember, for example, that Elon Musk runs an alternative school. Anybody ever attended one? Would love to hear experiences.

ArcMex 7y ago

If I could go back, would I attend school again? Yes but not for 18 years. Six maybe. There are things that I learned from school that I appreciate so I am not against going to school completely. This is similar to how I feel about my desk job. I am not opposed to working 4 hour shifts from Mon to Wed over a period of 10 years max.

emanuer 7y ago

My 9 years old son has refused to go to his public Tokyo school for two years now. I am from a German speaking country and the idea of a child not to attend school is absolutely unimaginable. His mother (Japanese) has always insisted that this is not uncommon in Japan. His head-teachers also insured me that this is not uncommon. As I am not living in Japan I had to accept these circumstances. I was somewhat calmed by the knowledge that the school provided counseling and other dedicated programs for the development of my son. I thought the counselors cared quite well for him, when I was allowed to witness sessions. When I took my son to my home country for two months he transformed. He was quiet and reclusive in the first weeks, but turned into a much more playful, outspoken and socially interested young boy towards the end. Since then I discovered that his mother has been hiding a worsening mental illness from me. This affected my son greatly, he felt the need to care for her. He even has hundreds of YouTube videos in his history explaining children of what to do when your parent is mentally unwell — discovering this really broke my heart. Per my request, my son was taken into the custody of the Japanese child protective services 3 months ago and I am currently in Japan fighting for sole custody of him. My tale is a single data point, but I have come to believe the many stories of mental problems of Japanese children and young adults are not solely attributable to the pressures of society. I rather believe that mental health problems being a taboo in Japan may be the root of many problems. Per my understanding it is incredibly shameful to admit to mental health problems and doing so brings serious ramifications. So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated and their children suffer the effects, perpetuating the cycle. In our case, the school—very subtly—tried to inform me about their worries concerning his mothers mental health problems without ever speaking about it directly. They only spoke freely when a court appointed expert demanded them to. My son has an entire network of child psychologist, youth counselors and also me waiting for him in my home country, who will all encourage him to treat mental health like physical health; Everyone gets sick sometimes. For the body you take antibiotics, for the mind you take time of to become aware of what is happening. You seek professional help in both situations and being depressed, is a shameful as getting the flu, not at all.

hrktb 7y ago
> So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated You are right that people don’t often admit mental illness in public or to people they don’t trust. That’s not that different from western countries in my experience, there is a stigma associated to even depression. Perhaps agoraphobia would be the line where people just nod and ask for details, otherwise they tend to draw a line and flag you as “crazy” or lazy if they have no prior experience or exposure to mental illness. The worst part would be from a career perspective, where your employer getting that info would be at best neutral, at worst cost you opportunities you would have no chance to prove you missed because of discrimination. Now, Japanese people get treated. It’s not difficult to get a prescription, and you don’t need to shout on the roofs your getting treatment. I had a number of co-workers that were diagnosed with depression and were under treatment for a few years already. Close friends knew it, otherwise it was no one’s business. Like for everything, the first step is to recognize you need help, and that’s a step a lot of adults fear to take.

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Edward9 7y ago

Maybe it's time for a global reform on schools' approach. I see more and more that children aren't willing to attend school. And I think that's because the approach is the same in the past 30-40 years, at least in my country, Nothing changes, the literature is the same, the teaching methods are the same. I feel that there's a need of change.

jopsen 7y ago

> In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear. Wow, Not to be judgmental, but maybe Japanese schools are a bit too strict... I've never seen evidence that strict discipline creates good humans. Last I checked modern pedagogy teaches us otherwise.

malvosenior 7y ago
I think Japan has been pretty strict for some time now and they have some of the lowest crime (and cleanest cities) in the world. Not saying it's directly related but I wouldn't rule it out.
unsignedint 7y ago
This is certainly more exception than norm. But overall, strict rules on where it would be considered more of personal choices elsewhere were governed by such rule. Back in where I was in middle school (close to 30 years ago, so certainly things have changed), I had: 1. Mandatory close clipped hair for male (repealed within first year I've attended -- I heard it took like 4 years of school council's effort do make this happen.) 2. Socks must be white 3. Shoes must be white There were somewhat implicit rules against hair dying, and eating lunch box early (latter being more universal norm) -- both actually caused big scandal when someone actually did those...
- jopsen 7y ago
  > This is certainly more exception than norm. I certainly expected so, I should probably have picked a less exceptional example from the article.. Still regulating color of shoes and socks seems a bit unnecessary. Granted school uniforms are common in some parts of the world (personally, I would find it rather extreme).

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m4r35n357 7y ago

The title says "children", people! 10 year olds, NOT college students.

timwaagh 7y ago

school is pretty terrible. if it wasn't for my parents being as strict as they were i would have let go way before uni. personally i'd rather see the whole system scrapped. it's easy to single out japan as its system has some very particular demands. but the fundamental flaws don't stop at borders.

known 7y ago

So why are so many children avoiding school in Japan? Family circumstances, personal issues with friends, and bullying are among the main causes, according to a survey by the ministry of education.

known 7y ago

Is obtaining a collection Certificates/Competencies a reasonable alternative to those kids?

known 7y ago

I think schools should teach/protect kids from Machiavellianism (manipulate/deceive others) Psychopathy (lack of remorse/empathy) Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) Narcissism (egotism/self-obsession)

electriclove 7y ago
Agreed! If you find one that does this or have recommendations on how to teach about this, please share. As a parent, I want to impart knowledge on these things to my kids. We have always focused on teaching compassion and kindness. The real world is full of all kinds of people, with all kinds of values or lack of, and all kinds of parenting or lack of.
- known 7y ago
  Sorry, I don't know; Wish someone writes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks type of book for kids;
- known 7y ago
  https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/23/1543203/why-so-many-japanese-children-refuse-to-go-to-school https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/12/23/1543203/why-so-many... has some more details
- known 7y ago
  Kids should be taught about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_tricks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_tricks whenever we feel they're ready to absorb/rationalize them;

whiddershins 7y ago

I tried as hard as I could not to go to school, beginning with second grade. In retrospect I maybe wish I had done an advanced degree, but avoiding junior high and high school still seems the rational choice.

undoneAgain 7y ago
The truth is, there was no open path for you, and from your perspective, you saw that the doors were closed and the gates were locked. I see this with every interview. Smirks, eye rolls, laughs. It wouldn't have mattered what you tried. You were held down, ruined by a denial of access, systemic in nature.
shantly 7y ago
A US kid who hates school but has above-average general intelligence (so, not the prodigies who teach themselves Attic Greek at age 6 and go to Harvard at 12, just normal 1-in-50 or 1-in-25 smart kids) can probably bail on high school when they're 16, get into a community college (test scores ought to do it), take all the courses for an associate's degree, then snag a GED when eligible and officially pick up the degree. Doing all that plus having a part-time job is almost certainly a smaller time commitment than high school is and you'll get basically the same education or somewhat better, except you'll already have a degree and a ton of transferable credit toward a bachelor's at age 18.

Iv 7y ago

"As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it's a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves." Got some first hand experience here. Hard to not be a bit sarcastic. Geeze, I don't know... Is it that the students of Japan are suddenly becoming stubborn (or "weak") or is it that a system that: - does not fight bullying - does not fight racism - does not allow students any free time for any hobby - does recommend to sleep less in order to study more - does not allow to repeat a class and solely looks at date of birth to put kids in a class could, possibly, have some impact on the well-being of kids? But worry not: Japanese TV knows how parents can solve that! It recommends shouting and forcing sport on your lazy stay-at-home kid!

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whyBother 7y ago
Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Even if the incidents are egregious, this is not even among the top twenty reasons that "many" refuse to attend. As far back as the 1980's it was widely reported that Japanese expectations for children's performance and good behavior drive them to mental illness, from the top down, starting with the demands of parents.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Racism and discrimination aren't just reserved to the color of skin, it's often built around whole ancestries of groups and their traditional social standings [0]. For the same reason, the Nazis killed people that were just as white as themselves, as most scientific racism [1] went way past defining races merely by the color of skin [2] and anti-Slav sentiments are something very present in many Western European countries to this day. Case in point: The Nazis, and many other white-supremacists, consider themselves to be Aryans, supposedly descendants of the lost continent of Atlantis [3] and apparently the top of their imagined race pyramid. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch#Etymology [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Nazism_and_white_supremacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Nazism_and_white_suprema...

nabla9 7y ago

> In Japan, more and more children are refusing to go to school, a phenomenon called "futoko" Articles about Japan always bring up Japanese names for things. What is the reason for this? You don't usually see the same for other countries: In German more and more children are lonely, a phenomenon called "die Einsamkeit".

derefr 7y ago
I think the thing journalists find interesting is that Japan is creating these particular words at all, when most languages/cultures don’t bother. (Edited: removed some badly-sourced assertions.) We have an English word “truant”, referring to someone who happens to not attend schooling; but we have no English word for someone who actively avoids the education system. This is an uncommon construction; I don’t think there’s another language besides Japanese that has such a word. This is a problem that has only risen to the level of intensity to need public knowledge and communication about it in Japan—at least, so far. It’s interesting that they need such a word enough to not only create it, not only to make it short, but that it seemingly is a word any average Japanese person might now know. The fact that this word exists as a “layman’s term” says a lot about the phenomena. The fact that it replaced an earlier, less PC word for the same thing says even more! (But, besides the subtle statement being made by introducing an element of cultural linguistic evolution, journalists are probably also trying to be “the person who was responsible for introducing a loan-word into English.” Since English doesn’t have this word, but might need it sooner-or-later, maybe we’ll use the Japanese one, like we did with taifuun, karaoke, or emoji. Probably the journalists who first used those words in English-language articles feel very proud of themselves.)
- quelltext 7y ago
  > Rather, “futoko” is a noun to refer to the children themselves. Futōkō (不登校) refers to the act/phenomenon of not going to school, i.e. truancy, not the children.
- ihuman 7y ago
  > We have an English word “truant”, referring to someone who happens to not attend schooling; but we have no English word for someone who actively avoids the education system There's also "playing hooky". While it still refers to the action, IMO its more about someone actively avoiding school/work.

andreygrehov 7y ago

When I was a kid and lived in Ukraine (my home country), I went to a home school. Tutoring happened at a teacher's home. Each class was 4-6 people max. Such were the rules. They hired teachers from the same neighborhood so that kids could easily walk from one teacher's place to another. Sometimes we had to take a bus. It was amazing. Obviously, zero bullying and stuff like that. After class, we could get some fresh air while walking from Math class to, say, English class. Since people's homes are very different from each other, it was also fun. There was no "standard" school interior so to speak. We also had a better "connection" with our teachers. At home, everyone felt safe and teachers were kind, calm and al that. Sometimes a teacher could bake a pie for us or something similar. It was cool. I live in New York now and we found a somewhat similar school for our kids. The entire school has 15-17 students. Each class has 3-4 students max. Tutoring happens at a multi-family house, which is also a place where the principal of the school lives. My kids LOVE the school. They celebrate every single birthday of each other, with cakes, gifts and al that. They visit theaters, museums, movie theaters, farms, zoos, you name it. They also do classes that are not popular in US, like Geography, Biology and they want to add Chess and Yoga. My older one is 5 years old, he f#cking wants to travel. He wants to visit Paris, London, Romania. I can talk forever about our kids school, but to finish my comment, I'm a believer that this type of "semi-decentralized" education is the right path. I could be wrong though, but so far, it works out great.

Invictus0 7y ago
Would you mind sharing more information about the school?
- buf 7y ago
  Also interested
- andreygrehov 7y ago
  Feel free to mail me.

adamsea 7y ago

"Many schools in Japan control every aspect of their pupils' appearance, forcing pupils to dye their brown hair black, or not allowing pupils to wear tights or coats, even in cold weather. In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50693777 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50693777

JoshTko 7y ago

This is another clickbait article from BBC on how "Japan is weird". The number of kids in the free schools seems tiny at about 0.2%.

m3kw9 7y ago

Asian school tend to have super high workloads even during summer holidays they give you work to work over your Holiday. The pressure is immense as they rate you from first to last, and parents do not like their kids to be in the last 75%, let alone last. They see it as a disgrace to the family. Sadly someone’s got to be back there. The pressure is immense. This is just a single point amongst others I don’t have time to type

unsignedint 7y ago

Here's my anecdotal view on Japanese school. I have attended one from 1st to 2/3 into 7th grade (or 1st year of middle school) before I moved out to the States. School in Japan (and to extent the society) really focus any students not standing out in a group. I was always considered by teachers, and peers, that was "different" from others. (Basically I Was kind of guy who would be left out when asked to "make a pair" in odd numbers.) Fortunately, I could survive, as I wasn't really bullied much (happened time to time) and had small group of good friends, some support from someone older at school, and also befriended with some of teachers. Despite of this, feeling that I'm the one who can't blend in, that sense of shame and frustration was always reinforced. Without support, I would have had taken alternative way of school to be honest. (and to this day, it just gives me chill how bad things could have been if I actually had to stay in school in Japan for the rest of my education and beyond...) School system in the US is not that greatest thing either, however, at least people left me alone for how I am. I attended to Japanese supplemental school on Saturdays (that I was nearly forced to attend) for a little more than two years and I didn't enjoy it for the same reasons I had problem with school in Japan.

292929292 7y ago

At one point or another, the human race is collectively going to have to admit that schooling has reached absurdity. Unless you were a monarch or a very wealthy aristocrat, the amount of schooling that children across the world receive today is entirely unprecedented. Using US children as an example, look back 100 years ago from now. Only about 60% of US children were enrolled in school, the number of days in a median school year was about 120 (as opposed to 180), and the median 25 year old only completed 8.2 years of schooling (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf). With that in mind, take a look at this list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index In the US, the number of years spent in school on average is now 13.2. In 100 years, the number of school days has increased by (13.2 * 180) - (8.2 * 120) = 1392 days. Now consider the life of a modern US child. It is already decided before they're born that they will spend 9 hours a day (8 at school, 1 for HW), 5 days a week, for ~13 years of their youth in an office environment. In this office environment, children are expected to be quiet and stationary for the wide majority of that time. If a child disobeys, it will be recorded on several surveillance cameras, and the event will basically be remembered forever. Despite being able to surveil every pupil, bullying is still somehow a commonplace event. For the bullied, they have no recourse because they are forced to interact with their bullies on a near-daily basis. How anyone can convince themselves that this is a natural environment for children is beyond me. To be completely clear, I'm not saying I have an easy solution for this. This is simply the reality of competing in a highly technological, global economy. The need for menial labor is dropping everyday, and the demands of specialization are becoming increasingly stringent. But like a man eating tree bark in a famine, the necessity of the action doesn't magically improve the circumstances. Whether anybody likes it or not, it is a hard fact that governments around the world are forcing children to grow up in environments where they can not move, can not talk, can not play, and must complete copious amounts of paperwork. Schooling has become the elephant in the room for several modern dilemmas. On this site in particular, there have been numerous articles circulating about the depression epidemic, the loneliness epidemic, record-breaking virginity, record-breaking obesity, etc. etc. While unlikely to be sole cause for any of those issues, it is a blindingly obvious contributor. If I force a child to stay at a desk every morning until night for several years, it should come as no surprise when the child's health and mental state starts to fail. Yet if I do that in the name of education, this is a surprising result? This is an untouchable subject for politicians, except when arguing to _increase_ its size and scope. It is too easy for political opponents to smear such candidates as "anti-education", and a large group of teachers / school administrators consider such proposals to be an attack on their job security. Unlike other job sectors, these teachers / school administrators have a regular captive audience of children for 8 straight hours. Even unintentionally, their political attitudes are bound to be reflected in their students. So, the attitudes continue, and the cycle stays unbroken. To hazard a guess, I don't think the end of this cycle is going to be an intentional political action. I think it is much more likely to be a collapse, based on the carelessness that this issue has been given up to now. Eventually, the constraints placed on children are going to become unbearable, and the rewards at the end of the pipeline will become too meager. If this happens, there will a large number of people in a single generation going insane en masse. Unfortunately, that would probably collapse more than just the school system.