10 Things About Japanese Schools I learned this year
My daughters (we have no sons) are about to finish their second year in Japan (I came end of last March because I had to finish up work in Korea). Our daughters are a mix of Multi European (my side) and Japanese-Korean (their mother). We live in Kanagawa and, while some of the things may not be universal, most of these I've heard from friends of ours in other prefectures exist as well.
10. No phones at school.
No cell phones, no flip phones, no smartphones no iphones, no exceptions. They are considered distracting and unnecessary at school. I support this rule. Coming from Korea, where they could carry their phones to-and-from school, I found that Korean kids were getting these amazingly wonderful do everything phones that they don't need. This includes walking to-and-from school. No carrying phones.
9. No Taking Your Child to School.
In Japan teaching your child independence is practically job 1 for parents. Parents do not drive their kids to school, walk their kids to school or any of that. Our elementary aged daughters walk a fair distance to school (because of our location). They are assigned walking groups. Since they are triplets, they are in three different classrooms and they have different walking groups because they walk by class. Our twins (1st year middle school) walk with their homeroom friends -- so they have different groups to walk with. Our oldest (3rd Year Middle school) walks with her friends.
* Yes, we have 6 daughters. No, we are not planning on having any more children for two reasons; first, I am a fairly old parent 55, and second, I'm afraid we'd have 4 next time.*
8. No Mechanical Pencils at School.
Don't know why. But, I don't know anyone who has children in Kanagawa, Tokyo, Osaka, etc whose school allows mechanical pencils.
7. No make-up, no hair dye, hair length and style is regulated, no nail polish (finger nails or toe nails), no tattoos, no pierced ears.
Although I have heard stories that there are schools that allow pierced ears, I don't know anyone who has children at any school that allows it.
There are sometimes exceptions to the hair dye -- our twins are an example. Unlike their sisters, our twins have mixed dominance hair -- black with bits of blonde and brown. The principal asked us to have their hair dyed so they'd have their hair color like everyone else. So, their hair is dyed.
6. Uniforms are tightly regulated.
Our girls all attend schools that require uniforms. Watch any anime and you have already seen this (though in some areas of Japan, elementary school students don't have uniforms). Kanagawa is fairly traditional regarding uniform requirements at all levels. Not only is their uniform regulated, but the book bag they carry is often regulated (at all our children's schools boys have black and girls red), the shoes (outdoor and indoor) and how the uniform is worn.
I wasn't sure how our children would respond when they went from Korea to Japan, but all of them like their uniforms and enjoy wearing them -- which is good, because they're in uniform almost the whole day -- and by whole day, I mean the whole day, from the time they go to school, their after school classes and coming home they wear their uniform
5. Clubs are very important
Every school has clubs. The clubs are year round. Even during vacation they are expected to attend their club.
4. The students clean the school. After classes are over, Gakko Soji begins. Every student is assigned a duty around the school and every teacher is assigned to moderate and help. They did this in Korea as well. Interestingly, I have been told that this is to prepare them for when they start working as adults.
3. Students may not write or draw on the board, except for doing work during class.
When we were in Korea, during break period between each class, the students would sometimes draw pictures or write things on the board. As long as it was erased before next class it was okay. Not at any Japanese school I know of: no scribbling, no drawing, no writing, no kidding
2. Bullying is a Problem. But it is improving.
In the quest for conformity, children that are seen as unusual or different are often shunned by their peers. In some cases they are taunted by students in their class to be like everyone else. Fortunately, over the past few years it has been changing. The Superintendent for Public Instruction for our prefecture has a near zero tolerance policy for this behavior. One of our twins' best friend was one of the shunned, and this was strictly because her family is fairly lower socioeconomic and they're kind of odd. Fortunately for this girl, she latched on to one of our twins as a bff and this daughter can 'intimidate with the best of them' if need be.
1. Students cannot be held back
No matter how badly a student does, they cannot be held back. As far as I can tell, this has more to do with keeping the children in the same grade the same age -- sameness. The teachers spend a lot of time trying to get these slow students up to grade level -- so do the other children
**If you want to be a school teacher in Japan you might as well give up ever having a good, long vacation because they spend the bulk of their vacations at school doing work, attending classes assigned by the Prefecture, etc. I don't know about the foreign native English speakers
= new reply since forum marked as read
I saw a basic bullet journal kit on Amazon and was trying to figure it out since I hadn't heard that term before.
I came up with it's a blank planner that you decorate.
Thanks for some very interesting reading!
