What you expect: Classrooms filled with studious children, enthusiasm for English, tag team efforts with Japanese teachers, effective curriculum from your amazing brain, and a job well done each day.

What you find upon arrival: Classrooms filled with the screams of not learning, little interest in English, Japanese teachers with their own agenda, and gangs of yankis (bad kids) roaming the halls, telling you to shine (die) every chance they get.

Congratulations! You got placed in a troubled school.

And so did I. Unlike my peers who had great stories about their students’ enthusiasm for life and learning, I had stories about broken windows and broken dreams. When I told people in my town where I worked, they usually said zannen (too bad). In my school, there were 900 students, 24 homerooms, and only five of those homerooms were dependably well-behaved.

There are three ways to go when you experience culture shock this severe.

1. You can become bitter and hate Japan.
2. You can pretend nothing is happening and Japan is still perfect.
3. You can deal with your experiences and grow.

Sadly, I saw option 1 and 2 happen a lot, and they usually happened when the person did nothing. Option 3 is the hardest and is only achieved when you start viewing your bad situation as an opportunity for personal growth.

Easier said than done, right? Incredibly right. Below I will elaborate on 5 practical tips you can use in your tough situation. I admit I am not an expert in Japanese relations or classroom teachonomics, so please compare what I say here with the advice of other people in these situations

But to my credit, I was placed in the biggest school in my town, which also happened to be the most horrible (what luck!). And to speak of the psychological effects, I spoke no Japanese in the beginning and had just come from my first experience in Japan as a teaching intern at Kasukabe Kyoei, which is a high level school filled with well-behaved geniuses.

All that to say, I returned to the U.S. feeling comfortable with my infamous school and loving Japan less as a magic lollipop kingdom and more like an old friend. I hope the tips I used will help you accomplish the same.

1. Re-Define Your Goals

As a brand new ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) I had a few simple objectives: to have meaningful interactions with my students, make them all English experts, and teach them about the wide, wide world (specifically America). Realistically, this is impossible even at a good school. The advantage of a troubled school is that it will crush these dreams for you early on, like so much egg salad sandwich under foot. This is a good thing. You get the opportunity to realistically redefine your goals.

After fruitlessly pursuing my goal of “real teaching” for several months, I learned an important lesson. You can’t teach if it’s not a learning environment. And my school was not that. It’s hard to keep children’s attention when a student is riding his bike on the roof (even I wanted to see that).

The change came when I asked each individual teacher what they needed me to do. I was trying to be a one size fits all ALT for each class and that didn’t work with 24 wildly different homerooms. The Japanese teachers who were my partners knew these classes better than I did, so I became what they needed for each class. This didn’t solve everything. Some teachers wanted me to do virtually nothing, which was not what I wanted. But other teachers wanted me to do puppet shows and make PowerPoint presentations featuring Mega Man. I focused my efforts on them.

This may not seem like a big deal, but I felt better when I was useful. For one teacher, I was literally a bodyguard, batting down papers thrown at her and escorting students back to their seats. It was exhausting, but felt good protecting a sweet old lady from maniacs.

The point is, give yourself a role regarding each teacher and name it, like a job title (For Matsuda-sensei, I am pronunciation manager; for Katayama-sensei, I am a bouncer, etc.). Even if you don’t like the particular role, it will feel better knowing you are being a useful part of the team and give you attainable, satisfying goals.

2. Draw Out Your Good Students

I had two first impressions of my school:

1. My school was insane.
2. All my students were bad.

The first impression remained largely true, but the second was not. In my first week I met four exceptional students, one who is currently attending Waseda University! They were my saving grace, but if I was going to survive, I needed to find more of them.

If I had to guess, I would say my school consisted of 100 yankis, 600 neutral students, and 200 good students (and about three sociopaths). But even with only 100 bad influences, it was enough to keep the insanity percolator at full boil.

But the fact remained, there were 200 good students in there somewhere. Drawing them out was the challenge. Calling on good students or talking to them outside of class worked only sometimes. I eventually noticed they could write English very well, but rarely spoke it and loved passing notes to each other.

Enter: Michael’s Mailbox System. I constructed a large cardboard mailbox and explained the system to each homeroom. The response was overwhelming. I began corresponding with at least 30-40 of the suspected 200 good students and that was enough for me. It gave me at least a few kids in each homeroom I could focus my attention on. This may be seen as playing favorites, but I saw it more as putting my efforts to good use.

Other ideas might be to join a club (good kids open up when not in a classroom environment) or start an English club (you’ll attract the kids who care enough to learn English in their free time).

3. Build Your Personal Confidence

I was pretty nervous about teaching from the get-go. To make matters worse, after my self-introduction speech to the students (during which I mumbled Japanese words I had yet to learn the meaning of) I fell off the stage.

I slipped off the top step and slid down the stairs to the gym floor in front of 1,000 people. That was my school’s first impression of me.

Thankfully, a few days before that, I was sitting at an izakaya with a fellow ALT teacher who was giving me advice. The main thing I remembered her telling me was “freak out the squares.” Basically, fight loud and crazy with loud and crazy.

My glorious hiney slide in front of the 1,000 people was immediately followed by my first lesson ever. Talk about nerve racking. I was only three words into it when a student yelled an obscenity at me and the class fell into uproarious laughter. This was it, I had to freak out the squares. And freak out I did. “My name is…MICHAEL!” I yelled, clicking to my first slide, thankfully a wacky picture of me. The class reacted to my energy. I had them. I was all big noises and big movements. I felt small, but I acted big. When a kid yelled out of turn, I made him my ally in craziness. All in all, it was a fantastic first class.

Granted, this technique did not always work, but it worked surprisingly well most of the time. Recently I found out the reason why.

In a 2012 TED talk, Amy Cuddy exposes a simple truth: our stress and confidence hormones inform how we act, but acting confident reverses the process and informs our chemicals. I didn’t feel powerful, but I acted it and eventually became it (boosting my testosterone and lowering my cortisol). Doing this over long periods actually changes your behavior and your success rate. It’s not “fake it till you make it”, but rather “fake it till you become it”. Amy Cuddy explains it much better than I can.

I now consider being trapped in that crazy school to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. Because I took that first shaky step of power that day, I spent two years becoming a better presenter, which still serves me today.

4. Find Compassion For The Yankis

Yankis were the bane of my existence for a good long while. I mentioned them earlier, but allow me to elaborate here: they are the punks of Japan. Tall orange hair, baggy clothes, and an attitude. They always struck me as silly and never physically dangerous, but they were emotionally degrading and obnoxious. They interrupted my classes, yelled obscenities at me, and wouldn’t leave! They didn’t attend class, yet stayed in the school. That still boggles my mind. If you’re going to skip class, go to the mall! In a nutshell, they were the bad kids.

I hate to admit this, but for a time, I hated the yankis. They targeted me for ridicule, which I deflected but ultimately internalized. My turning point came when I began reflecting on problem students I went to school with and what (probably) made them act out. I didn’t know a lot of details about the yankis, but over time it became apparent that these renegade miscreants didn’t have much to look forward to. Their loud shows of bravado were mostly covers for what they did or didn’t have going for them outside of school.

This made them seem a lot less threatening and a lot more pathetic. And I mean that to say, it gave me sympathy for them.

Sadly, I never found a solution to the yanki’s behavior problems. If 65 teachers couldn’t keep a lid on the situation, it’s unlikely I could have. However, my perspective shift gave me more compassion for them. If they were harassing a student or teacher, I would do my best to stop it. But when they weren’t behaving badly, I didn’t treat them any differently than the other students and I even tried talking to them. It worked a few times. While most remained hostile and insane fools, I found a few good-natured yankis that, for whatever reason, just had no drive to succeed. I still think of them from time to time and hope they have found good things.

5. Understand And Make Peace With The Japanese Way Of Doing School

This goal was the hardest for me to achieve. After my first year, I had formed my conclusion about the Japanese school system: it was wrong and bad and awful! And it didn’t work. And also I hated it. Furthermore, I had the answers to fix all of their problems. But for all my “genius” fixes, I was powerless to change the system.

My anger at the school system had a threefold balm:

1. Many of my creative heroes are products of the Japanese school system, as well as some very wonderful Japanese people who have become my friends. So something was working somehow.
2. The system needed change before I got there, but it wasn’t going to change just because I showed up with my ideas. Even if the schools decide to change based on ideas from Western schools, Japan has to come to that realization and change in its own way.
3. I didn’t attend a bad school in the U.S. but maybe some things that worked for me in my good school were not working for other kids in bad schools. Maybe some changes need to be enacted in my own country’s school system.

Frankly, these epiphanies came to me and took hold very slowly. You will have to wrestle with your grievances against Japanese school yourself and take time to make peace with them. No matter the conclusion you come to, however, you will become a more well-rounded person for spending the emotional energy to deal with these objections.

Here are few exercises you can do to help you wrestle:

• Write down the things you don’t like about the Japanese way of doing school. Acknowledge that these objections are not frivolous. They are your convictions and they matter! Put them away somewhere (a book, a drawer) as an act of setting these grievances aside. You are not destroying or dismissing these feelings you have. That’s why you are keeping them. But you are putting them away in favor of accepting the system for what it is, so your grievances won’t get in the way of your greater mission as an ambassador.
• Read some articles about problems in your own country’s school system. How many were in your blind spot? How many of the problems in Japanese schools may be blindspots to Japanese people?
• Read Koichi’s article on the school system! It outlines what the Japanese way of school is trying to achieve. It helps to know how the system is supposed to work, even if it’s not working in your school.

In The End…

Let me add as I close, that even though my school was crazy and disturbing, I did not feel I was in any physical danger. The tips I outlined are not meant to help you accept or ignore a dangerous situation. If you feel you might be in danger of any physical harm, and this goes for any time in your life, get help or get out of there!

This batch of advice is just to get you started. Read other articles and forum posts by people in these situations. Even if you implement my suggestions, it will take a lot of patience, practice, and soul searching before you figure out what works best for you and your circumstances. You will still have bad days (those never went away for me) but you will deal with them and learn from them much more effectively.

In the end, if you can avoid denial and bitterness, you will find yourself to be a stronger and more holistic person than when you started. It sounds weird to say, but I’m glad I was placed in my insane school. It forced me into situations that built my self-confidence and life skills, as well as brought me face to face with a not-so-easy side of Japan. I was made to wrestle with things that made Japan seem less magical and more like a country filled with human beings. And that is what you will want at the end of your time teaching English, to know that you lived and experienced real Japan.

Now before I begin I need to state where I come from. I’m from Singapore (no that’s not in China) with a similarly brutal Asian education system. That means that I will probably have a very different perspective on Japan’s education system compared to the other writers. For example, one striking thing to Americans in Japan is perhaps the relatively low school dropout rates. To me however, that’s taken for granted, as is the exam stress of the Japanese system.

But, anyway. As Koichi stated, there was (and still is) a trend to hail the Asian countries’ education system. It may have shifted away from Japan specifically, but US President Obama’s praising of the Korean education system shows that this trend is still going strong.

However, and to be very frank, whenever this happens, many of us on the other side of the Pacific just simply arch our eyebrows. Partly because we don’t know how “bad” it is over on the other side – my friend talking about gang fights in his Los Angeles school was eye-opening to me. But also partly because on the flip side many Westerners have an overly rosy view of Asia and its education – it seems as if the education systems of Asia are praised more outside of Asia than within it.

Some of the stuff in this article is very generalizable to other Asian countries as well – there really are a lot of similarities. Some of it is specific to Japan – read on to find out.

Non-Cognitive Skills

Koichi in his article (I’m very sure I’m not doing it justice by summarizing here) pointed out that the amae as well the ganbare culture in Japanese society are the core reasons why the the Japanese youth tend to stronger non-cognitive skills, which in turn leads in the long run to higher personal performance. This also translates to their ability to endure the punishing stress of the Japanese education system and life thereafter.

This is true in terms of perseverance, stress tolerance and conscientiousness. However, there are also other non-cognitive skills which cannot be lumped together with the above. Consider the following:

Self Confidence: A survey published in 2011 (Source in Japanese) stated that 37.3% of Japanese high-schoolers “somewhat agreed” or “completely agreed” with the statement “I am a human being with worth” (私は価値のある人間だと思う). This is contrasted with 75.3% in South Korea, 88.0% in China and 90.4% in the US.

Furthermore the same survey also asked whether participants agreed with the statement “私は努力すれば大体のことができる” (I’ll be able to do most things if I put in effort) – 44.4% of Japanese participants agreed as compared to above 80% for the other countries. Therefore it’s questionable whether Japanese students work so hard because they really believe they can achieve or because they’re simply being pressured to do so.

Shyness: described as an “overgeneralized response to fear” in this article, Carducci and Zimbardo continue to say that Japan (along with Taiwan) display the highest shyness among surveyed countries and that:

In Japan, if a child tries and succeeds, the parents get the credit. So do the grandparents, teachers, coaches, even Buddha. If there’s any left over, only then is it given to the child. But if the child tries and fails, the child is fully culpable and cannot blame anyone else. An “I can’t win” belief takes hold, so that children of the culture never take a chance or do anything that will make them stand out. As the Japanese proverb states, “the nail that stands out is pounded down.”

Curiosity: An international survey conducted on adults by the OECD over 2011-2012 asked the question “Do you like learning new things”. Japan had 20% of respondents answering “Not at all” or “Very Little”, the highest number excluding South Korea which had near 29% answering so. 36.8% in Japan answered “to some extent”, however the total for “to a high extent” and “to a very high extent” (42%) was significantly lower than other surveyed countries, except for South Korea.

Whether the education system is the main factor in this is unclear. However, rote memorization based exams may disincentivize students from exploring outside the fixed curriculum – after all, extra knowledge does not beget results.

There’s a lot to be said about the interpretation of data because perhaps the above is just reflecting Japanese humbleness. Nonetheless, the margins between countries suggest that in the field of non-cognitive skills the field is rather mixed when you add the above to perseverance.

Curriculum

Moving on to the education system proper, it’s also worth looking at what cognitive skills – and skill sets – the education system imparts. While Koichi stresses that non-cognitive skills play the largest part in a person’s success I think it’s also important to also stress that cognitive skills play a significant role as well. For example, a study by Heckman, Stixud and Urzua in the US (accessible here) suggests that both cognitive and non-cognitive skills play heavy roles in a person’s wages.

As Koichi did argue, non-cognitive skills do tend to lead to cognitive skills, which are important for future successes. Non-cognitive may be the “origin” of my success – working harder at math may improve my math skills enough to qualify me to be an accountant in the future – but without those cognitive skills eventually developing I could not have been an accountant.

Therefore, the cognitive skills taught in an education system are important too. Japan has clear successes in literacy and mathematical ability but there are some drawbacks to the Japanese system as well. These include:

Foreign language skills including English: ’Nuff said. This can be an entire article by itself. Despite all of the years spent studying English, the average Japanese person is nearly helpless when put in an English-speaking-related situation.

Presentation Skills: Actually a mix of cognitive and non-cognitive skills (likeability etc). Not very well taught at all. There’s no data on this but a majority of my classmates say that the first time they’ve ever done a PowerPoint presentation was in University. Body-language, reading-from-a-script and extremely wordy PowerPoints are still very common from my experience.

Written expression: Sumitani and Robert-Sanborn have written an interesting essay here (In Japanese) about the role of essay-writing in education and society. Anyways, essay-writing is not emphasized greatly at the pre-university level given that the University Entrance Examination (センター試験; 2013 sample can be found here) have no essay based component and are entirely multiple choice. Individual universities may choose to add essay-components in their additional secondary entrance examinations though.

IT education: Perhaps a surprise? The PIAAC survey published in 2013 noted that while Japan as a whole scores average among surveyed countries in terms of “problem solving in technology rich environments”, the group aged 16 – 24 years old performed below average compared to the youth of other countries. IT education is a subject in school so it’s not as if they have zero technology education. My view is that the lack of personal research projects, computer presentations etc in other subjects inhibit Japanese youth in developing these skills.

So as with the non-cognitive segment, the cognitive skills segment for the Japanese proves to be mixed in terms of its limitations and successes (reading, writing, numeracy). As you can see, the Japanese education system’s effectiveness really gets hit hard when you step outside the bounds of “facts that you can learn.” Creativity, the ability to take those facts and apply them to something else (language speaking, presentations, written expression, etc) are all what I’d consider weak points of the Japanese education system.

How The Japanese View Their Own Education System

But perhaps one linked (but important) topic that needs to be touched on is how the Japanese evaluate their own education system.

The first thing that needs to be said is that in Japan now, there’s a lot of pessimism about the future. Part of this pessimism is a tendency to blame and criticize the young. Perhaps the pessimism is justified by genuine issues among Japanese youth but then again the general pessimism may tint the evaluation of the youth by the people living in Japan (including me as a resident).

We don’t know how strong the effect of each direction is but any self-evaluative surveys must be qualified by this possible bias. However, one question which I expect many Japanese to ask is: if our education is so good, why is our economy still doing so badly?

There is in general a perception that Japan’s academic standards have been declining. Nakai has written a very complete article here about the debate and its history. Furthermore, there was a survey published in 2004 showing that employers were by and large very dissatisfied with the skills of high-school and university graduates. Given that the Japanese economy has not experienced any significant improvement so far I doubt if the appraisal today would be significantly different.

Given this, it probably would seem odd to many Japanese to hear their education system described in such a positive light. In fact if it were not for widespread dissatisfaction with or fears about the quality of education in Japan, the government would probably not have announced wide ranging reforms last year.

Given The Above…

I really have to caution people about treating Japan, or any other Asian country, as shining beacons of academic excellence. We all have our problems and unless you know a lot about the other side, it’s very easy to fall into “grass is greener on the other side” pitfalls.

So while we may laugh at articles from the Onion titled Chinese third graders falling behind US high school students in Math, Science, let me just end by saying that there’s actually a lot that Asians (at least those that I know) admire about Western education too. Like the high emphasis on debate, discussion and communicative skills, for example.

But not the math, oh no no no certainly not the math standard. But that’s for another article someday.

Other Links:

• Japan Times: Education in 2013: an “A” for ambition but Japan will have to do better
• The Guardian: Why do Japanese children lead world numeracy and literacy
• Higher Education and the Japanese Disease

(My Ideal Guy: (Johnny Depp + Orlando Bloom)/2 drawn by Mami)

This sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I wish this was true, but unfortunately not…

“Tell me about your greatest moment as a student.” That was my homework from the ESL school that I used to go to. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t particularly ‘diligent’ and that is why I made up a silly short story for my homework. Getting a high grade or making a great presentation could be thought of as a “great moment” for most students, but honestly I couldn’t come up with any good examples at the time no matter how much I thought about it.

Education is often analyzed in terms of outcomes, results, or as a process. But here I would like to put this assumption aside, and just concentrate on the experience itself, specifically in Japan. Wouldn’t you like to know what it is like?

Educational system in Japan

In Japan, the educational system in is the same as it is where I am now (Canada).

6 years of elementary school
3 years of junior high school
3 years of high school
4 years of university

This was actually reformed after WWII from the old 6-5-3-3 system to what you see above. Of these years of education, high school and university are not mandatory, though high school enrollment is over 96% nationwide in nearly all cities of Japan. Around 46% of Japanese high school graduates go on to college or university.

Most schools operate on a three-term system with the academic year starting in April when the cherry blossom bloom, and end in March of the following year. So in March there is a graduation ceremony, and I remember a lot of students were crying because of hay fever creating a very grave atmosphere.

There are some people who claim that Japan should change the school-year system to be the same as North America, because this difference sometimes causes inconveniences to students who wish to study abroad in places such as the US, Canada, and so on. The same problem would happen to foreigners who wish to study in Japan as well. They graduate from their school in June or July, but have to wait until April to go to a Japanese school.

Personally I would be a little sad if the Japanese school-year system was changed. It’s such a beautiful moment to say goodbye to your friends underneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom.There are so many good songs about graduation and cherry blossoms, too, and they would all be ruined! Although I understand the student side of perspective, I’d like them to leave that system as a Japanese culture.

「さくら（独唱）」／森山直太朗

卒園式の歌(さよなら僕たちの幼稚園) 号泣

Too Many Study Hours

Other than the lower grades of elementary school, an average school day on weekdays in Japan is seven to eight hours depending on the school and what grade you’re in. That’s one of the longest school days in the world! Despite this, a student’s studying doesn’t usually finish even after school lets out. Not only do they have drills and other homework after school, but there’s also extra classes to attend at their public schools or at private “cram schools” known as 塾 (じゅく/juku). Especially with junior high and high school students, much extra time outside of regular school is spent studying and preparing for their entrance examinations. Even during vacations (six weeks in the summer and two weeks for both winter and spring) there is often homework to be done and jukus to attend. Hours outside of school hours are spent at juku.

If my memory serves me correctly, I started going to a cram school in my third grade of elementary school. I still remember when we had a “New Year’s Eve all-night studying (年越し徹夜勉強会：としこしてつやべんきょうかい/toshikoshi-testuya-benkyoukai)” event in my fifth grade. Teachers encouraged us not to fall asleep but to keep studying until the morning. It would have been very fun to stay up later with friends, if only we weren’t studying. However, 初日の出 (hatsu-hinode), which means “the new year sunrise,” was quite memorable and made everyone’s new year resolution the same: achieve better grades and study hard. I found it pretty fun at first, because teachers actually prepared a little games for us, too. However, maybe around one o’clock, my eyelids started getting more and more heavy. I tried to study but couldn’t concentrate on it anymore and I doubt that it was only me. It wasn’t a efficient way to study at all. It was all about discipline.

Although studying itself is good for everyone, studying too much can make people stressed out. Therefore, if I could change the Japanese school system, I would remove the big entrance examinations and cut down the amount of private school education, because I think that is an overload of work for children. Second only to bullying, the number of children committing suicide due to “anxiety for the future” is increasing. Most of this is due to worry about how one will perform on examinations.

Japanese Classroom System

I was surprised that many schools in Canada don’t seem to have fixed classrooms because in Japan every class has its own fixed classroom. In most cases in Japan, the students take all the courses in the same classroom with the same classmates, except for practical trainings and laboratory works. In my case, grades 3-4 and grades 5-6 were 2-year fixed classrooms, though it’s usually just a 1-year fixed classroom system.

In elementary school, one teacher teaches all the subjects in each class, whereas the teacher changes depending on a subject in junior high and high school. Instead of the students moving around to the teachers, the teachers move around to the student (besides the exceptions I mentioned earlier).

Another thing that’s different about the Japanese classroom system is that most elementary and/or junior high schools provide lunches on a standardized menus known as the 給食 (きゅうしょく / kyuushoku). The students are all divided into groups called 班 (はん / han). With lunch, this is important because one han is the 給食当番 (きゅうしょくとうばん / kyuushoku-touban). This particular han’s job is to take responsibility for the 給食. They pick up their classmates’ lunches in the school kitchen / lunch delivery area, carry the lunches to the classroom, serve their fellow classmates, makes sure that the food settles down into each kids’ stomachs, and then carries everything back. There is usually about a week rotation for which each han is the 給食当番.

If you’re not on the lunch duty han, your han could be doing something else that’s helpful. For example, students in a Japanese school are responsible for doing the cleaning of their own school. Sometimes there is a han that takes on the duty of cleaning (掃除/そうじ/souji), and they are known as the 掃除当番 (そうじとうばん / soujitouban). I think this is a great system because it is a good way for kids to learn how to socialize and be responsible. It also makes them more aware about causing a mess, since either they or a friend will have to clean it up!

School Uniforms

Some elementary schools and nearly all junior and high schools require their students to wear school uniforms. In my case, I wore school uniforms from kindergarten to high school.

Although some people believe that students, or at least high school students, should be able to choose the clothes they want to wear in school, I’d say that the best policy is that they wear uniforms because it’s more affordable and convenient.

Students tend to be very concerned about fashion and fitting in, so if they can choose the clothes they want to wear at school, they will prefer to wear brand-name clothing. For example, I remember that girls put a lot of money into brand-name socks or loose socks, which are a style of baggy socks. A pair of socks are sometimes 1,000-2,000yen. What a rip off! Thank goodness socks are the only brand-name thing for us to put on due to the uniform. If we were allowed to wear whatever we wanted, people would have certainly added hundreds of thousands of yen in clothing costs in a single year.

Also, uniforms are very convenient. Students do not need to worry about what they will wear to school. For instance, they do not need to consider what colors match with what, which style looks best, and what their classmate will think of their clothing. If everyone wears the same uniform, all of these choices are made in advance , so you don’t have to feel self conscious about your clothes. It saves more time for students and they can concentrate on studying more, though it just gave me longer sleep in the morning.

Furthermore, uniforms tend to be made of strong materials and they are easy to clean. I wore uniforms from kindergarten to high school and I had two uniforms for each warm season and cold season. When one was dirty I would wash it and wear the other one. This way my school clothes were always clean and ready to be worn. Uniforms are very practical!

They are not good all the time, though. As in many countries, uniform policy is strictly adhered to. There is a set length for skirts and teachers would take out tape measures to check. Japan has four seasons and its weather and temperature can vary greatly. However, uniforms usually only come in two varieties: winter and summer. Anything in-between can be a bit uncomfortable.

I also remember that my teacher wouldn’t allow me to put pants on because of the uniform policy, even though it was a freaking cold day. It might become less practical and ununified, but I think it would be good for students’ health to wear warmer clothes on cold days and lighter clothes on warmer days. Heck, let the boys wear skirts in the summer if they want to! I still believe that I have bad circulation because of the school uniforms.

A Great Difference

A great difference between the Japanese school system and the North American School system is that the North American people respect and encourage independence whereas the Japanese people control individual responsibility by maintaining group rules. This explains one characteristic of Japanese social behavior (or maybe even Asian social behavior).

I realized this fact in ESL school in Canada. There were students from all over in the classroom: Saudis, Brazilians, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and me, Japanese. While the teacher was talking, myself, the Chinese, and the Korean students never butted in to ask questions or to announce our opinions. We waited until the teacher was completely finished, whereas students from other countries spoke out anytime.

We talked about this in the classroom once and figured out that this difference was caused by each country’s school system: in Asia, we mostly have lecture style lessons and in other countries, they spend a lot of time doing discussion style lessons.

A Joke

To finish this article, I wanted to end with a famous joke called “A Brilliant Japanese Student In An American Classroom.” I wonder if you find an odd bit in this joke… you got it? Yeah, the Japanese guy named Hideo speaks out too actively, doesn’t he? Which is pretty different from what you’ve learned about Japanese students from this article today. I don’t think the average Japanese student puts his/her hand up as much as this guy, either.

A BRILLIANT JAPANESE STUDENT IN AN AMERICAN CLASSROOM

It was the first day of school and a new student named Hideo, the son of a
Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, “Let’s
begin by reviewing some American history.”

Who said “Give me Liberty, or give me Death?” She saw a sea of blank faces,
except for Hideo, who had his hand up.

“Patrick Henry, 1775.” he said.

“Very good! Who said ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth’”? Again, no response except from Hideo:

“Abraham Lincoln, 1863.”, said Hideo

The teacher snapped at the class, “Class, you should be ashamed. Hideo, who is
new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.”

She heard a loud whisper: “F-k the Japanese.”

“Who said that?” she demanded.

Hideo put his hand up. “Lee Iacocca, 1982.”

At that point, a student in the back said, “I’m gonna puke.”

The teacher glares and asks “All right! Now, who said that?”

Again, Hideo says, “George Bush, to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.”

Furious, another student yells, “Oh yeah? Suck this!”

Hideo jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher, “Bill
Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!”

Now, with almost a mob hysteria, someone said, “You little sh*t, if you ever
say anything else, I will have you killed.”

Hideo yells at the top of his voice, “Gary Condit, to Chandra Levy, 2001.”

The teacher fainted

Hope you enjoyed the joke! For me, the Japanese education system is weak because it makes Japanese students get more and more conservative as time goes by. I think Japanese students should be more vocal and participate in a conversation like Hideo. Well, maybe Hideo is too much, but at least a little more. Many of them don’t have curiosity about the world or ambition to study overseas, either.

I think that this problem has been caused by the big examination system because they are forced to be in a competition to get into the better school from very early in their life. Their end goal is often set up to get into the best university by their parents and/or teachers. Hence, many of them don’t gain curiosity about anything other than getting a good mark and they become like drones.

I’m pretty sure that you all probably have such interesting personal stories about your own educational experience. Tell me about your country’s education system. How is it different? How is it the same? What do you like / dislike? I think all educational systems in the world have good parts and bad parts, so maybe if we learn from each other we can make education better around the world! Arigatou.

Bonus Wallpapers!

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