American schools vs Japanese schools - Page 2

Synopsis · 08-01-2006, 04:18 PM

Kansas.

I had private schooling in elementary and high school, and I find that looking back, the difference in actual education isn't such a huge gap. It could have just been the schools I went to. My middle school, a public school in Miami, FL had a far greater diversity in student ethnicity. This makes a difference in the learning experience, in my opinion for the better, and it also eases on the....requirement, the drive to constantly suceed at everything, which may be why the suicide rates are higher in Japanese schools, where it may almost be similar to peer pressure to be inteligent and hard working and social.

humblemastermind · 08-02-2006, 04:03 PM

I think that the Japanese education system is so effective because it is so competitive. Children realize that if they want to get a good, well-paying job, they need to work as hard as they can in school and perform really well on the Japanese standardized tests. America just doesn't have that sense of competition.

Also, the Japanese classes are very structured and disciplined, so very rarely are students interrupted by in-class disruptions, allowing intelligent, hard-working kids to excel and thrive.

Really, the only problem with the system is that it doesn't stimulate creativity or innovation.

Dr.Knuckles · 08-20-2006, 09:05 AM

Oh God! Now I'm off.... if I'm still typing in 6 hours somebody give me fluids and point me to bed.

I teach English in Japan. Wait! That's not right. I talk about English in Japan while my students stare at the window dreaming a life that doesn't suck every single ounce of humanity from their once living souls.

School starts in the morning with shouted drills. The children, in their 17th century Prussian military uniforms, line up and march in a circle while a loudspeaker SCREAMS militray slognas at them. The don't exercise. They walk, in a circle, together. In a circle. When kids step out of line or go another way or speak, they are reminded that the group is going one way and they should do that too.

Then there are classes. 50 to 60 students in 90 degree rooms with no aircon, or -30 degree rooms with no insulation (I'm not joking - no schools have climate control) and get taught the following. "Write down exaclty what I say". For homework, the kids re-write exaclty what the teacher said. Re-write it, NOT READ OR UNDERSTAND IT.

School ends at 4 or 5. Students then have paramilitary clubs. I am NOT joking. Marching, chanting, screaming slogans and running laps. This would be the soccer club, but could easily be the chess club, but there would be no soccer or chess in in. A student could be in a soccer club for 5 years and never once play a game of soccer. They would line up and kick a ball once. Line up and pass a ball once. Then they would chant about their team and do sit ups. Never, ever, for one second would it be enjoyable. The experience would be hellish and painful for everyone but the naturally gifted, who would have to deliberately underacheive in order to avoid punishing reprisals for sticking out. From staff and students mind you. Bullying, teasing and violence run rampant... these are the reasons for the suicides. I've been here a year and a half and I'd say a week was the longest between nightly news school killings. That's including kids killing teachers, teachers killing kids, and kids killing each other and their families.

Then... here's the big one. It's 7 oclock. Time for REAL SCHOOL. Since none of the previous activites actually resulted in learning anything, from 7 to 10 there is after-school school. Known as Juku. Juku is what we in the world know as 'education'. Here there is the memorisation of facts fatcs facts in preparation for exams. For example, an English lesson would be a list of 1000 english words which the students would sit down and copy. Copy... not say or use or put in a sentnece. Not once. Not ever. Copy them in a notebook for 3 hours.

Then, at 10 oclock, depiste not having eaten (only the weak eat and they are cruelly mocked for it) (usually by adults) they have about 3 hours of homework. Homework would be memorising a list of words or just copying them. This would go until 1 or 3 AM

Testing for elementary school entrence starts at 2 years old for the rich, 4 for the poor. These tests will determine what university you go to. WHAT? At 2 the university is decided? Yes sir. You see your pre-school leads into a elementary school .. so if you keep your head down and do what you're told you get a free pass to that elm school, that school has a path to the associated high-school, there to university of the same company as the pre-school. They do not take tests to get into a school, they take them to STAY on the course that was decided by their ability to pass tests at age 2.

Standardised tests would be 'write the 1000 english words you studied non stop all year.' Of course they've been doing that for a year... 90 percent will score excellent scores and only the top 1 percent will be considered having done a good test by teachers and parents.

These tests will be compared to the language class tests in your country where you had to make a sentence in that language... and of course most kids got an average score.

Low and behold... the Japanese kids tested so much better!

Vacations do not exist. So right now is the summer vacation. During this month, the students get up early, put on their uniforms and GO TO SCHOOL WHERE THEY TAKE A FULL 8 HOUR DAY OF CLASSES!!!!! Not a joke. They take full time summer classe with the same teacher and the same class... and call it summer vacation.

I'm done. Superman7s on TV in englush. Woohoo.

Dr.Knuckles · 08-20-2006, 11:22 AM

I don't know why i can't edit, but Superman was on TV in English... not "Superman7s in Englush"

Pook · 08-22-2006, 12:13 AM

Dang. I bet this is a shock for American foreign-exchange students! Or do they do that?
Pookie

Freedom for All · 08-22-2006, 04:07 AM

One of my girl friends in high school was from Japan. She didn't describe anything like what Dr. Knuckles described...then again, she cruised through math in our Junior year, but she hadn't been taught calculus in Japan, and she darn near drowned in it. She had rote down pat, but understanding her limits was almost beyond her.

questionmark · 08-22-2006, 10:47 AM

Wow Doc, if that's true WITH NO EXAGERATIONS, then I stand corrected on some level. Some of it, I can understand, but to the extent of your post, that's just too much.

I hope you're not one of those oppressing teachers

J/K

Dr.Knuckles · 08-22-2006, 12:34 PM

Well... I'll admit 'sucking every ounce of humanity out of their once living souls' was definately an exageration.

Other than that, not exagerated but definately one-sided. I only talked about the bad things and lined them all up like ducks in a row. I'm sure somebody could easily do the same for my high-school

" In Canada, There is junk food everywhere and the cafeteria is worse than the candy machines, the boys are pressured into sports where they beat the living crap out of each other until someone gets seriously injured. Everybody is fat, drugs and alcohol are rampant and half the people graduate illiterate and the other half are pregnent."

It's all true - but I think we all took more out of school than just the bad stuff.

Most of it for me is just frutration. Like, I'm sure some of us were good at school and some of us were bad. Our Western world is full of people who didn't do well in school and went on to be rich and repsected, Bill Gates dropped out of college, Einstein was famously looked down on by his teachers... there are so many OTHER things to be good at other than school. For my students here there is one path to a good life, and that is high test scores. Their grades in elementary school represent their only opportunity for success in life. That's it, no second chances, and the parents know this.

The result is a despreate life or death style competition for test grades. So my job is to get my students through the test. And speaking is NOT on the test. I am not allowed to waste valuable test-preparation time by trying to teach the English language. If I don't give the student so much homework that he has to do it until 1 or 2 AM, then I will be officially reprimanded. Then I get the assignments back, 'I wish I could die', 'If I could die then I could sleep', 'I want to kill my family so I can sleep'. I am 100 percnt serious. These are all from my essays this year... and I gave them 2 or 3 hours homework for the same night cause I don't want their parents screaming at me. If they don't beat their classmates to that test - it will haunt them for life. 9 out of 10 of my students will not be able to go to the colleges their parents have been paying to get them into since they were toddlers. Just up to them to decide which ones it will be.

bah! I'm venting again.. And I must sound like a freak to you guys.

If anyone's interest goes beyond the casual - I recommend an GREAT book called 'Dogs and Demons' by Alex Kerr. It's - like me - very one sided and negative, and the same book could be written about any country. But it's the only honest look at Japan's modern ills. It's what every Japanese knows and wants to scream about, but the rest of the world doesn't ever see.

Also - I don't disrespect Japanese people... I think they come out of the system knowing exaclty how fucked up it is, they just have no choice, the stakes are too high.

questionmark · 08-22-2006, 01:49 PM

I'm not saying that their way is best, but do you think that since you're technically an outsider to their "ways", you just don't understand it? I for one would be shocked and appauled if I saw this myself (especially being a teacher). I mean, most of us who went through public schools no where near got that kind of situation thrusted upon them.

So, what's the lesser of these two evils?

-Extremely diciplined education with no social life and your driven to death or success (whichever comes first)?

-Laxidasical undiciplined education with a social life and you are taught to be mediocre (not that all US schools are like that)?

Just wondering.

Inkslinger · 08-22-2006, 04:45 PM

I'm curious Knuckles... How'd you end up in japan and why do you stay? ~Inkster