Saturday, July 21, 2007
Japanese Education
Here is an interesting article that is very revealing about the Japanese school system. It won't be too surprising to anyone who woks here, but it my be informative otherwise. Here it is more important that your name tag is put on your uniform correctly than it is that you pay attention in class. I agree with a lot of the emphasis put on being a student and not a little adult-something that fucks with American students endlessly in my opinion- however Japan is going to have to address issues like these more and more as its native population declines. It might have to actually think about who is Japanese, and who is allowed in their schools.
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3 comments:
"I agree with a lot of the emphasis put on being a student and not a little adult-something that fucks with American students endlessly in my opinion"
Hmm. What does this mean?
That they are infantilized and treated like little children. They have to wear those uniforms signifying that they are students. Junior high students who ride bikes have to wear doofy white helmets. Kids at my school were more concerned with who was nailing who and how hard they were representing. It is harder to keep it real when you are wearing a name tag. But I think it also takes a lot of pressure off by showing them what their place clearly is. It is a longer argument. We would probably be talking about it over canasta if it weren't for the evil forces of the universe.
You know, I read that article the other day and it got me thinking alot about the kids in Hamamatsu. We had a lot of Brazilian kids at our schools and there is definitely a difference in how well they were treated depending on which school you were at...
It's just a matter of time before they have to stop pretending that everyone's all the same in Japan.
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