[ExI] Japanese education

[William Flynn Wallace]

>From a much longer post on Quora.  Aren't you glad you are an American?
 bill w


Japan has the highest teenage suicide rate in the entire world and the one
and only thing which can be blamed for this is the Japanese Education
System.  South Korea is next.

First thing that happens when one enters junior high school is the process
of self criticism. Students are guided to lose their self-esteem and ego by
forcing upon them strict rules and simple tasks. This way, teens would be
prevented from becoming rebellious against their mentor. Strict rules apply
to places not only within the school limits but to daily life as well.

In case of what I’ve experienced,

-No dating allowed

-No volunteer activity allowed without the approval of the school principal

-No part-time jobs allowed unless the financial situation forces the
subject to. In this case, a written permission from both parents, homeroom
teacher and school principal are required along with a strict review of the
labor contract

-One must not meet with the opposite sex other than for academic proposes
such as Jukus (Japanese cram school), extracurricular activities, and
examinations (I was enrolled in a boys school)

-No traveling allowed without the permission of the school authority. When
approved, one must act according to the schedule approved by the school.

-No eating in public spaces even when the subject is outside the school
boundaries

-Route to school must be submitted and students may only act accordingly
every day to and from school

-Strict dress code which must be followed in and out of school

-No electronic devices allowed -No possession of smartphones allowed. When
cell phones are necessary as a communication with the student and its
parents, only the traditional types are allowed.

These are just handful of rules I can think of. Honestly, there are some
rules that are legitimate and most of the rules exist to avoid unnecessary
difficulties the teen might encounter. However, most of the rules are just
against the liberty of the people in my opinion.

Also, there are considerable amount of physical punishment applied in
Japanese school and also from parents. Some students get beaten by teachers
just because their ties were not properly tied. I remember getting beaten
up by my parents for not been able to solve a math problem right. On my
first mistake, I get spanked once. On my second mistake, I get spanked
twice. On my third mistake, I get spanked thrice, and so on until both get
physically tired or get bruised. I was lucky because only a decade ago,
people used to cane students for incorrect answers, although this was
banned. Yet, every so often, in the news, somewhere in Japan, a student
would get beaten to death as “punishment” from teachers often for reasons
like “forgetting to bring something” or “sneezing during an important
speech” etc. This is just one phantom of the Japanese empire during World
War Two still influencing Japanese society.What about me? I was lucky
enough not to be born in “that” generation… One of my language arts teacher
was a professional junior Kendo player. However, his language arts teacher
had a policy which, if they answered incorrectly to an answer, students,
regardless of gender, would be slammed by a bamboo sword. As being slammed
by a bamboo sword by an amateur was the worst thing possible as a
professional, he studied super hard and became a lone survivor of that
punishment. As a result, he got a job as a Language arts teacher. Oh, the
irony!

Thus, people start losing their ego and commit suicide as a result.

In short, Japanese education is a system which makes individuals into an
economic machine. Children before enrollment have lots of dreams like
participating in a volunteer activity, being a game developer, doctor,
scientist to solve a particular problem, etc. The function of the system is
to crush all of those hopes and extract the “individual” out to the
collective. By the end of the process, the students would have lost most of
their self so that they can be exploited by major corporations and
government official. That's how the Japanese economy worked in the post war
economic Growth. However, those days are over.
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