Japanese school system

[Krystal Jade]

I just recently read a nonfiction novel about an American who worked as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in Japan for a year. Since reading it, I have wanted to read and learn more about the Japanese school system. However, there are TONS of books on this topic out there. Probably more than I could read. sweatdrop (Plus, since my local library doesn't really have anything I will probably end up buying whatever books I want to read on this subject. And I don't want to be buying books that turn out to not have been worth my money or time. Even if I can get them for cheap.)

A little more specifically I'm curious to learn about:
the ideals of how the Japanese school system is ideally supposed to be
the reality of what actually happens in the schools
what everyday school is like for students aged elementary through college
curriculum (I know especially the history textbooks sometimes come into controversy for how they handle WWII)
bullying (I have heard that this is sometimes a really big problem)
entrance examination/juku 塾

So, here's my request:

* Has anyone read a book (novel, textbook, etc) that talks about the Japanese school system that they would recommend? Or maybe even a specific author?
Or, has anyone read a book that was so bad they would recommend avoiding it?*


Since my native language is English, books written/translated into English are preferred, but if you have read a particularly good book that is in Japanese, please let me know about it as well.

Thank you in advance to any who can give me a good book recommendation. biggrin

P.S. - I assume that it is okay to post this in the International forum, but if there is a better forum for this that I accidentally overlooked, please just let me know.

[Adorable Crayon]

I know a book; Kleine Sampan:
The title is in German, so it's maybe necessary to translate it. However, it's not about our time, I think it's a way in the past.. Dang, I forgot when! I borrowed the book by my teacher.
Anyways, I really liked that book. I think it has a second volume too.

I've also read a book about a chinese girl. xD

[Krystal Jade]

Adorable Crayon

I know a book; Kleine Sampan:
The title is in German, so it's maybe necessary to translate it. However, it's not about our time, I think it's a way in the past.. Dang, I forgot when! I borrowed the book by my teacher.
Anyways, I really liked that book. I think it has a second volume too.

I've also read a book about a chinese girl. xD

Even though the title is in German, is the actual text in English? And yeah, it looks like it' is from a while ago, 'cause when I looked it up through amazon.com it listed the publication date as 1957. No author listed though confused

[Krystal Jade]

Is there no one else who has done research/reading on this topic?

[Krystal Jade]

I didn't anticipate there being a ton of people to reply to this thread... but I was sure there would be more than one.... :/

[samm on roll]

Hmm...well, my mom (Japanese) told me that it's a lot more strict than in America (I don't know where you live but I live in America. >.> ). And yes, like in anime, they wear school uniforms like that. But they had strict rules on stuff like hair length, skirt length, etc. ("Had" because I don't know if they still operate like that. This was just when my mom went to school in Japan.) The students are responsible for cleaning up the class room and Saturdays are half days. So they've got a 5 1/2 week day. The entrance exams are pretty much like SATs. They just tell you what colleges might accept you or something like that.
There might be more I know but I can't think of it right now. >.>

[carcer]

I'm a current ALT here in Japan. Here are some resources for you.

http://www.ithinkimlost.com/
http://www.jetprogramme.org/forums/index.php
(Forums for ALTs, you can read about a lot there and ask questions to a whole community of us in Japan at present)

http://educationjapan.org/jguide/school_system.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2150.html
(Some articles on the matter)

Hope that helps a bit.

[fayebelly]

Not sure there's anything I can tell you that you won't already know... Although I've seen lots of different schools from all over the country and taught at a few in Fukushima...
And I don't know any books...
=/

[Krystal Jade]

@samm on roll: based on the nonfiction book I just read, it sounds like the Japanese school system hasn't gone through a large overhaul or anything since your mom went to school. I was even told once by a junior high school Japanese girl that some students, especially girls, will pick schools based on how cute they think the uniform is. sweatdrop Not sure how common that actually is though....

@carcer: thanks for the links. I'll definitely check them out smile

@fayebelly: You've taught at schools in Japan? Cool. If you don't mind my asking, could you talk a bit about your experience(s) there? Maybe 'sum it up' with 1 or 2 high and low points? Or maybe what surprised you the most (and least)?

[fayebelly]

Krystal Jade

@fayebelly: You've taught at schools in Japan? Cool. If you don't mind my asking, could you talk a bit about your experience(s) there? Maybe 'sum it up' with 1 or 2 high and low points? Or maybe what surprised you the most (and least)?

Uh... Well... I taught a few groups of 6-8 year olds and a small group of 11/12 year olds. With the younger kids I had great fun! They're so full of energy and enthusiastic! The older kids tend to be far more shy and reserved... Hang on! I'll track down the blogs I wrote at the time!

Blog 1 - "So, today was my first English lesson... That was possibly the most interesting "teaching" experience I've ever experienced. I was lead into a room of about 10 screaming, hyperactive children. I was told something, but I couldn't hear it over the screaming children. Then some guy came in and started talking to the children...
I was then sent into a room next door with one other girl...
Seriously, I was told nothing about what was going on. I didn't know how many kids, what age, what level and especially not that I'd be thrown into the deep end teaching someone on my own (at least it was only one girl)... After about ten minutes of me looking like this -> o__o I finally managed to put together some sort of vague lesson...
Oh god, it was so difficult... I had no idea what to do... But at least now I can prepare for next week.
Tomorrow I'm working with someone else with a group of kids... Again, no idea how old, how many or what level... But at least I'm not alone."

Blog 2 - "At 3:00 I went to my second English lesson. This one was far better. It was organised, there was a big group and I wasn't alone. Plus the kids were adorable! They were all about 6 or 7 and they were really energetic and really uninhibited about speaking English (obviously they haven't learned how to fear mistakes yet). It was amazing fun. Afterwards the woman I was working with was like "ooh, they're so noisy!" ... But at least these noisy kids wanted to learn... As opposed to most English kids...
Also, I noticed a big difference between English style childcare and Japanese style childcare. Like yesterday, if one of the kids interrupted the teacher, he wouldn't hesitate to give the kid a playful hit on the head. Can you imagine that happening in England?! Also, the kids have far more freedom to be kids without teachers breathing down their necks, worrying about the kids somehow dying... And at the end of the lesson today a girl got tummy ache... I assume 'cause it was too hot. Two of her peers took her aside, brought her cushions and looked after her. One even went and got one of those cooling menthol patches from a teacher and the teachers even let her apply it (even though she'd done an adorably rubbish job and the patch was half covering the other girls eye). I thought that was brilliant. If it was in England the other kids would be told to stop fussing over her, so all the teachers had room to fuss over her and everyone would have to fill out paperwork and all that rubbish...
Childcare in Japan is more about the children... Chilcare in England is more about the laws and rules about children.
So yeah, really enjoying these "lessons"... I'm basically getting paid 6x more an hour than I was in my last childcare job to play with some adorable kids for an hour every afternoon."

Blog 3 - "at 4pm, I went to the Elementary school again and had 6,7,8 year old Japanese children discover that I can speak some Japanese... And spend 45 minutes telling me to speak Japanese... Very loudly... Then bombarding me with questions, in Japanese, about 5 all at once... I developed a headache... But it was fun, these kids are really sweet and so full of energy, I can't help but feel cheerful around them."

Blog 4 - "my favourite bit of teaching kids always has been and always will be the way their little faces light up when you tell them how awesome they are. On Saturday I was helping a group of kids make Fathers Day cards and one little boy kept asking me if it was ok and refused to do write anythingl I showed him how... So I showed him and when he copied me, I grinned massively, stuck both thumbs up and said, really excitedly "Perfect!!"... Oh god, he looked like he was about to explode with happiness, it was SO cute! ^-^
One thing about teaching Japanese kids is that I need to rely on body language far more than with English kids... If they do something wrong, I can't tell them off and explain, so I can only use "The Look"... Not that Japanese kids are badly behaved... And when they're good I can't just say how good they are, I need to SHOW them how impressed I am... I think it's definitely making me more confident..."

(I was developing a cold at this point... In my previous blog I'd mentioned the throat pain)...
Blog 5 - "My throat is considerably worse today... It's actually starting to hurt and my voice is hardly here... Yesterdays lesson was a pain too... 7 kids (I had TWO last week and planned for TWO >< )... Very high energy... And Suzuki-san, who was supposed to help me, went home... ¬¬ I did a pretty good lesson considering... It also made me laugh when they all got very confident when it came to saying "CANDY PLEASE!!!" I hate teaching American English... But Japanese kids are taught American... And Americans don't understand English, but English people understand American... So... I caved and let them say "candy" and "soccer"... ¬,¬ I still make adults say "football" though... Especially the ones who go "You're fron England?! Do you like soccer?!" "No... I don't like FOOTBALL!!" Then they list the popular football team towns and ask me if I'm near any of those places....
Also, because I was all alone with 7 hyperactive kids who refused to speak English I found "stern Faye" come out far more... I enjoy being stern Faye... A couple of times I had to tell them to shut up: "URUSAI!" *The Look* Also, I had random outburts of Japanese when they obviously didn't understand what I was saying..."

Blog 6 - "The cutest thing that happened today:
Girl: "SENSEI!!! Mite kudasai!!" (Teacher! Please look [at this]) *Holds up picture she'd coloured in*
Me: "Oh wow, that's really good!! Well done!"
Girl: *Grins* "Thank you very much!!" *Bows* "Thank you, good bye!" *Skips away*
Me: *Resists urge to glomp*"

Blog 7 - "I was cycling back [home] when I passed a small child, thinking nothing more than "don't run her over" I carried on... Until I heard "EIGO NO SENSEI!!!!" (English teacher)... o,o "EIGO NO SENSEI!!!!" So, I turned around and waved... Only to see her running after me, waving madly and repeatedly shouting... So I stopped my bike and was like "uhh... Hullo..." (I've taught about 200+ different kids in this last month alone, I DID not recognise her...)... She then started ranting really quickly in Japanese, so I assumed she wasn't one of the kids who start screaming whenever I even say "Aizu" or "Monden"... o,o Then she stopped hurling words at me and said "Kore made... Sank you bery much!!!" And bowed... And I resisted the urge to throw myself off my bike and give her a big squishy hug... Seriously! It was SO cute!!!! ^-^

That also reminds me of last week... Again, cycling around on my bike, waiting at a traffic light... I saw about 5 kids running towards me, waving madly... Assuming I'd taught them and they were excited to see me outside of lessons (as all children are)... I just waved back and smiled... Then they ran past me to some guy down the road... Needless to say, I felt stupid.

Kids are fun! ^-^"
(That first anecdote is one of my favourite memories of Japan... That girl was so lovely! ^^ )

(There's a massive gap between the last blog and this one... About a month and half, this was just before I left Japan).
Blog 8 - "Today I taught my last English lesson... It was very much like my first English lesson... Same class and all... In that I had NO idea I was teaching a class on my own until 5 minutes before when I was just thrown into the room with some cards and pencils... And had to wing it again... I did far better this time... Even if the evil girl was there... Seriously, she's terrifying... She just sits and glares and I seriously do think she's plotting to kill me..."

... That little girl really was evil! She scared me so much!! ;__;
Anyway, I hope that helped... It's made me feel all sad and nostalgic now... ><
If you've got any questions, feel free to ask away!

[Deemo-shadowshifter]

i like the number
4

[Ukryu]

fayebelly

Krystal Jade

@fayebelly: You've taught at schools in Japan? Cool. If you don't mind my asking, could you talk a bit about your experience(s) there? Maybe 'sum it up' with 1 or 2 high and low points? Or maybe what surprised you the most (and least)?

Uh... Well... I taught a few groups of 6-8 year olds and a small group of 11/12 year olds. With the younger kids I had great fun! They're so full of energy and enthusiastic! The older kids tend to be far more shy and reserved... Hang on! I'll track down the blogs I wrote at the time!

Blog 1 - "So, today was my first English lesson... That was possibly the most interesting "teaching" experience I've ever experienced. I was lead into a room of about 10 screaming, hyperactive children. I was told something, but I couldn't hear it over the screaming children. Then some guy came in and started talking to the children...
I was then sent into a room next door with one other girl...
Seriously, I was told nothing about what was going on. I didn't know how many kids, what age, what level and especially not that I'd be thrown into the deep end teaching someone on my own (at least it was only one girl)... After about ten minutes of me looking like this -> o__o I finally managed to put together some sort of vague lesson...
Oh god, it was so difficult... I had no idea what to do... But at least now I can prepare for next week.
Tomorrow I'm working with someone else with a group of kids... Again, no idea how old, how many or what level... But at least I'm not alone."

Blog 2 - "At 3:00 I went to my second English lesson. This one was far better. It was organised, there was a big group and I wasn't alone. Plus the kids were adorable! They were all about 6 or 7 and they were really energetic and really uninhibited about speaking English (obviously they haven't learned how to fear mistakes yet). It was amazing fun. Afterwards the woman I was working with was like "ooh, they're so noisy!" ... But at least these noisy kids wanted to learn... As opposed to most English kids...
Also, I noticed a big difference between English style childcare and Japanese style childcare. Like yesterday, if one of the kids interrupted the teacher, he wouldn't hesitate to give the kid a playful hit on the head. Can you imagine that happening in England?! Also, the kids have far more freedom to be kids without teachers breathing down their necks, worrying about the kids somehow dying... And at the end of the lesson today a girl got tummy ache... I assume 'cause it was too hot. Two of her peers took her aside, brought her cushions and looked after her. One even went and got one of those cooling menthol patches from a teacher and the teachers even let her apply it (even though she'd done an adorably rubbish job and the patch was half covering the other girls eye). I thought that was brilliant. If it was in England the other kids would be told to stop fussing over her, so all the teachers had room to fuss over her and everyone would have to fill out paperwork and all that rubbish...
Childcare in Japan is more about the children... Chilcare in England is more about the laws and rules about children.
So yeah, really enjoying these "lessons"... I'm basically getting paid 6x more an hour than I was in my last childcare job to play with some adorable kids for an hour every afternoon."

Blog 3 - "at 4pm, I went to the Elementary school again and had 6,7,8 year old Japanese children discover that I can speak some Japanese... And spend 45 minutes telling me to speak Japanese... Very loudly... Then bombarding me with questions, in Japanese, about 5 all at once... I developed a headache... But it was fun, these kids are really sweet and so full of energy, I can't help but feel cheerful around them."

Blog 4 - "my favourite bit of teaching kids always has been and always will be the way their little faces light up when you tell them how awesome they are. On Saturday I was helping a group of kids make Fathers Day cards and one little boy kept asking me if it was ok and refused to do write anythingl I showed him how... So I showed him and when he copied me, I grinned massively, stuck both thumbs up and said, really excitedly "Perfect!!"... Oh god, he looked like he was about to explode with happiness, it was SO cute! ^-^
One thing about teaching Japanese kids is that I need to rely on body language far more than with English kids... If they do something wrong, I can't tell them off and explain, so I can only use "The Look"... Not that Japanese kids are badly behaved... And when they're good I can't just say how good they are, I need to SHOW them how impressed I am... I think it's definitely making me more confident..."

(I was developing a cold at this point... In my previous blog I'd mentioned the throat pain)...
Blog 5 - "My throat is considerably worse today... It's actually starting to hurt and my voice is hardly here... Yesterdays lesson was a pain too... 7 kids (I had TWO last week and planned for TWO >< )... Very high energy... And Suzuki-san, who was supposed to help me, went home... ¬¬ I did a pretty good lesson considering... It also made me laugh when they all got very confident when it came to saying "CANDY PLEASE!!!" I hate teaching American English... But Japanese kids are taught American... And Americans don't understand English, but English people understand American... So... I caved and let them say "candy" and "soccer"... ¬,¬ I still make adults say "football" though... Especially the ones who go "You're fron England?! Do you like soccer?!" "No... I don't like FOOTBALL!!" Then they list the popular football team towns and ask me if I'm near any of those places....
Also, because I was all alone with 7 hyperactive kids who refused to speak English I found "stern Faye" come out far more... I enjoy being stern Faye... A couple of times I had to tell them to shut up: "URUSAI!" *The Look* Also, I had random outburts of Japanese when they obviously didn't understand what I was saying..."

Blog 6 - "The cutest thing that happened today:
Girl: "SENSEI!!! Mite kudasai!!" (Teacher! Please look [at this]) *Holds up picture she'd coloured in*
Me: "Oh wow, that's really good!! Well done!"
Girl: *Grins* "Thank you very much!!" *Bows* "Thank you, good bye!" *Skips away*
Me: *Resists urge to glomp*"

Blog 7 - "I was cycling back [home] when I passed a small child, thinking nothing more than "don't run her over" I carried on... Until I heard "EIGO NO SENSEI!!!!" (English teacher)... o,o "EIGO NO SENSEI!!!!" So, I turned around and waved... Only to see her running after me, waving madly and repeatedly shouting... So I stopped my bike and was like "uhh... Hullo..." (I've taught about 200+ different kids in this last month alone, I DID not recognise her...)... She then started ranting really quickly in Japanese, so I assumed she wasn't one of the kids who start screaming whenever I even say "Aizu" or "Monden"... o,o Then she stopped hurling words at me and said "Kore made... Sank you bery much!!!" And bowed... And I resisted the urge to throw myself off my bike and give her a big squishy hug... Seriously! It was SO cute!!!! ^-^

That also reminds me of last week... Again, cycling around on my bike, waiting at a traffic light... I saw about 5 kids running towards me, waving madly... Assuming I'd taught them and they were excited to see me outside of lessons (as all children are)... I just waved back and smiled... Then they ran past me to some guy down the road... Needless to say, I felt stupid.

Kids are fun! ^-^"
(That first anecdote is one of my favourite memories of Japan... That girl was so lovely! ^^ )

(There's a massive gap between the last blog and this one... About a month and half, this was just before I left Japan).
Blog 8 - "Today I taught my last English lesson... It was very much like my first English lesson... Same class and all... In that I had NO idea I was teaching a class on my own until 5 minutes before when I was just thrown into the room with some cards and pencils... And had to wing it again... I did far better this time... Even if the evil girl was there... Seriously, she's terrifying... She just sits and glares and I seriously do think she's plotting to kill me..."

... That little girl really was evil! She scared me so much!! ;__;
Anyway, I hope that helped... It's made me feel all sad and nostalgic now... ><
If you've got any questions, feel free to ask away!

Wow that sounds really fun. I'm 16 and I have absolutely no clue what I want to do in life, but this is one thing that sounds interesting. Did you go through the JET Programme? What did you do to prepare education-wise... like, did you take any classes in teaching or anything like that? And what in the world do you call "candy" in England??? gonk

[Mercurial Anima -Zeph-]

They call candy "sweets" in England.

I have a question.

Is skirt-lengthening still associated with sukeban (female delinquent students)?

[fayebelly]

Ukryu

Wow that sounds really fun. I'm 16 and I have absolutely no clue what I want to do in life, but this is one thing that sounds interesting. Did you go through the JET Programme? What did you do to prepare education-wise... like, did you take any classes in teaching or anything like that? And what in the world do you call "candy" in England??? gonk

I didn't go through JET... I organisd it all myself and went on a working holiday visa, I haven't even been to Uni. I hadn't done any teacher training courses specifically for that job, I was just lucky in that the association organising the lessons were also organising my homestay and they really needed an English-speaker. However, in the UK I did a crap-load of childcare related courses and jobs, so I'd had experience before.

I'm not sure you can do Working holidays in Japan from America... But I'm not sure, check the Japanese embassy website.

Candy is the American word for SWEETS! This is exactly what I meant by Americans not understanding English... =P

[Krystal Jade]

@fayebelly- wow, thanks so much for sharing some of your blogs from your experience teaching in Japan. biggrin It sounds like it was over all good (though, I'm not sure I personally would be able to handle being thrown into teaching on such short notice as well sweatdrop But that's in part because I only have a little bit of childcare experiences.).

Just one more question for now: based on this experience, would you want to do that as a full time job? Or is it something you only think you'd like to do on a short term basis? (I think you have probably said something on the Gaia forums already that would answer these questions, but I'm not sure which thread to look in since I've started to see you around quite a bit on the forums sweatdrop )