5 ms·

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. Chi

by 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.

whatshisface 7y ago
Japan also has several decades worth of a stagnant economy in order to instill a sense of financial nihilism in its culture that doesn't exist yet in America.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Also salaryman culture. I could see the whole "do it to get a job" thing being not only largely ineffective, but achieve the opposite effect. When the person with a job that you know is a depressed alcohol who never has time for fun, why would becoming that be motivating?
oddity 7y ago
A good question. My best guess is that NA school systems are much less taxing than Japan's, and Japan's long history of economic stagnation has clamped down on the benefit equation even for those who do buy in to the school = job argument. I hadn't thought of the reason you gave, and I'm sure there's more here that I don't understand about Japan's culture. My comment was primarily in response to the article talking a lot about why kids don't want to go to school, but not why they would want to go to school. imo, you could reduce the cost of school as much as you'd like and it would still be hard to get kids to learn unless you've convinced them to want to learn.
skokage 7y ago
>North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. My impression from living here in Japan for a bit over a year, and having friends with children in the Japanese school system, is that Japanese students have way more pressure put on them. Kids spend way longer each day out of the house; Study sessions before school, stronger peer pressure to assimilate and not stick out, more after school activities, more homework to do in the evenings, school six days a week. Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. The pressure to succeed starts way younger than it does in the US, and not getting into the primary school of choice can ruin your chances for success later on in adult hood. A couple of anecdotal stories I've seen during my time here; Bullying here seems to be much more pronounced, and given the cultural hesitation to involve yourself in other's affairs, often goes unchecked. I've seen many instances of large groups of 10+ kids ganging up on a single kid on the streets, in full view of adults and even public safety volunteers, and no one will ever step in and tell the kids to stop. On another occasion I was outside of a combini having a drink, and near by a young girl (maybe 8 years old or so), was crying trying to do her homework. The mother was nearby and when she would write down answers that were wrong, the mother would scream at the child and call her stupid, which would cause the child to cry harder (but still trying to complete her work), and the entire thing just kind of created this negative feedback loop - child would cry harder and probably do worse on the work, which would anger the mother and make the screaming more intense, which caused the crying to become more intense. It was a really depressing and disturbing thing to witness, especially given the young age of the child. I know bullying exists in the west (myself being a victim of some pretty intense bullying as a child), and there is strong pressure to do well in high school to get into the best colleges as well, but from what I've seen in Japan it seems to be much more pronounced. At least in the west most times an adult will step in to stop bullying when it's seen, but here it seems no one cares or will do anything to stop it.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  > Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. This is not generally true. For public schools (i.e. ones in the public system, not private) your middle school is determined by where you live. There is no entrance exam until you are going to high school. For the prestigious schools in the private system, there are often entrance exams at every single level, but these are not common schools. Normally, once you get into one of these school you are pretty much set for life (often they even have a university equivalent system, though you have to write a comprehensive exam to get your eventual degree). As for bullying, I worked in Japanese high school for 5 years. It was a low level school (we once accepted a student who score 0 on their entrance exam -- that's how low level). Bullying happened, but compared to the bullying I personally experienced in my high school in Canada, it was quite rare. In every case of bullying that I observed, the bullies were expelled. It may be that my high school was particularly stringent about bullying, though. Of course you can't catch all cases of bullying and a lot will happen outside of the school grounds. I'm not sure what's going on with this report and I'm interested to learn more, but especially at elementary level I find it a bit difficult to understand. Most of the things that distinguish western school systems from the Japanese system don't really kick in until middle school. There really isn't a club system in elementary school and children come home around 3 pm. They don't generally go to school on the weekend. I've seen the curriculum and it's not appreciably more difficult than in the west (I once had an idea to learn Japanese by buying up textbooks on every subject for elementary school children and learning everything they did. It was quite fun!) Whatever is going on, I suspect it's not directly related to the school per se. I will say that in high school, they are somewhat more accepting of absenteeism, at least in low level schools. I had a student who never once showed up before 11:30 in the morning and while he was frequently a cause of concern for the teachers, he was treated pretty carefully. So it is possible that absenteeism is just more accepted. I don't know. I mean if your kid didn't show up for a month at school, I think a social worker would be knocking on the door. In Japan, it would be the home room teacher from the school and they have a lot less options than that social worker. But like I said, I don't know enough to understand what's going on here.
mntmoss 7y ago
Something tells me that it's related to the relative independence that school age kids experience in Japan when outside of school. Long solo commutes on transit are OK even for older grade schoolers. And the pop culture tends to put a lot of emphasis on the school age "best years of our lives" trope - witness the endless number of high school manga settings - because the working age world in Japan still offers comparatively longer hours and less freedom. If you take that thought to its cynical conclusion, that you cease to be a person with any kind of personality or agency after graduation - well, why respect the school system and the class popularity contests? In the U.S. the helicopter parenting strategy mostly prevails since society has a tendency to call the cops on "negligent" parenting. There's a ton of focus on attendance numbers and graduation rates. Depending on where you are, school can be an academic pressure cooker or a pipeline into the prison system. There are more immigrant communities pushing for "first in the family" success stories. And so the attention of the student gets away from how bad school is and gets diverted towards "surviving the zombie apocalypse/battle royale and riding off into the sunset". Many people entering adulthood here, at least since the recession and perhaps earlier, experience a crisis a short while after they graduate and enter the workforce because they have been so steadfastly committed to this kinds of script from an early age that they can't reflect properly until much later, and then it hits like a freight train that they might be wrong, their identity is incompletely constructed, and the story did not end with them riding off into the sunset.
connicpu 7y ago
In a lot of the United States at least, it's illegal to not have your children in school, and there's a fair bit of paperwork involved for doing homeschooling. The burden is there on the parents to force kids to go to school even if they don't want to.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  One reason for that, historically in the US (and probably everywhere else) is that parents would pull kids out of school for weeks to 'do chores around the farm'. They'd fall behind their classmates. Guess who was expected to fix that. Parents who think education is worthless breed kids who fulfill that prophecy. Reap what you sow.

by S3an12 7y ago

whatshisface 7y ago

Japan also has several decades worth of a stagnant economy in order to instill a sense of financial nihilism in its culture that doesn't exist yet in America.

austhrow743 7y ago
Also salaryman culture. I could see the whole "do it to get a job" thing being not only largely ineffective, but achieve the opposite effect. When the person with a job that you know is a depressed alcohol who never has time for fun, why would becoming that be motivating?

oddity 7y ago

A good question. My best guess is that NA school systems are much less taxing than Japan's, and Japan's long history of economic stagnation has clamped down on the benefit equation even for those who do buy in to the school = job argument. I hadn't thought of the reason you gave, and I'm sure there's more here that I don't understand about Japan's culture. My comment was primarily in response to the article talking a lot about why kids don't want to go to school, but not why they would want to go to school. imo, you could reduce the cost of school as much as you'd like and it would still be hard to get kids to learn unless you've convinced them to want to learn.

skokage 7y ago

>North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. My impression from living here in Japan for a bit over a year, and having friends with children in the Japanese school system, is that Japanese students have way more pressure put on them. Kids spend way longer each day out of the house; Study sessions before school, stronger peer pressure to assimilate and not stick out, more after school activities, more homework to do in the evenings, school six days a week. Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. The pressure to succeed starts way younger than it does in the US, and not getting into the primary school of choice can ruin your chances for success later on in adult hood. A couple of anecdotal stories I've seen during my time here; Bullying here seems to be much more pronounced, and given the cultural hesitation to involve yourself in other's affairs, often goes unchecked. I've seen many instances of large groups of 10+ kids ganging up on a single kid on the streets, in full view of adults and even public safety volunteers, and no one will ever step in and tell the kids to stop. On another occasion I was outside of a combini having a drink, and near by a young girl (maybe 8 years old or so), was crying trying to do her homework. The mother was nearby and when she would write down answers that were wrong, the mother would scream at the child and call her stupid, which would cause the child to cry harder (but still trying to complete her work), and the entire thing just kind of created this negative feedback loop - child would cry harder and probably do worse on the work, which would anger the mother and make the screaming more intense, which caused the crying to become more intense. It was a really depressing and disturbing thing to witness, especially given the young age of the child. I know bullying exists in the west (myself being a victim of some pretty intense bullying as a child), and there is strong pressure to do well in high school to get into the best colleges as well, but from what I've seen in Japan it seems to be much more pronounced. At least in the west most times an adult will step in to stop bullying when it's seen, but here it seems no one cares or will do anything to stop it.

mikekchar 7y ago
> Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. This is not generally true. For public schools (i.e. ones in the public system, not private) your middle school is determined by where you live. There is no entrance exam until you are going to high school. For the prestigious schools in the private system, there are often entrance exams at every single level, but these are not common schools. Normally, once you get into one of these school you are pretty much set for life (often they even have a university equivalent system, though you have to write a comprehensive exam to get your eventual degree). As for bullying, I worked in Japanese high school for 5 years. It was a low level school (we once accepted a student who score 0 on their entrance exam -- that's how low level). Bullying happened, but compared to the bullying I personally experienced in my high school in Canada, it was quite rare. In every case of bullying that I observed, the bullies were expelled. It may be that my high school was particularly stringent about bullying, though. Of course you can't catch all cases of bullying and a lot will happen outside of the school grounds. I'm not sure what's going on with this report and I'm interested to learn more, but especially at elementary level I find it a bit difficult to understand. Most of the things that distinguish western school systems from the Japanese system don't really kick in until middle school. There really isn't a club system in elementary school and children come home around 3 pm. They don't generally go to school on the weekend. I've seen the curriculum and it's not appreciably more difficult than in the west (I once had an idea to learn Japanese by buying up textbooks on every subject for elementary school children and learning everything they did. It was quite fun!) Whatever is going on, I suspect it's not directly related to the school per se. I will say that in high school, they are somewhat more accepting of absenteeism, at least in low level schools. I had a student who never once showed up before 11:30 in the morning and while he was frequently a cause of concern for the teachers, he was treated pretty carefully. So it is possible that absenteeism is just more accepted. I don't know. I mean if your kid didn't show up for a month at school, I think a social worker would be knocking on the door. In Japan, it would be the home room teacher from the school and they have a lot less options than that social worker. But like I said, I don't know enough to understand what's going on here.

mntmoss 7y ago

Something tells me that it's related to the relative independence that school age kids experience in Japan when outside of school. Long solo commutes on transit are OK even for older grade schoolers. And the pop culture tends to put a lot of emphasis on the school age "best years of our lives" trope - witness the endless number of high school manga settings - because the working age world in Japan still offers comparatively longer hours and less freedom. If you take that thought to its cynical conclusion, that you cease to be a person with any kind of personality or agency after graduation - well, why respect the school system and the class popularity contests? In the U.S. the helicopter parenting strategy mostly prevails since society has a tendency to call the cops on "negligent" parenting. There's a ton of focus on attendance numbers and graduation rates. Depending on where you are, school can be an academic pressure cooker or a pipeline into the prison system. There are more immigrant communities pushing for "first in the family" success stories. And so the attention of the student gets away from how bad school is and gets diverted towards "surviving the zombie apocalypse/battle royale and riding off into the sunset". Many people entering adulthood here, at least since the recession and perhaps earlier, experience a crisis a short while after they graduate and enter the workforce because they have been so steadfastly committed to this kinds of script from an early age that they can't reflect properly until much later, and then it hits like a freight train that they might be wrong, their identity is incompletely constructed, and the story did not end with them riding off into the sunset.

connicpu 7y ago

In a lot of the United States at least, it's illegal to not have your children in school, and there's a fair bit of paperwork involved for doing homeschooling. The burden is there on the parents to force kids to go to school even if they don't want to.

8bitsrule 7y ago
One reason for that, historically in the US (and probably everywhere else) is that parents would pull kids out of school for weeks to 'do chores around the farm'. They'd fall behind their classmates. Guess who was expected to fix that. Parents who think education is worthless breed kids who fulfill that prophecy. Reap what you sow.