Junior and Senior High Comparison

(If you're following the blog and received something like 10 notifications about this post, it's because it keeps showing up fine in preview but changing my formatting when it posts....grrrrr!)

The little kids at the elementary school were so excited and I took so many photos, I felt like had to post right away. I wanted to wait before I wrote about Nagamine Junior High and Tomishiro Senior High School. Curriculum is prescribed by the national ministry at the elementary and junior high level, but I hoped to hear from teachers assigned to other prefectures before writing about my school experiences, to limit my generalizations to their applicable comparisons.

Out of the three schools, the junior high school was my favorite. (Just like I love the Saint Stephen's middle school students and their energy!) Little kids are excited no matter who visits; you have to work a little harder with preteens. Yet I found them intensely curious about my life and about life in America. They wanted to practice their English, or pantomime, and I'm sure we were a huge distraction to whatever lessons teachers were attempting to teach. In their free time they asked similar questions to what our students might ask. "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you have a cell phone?" "Do you like school?" While I'm not going to say that they were always focused in class, they always had an intensity about them that I appreciated. 80% of the junior high students are involved in clubs, like sports (super-competitive, plus they only play one sport year round), brass band, and engineering (robotics, technology, and solar car competition). The clubs meet Monday through Friday after school through dusk, and they also meet on Saturdays! Another co-curricular program sounded a lot like Saint Stephen's IQ program, cultural trips to other parts of the country and work experience days with local businesses. The reasoning behind the work days, however, is quite different. As I mentioned in describing the elementary school, we visited a poorer area of Japan. The school instituted the work days help students make knowledgeable decisions about work, since high school is not mandatory. Last year, 4 students of 198 graduates chose not to attend senior high school, either because they didn't pass an entrance exam, couldn't afford the fees, or weren't interested.

If you haven't looked at the slideshow yet, now's the time to do so. (Separate email in order to comply with privacy laws) My group members kept commenting, especially in the junior high, about the deteriorating condition of the school building. It's only 29 years old, but the humidity has not been kind to the structure. I didn't think it was bad; the building was very clean, just not aging well, and in keeping with the style of many schools I've seen in tropical areas. But depending where you're from, like the big box brick schools of the American midwest, I guess it could be jarring.

The motto of the senior high school we visited is “academics and sports.” (I think this says quite a bit about the type of school that we visited.) The administrators said that their school is a lower-performing academic school, but “they are nice and good students.” The school focuses not just on scholarly learning, but also guides the students in life choices. The school operates on the principles of diligence, cooperation (the principal said something here about “healthy bodies, healthy minds” but I’m a slow note taker, so I didn’t get more than that recorded), creation, and producing functioning adults. The school offers three tracks: sports (for athletes and future gym teachers), IT (for university and vocational students), and academics (for smarter students who are willing to take two extra classes, one before school and one after.) I’ll be bringing back a copy of the curriculum and the three year plan for anyone who is interested in learning more about the specifics of the academic system. The school has a college and career office. While the administrators stressed student interest and individual attention, most of the work of this office is completed in group sessions. After graduating, 60% of the students attend university and 10% find jobs. The school’s biggest challenge is helping the other 30% of the students find a purpose in their lives.

We were not given the same amount of freedom to wander the halls and classes of the high school. In fact, we only got one period on our own; otherwise, we saw part of a computer class and part of an English class. Unfortunately, many of the students that we did see seemed bored. (While I’m not going to claim that the junior high students were always paying attention, it’s because they were talking or otherwise engaged in an activity, not because they were sleeping.) We found out, however, that many of the more motivated students attend one of the other, more highly-respected, high schools in the city. Even clubs, for which Japanese schools are renowned, are not as active at Tomishiro because many students have to work after school.

In both the junior and senior high schools, we noticed what we would consider old-fashioned, teacher-centered, teaching methods. (It turns out this is indeed representative of schools in prefectures of schools across Japan.) The teacher stood at the blackboard and lectured. Students sat in their rows of desks, listened, took notes, and completed worksheets. I wondered if this was the case because we visited a poorer district, but this is true across Japan. I was going to write here about technology in the classroom, as you might imagine, it’s nothing like technology use in US schools, but expect a later post about this...

I greatly enjoyed both my days in the schools! The above should be seen as a comparison and description, not a judgment. I'd love this to be the beginning of a discussion of different education styles and different ways of learning. I've learned so much on this trip and in visiting the schools! With all of the traveling I've done, I've never been able to get an inside view of education in that area. We were welcomed with open arms, and I feel like I made some wonderful connections with students and teachers.

College Counseling

Before I left, Ms. Groelle asked me about the college counseling process in Japan. At the time, I knew nothing about it, but in talking to university and high school administrators, and university and high school students, I feel like I've learned a lot about the process in Japan. First off, senior high school (10-12) is not required in Japan. 98% of students do go on to either high school or vocational school. Because high school is not mandatory, it is not free and admission is not guaranteed. Which means that when you're in 9th grade, you face an entrance exam for high school, and where you go to high school largely determines where (or whether) you'll go to college. So the students are beginning the process earlier and with little guidance. Better high schools send their students to better colleges and have more individualized counseling programs. They also have more difficult entrance exams, so they only accept the better students. The college process isn't starting off with a level playing field.

Also, many students want to go to school close to home. Family is much more central than in the US, and students want to be able to be with their families on festivals and holidays. Also, many students live at home while attending college. (I think in general I'm speaking more for the more rural and remote prefectures. All bets are off for Tokyo-all of the small groups have mentioned that people in their prefecture talk about Tokyo as if it were another world.) If students do not live at home, they do not have roommates. In Japan, you live with family or you live alone. According to one student I spoke with, the hardest part of his adjustment to his study abroad year last year was sharing a washroom and refrigerator with three other boys.

Back to the process---it strongly relates to the entrance exam. Students live in fear of this exam throughout their teen years. They're told from the time that they're young that this test will determine their future. They put much more weight on it than we put on the SATs. Teacher recommendations are taken for some colleges, but admission is not decided based on them.

The university students also mentioned the "motivation problem" I wrote about in an earlier post. They said because Japan has such a low birth rate, universities are now less competitive than they once were. Students don't have to work so hard for admittance. The economy is also hurting their motivation. It used to be that if you went to a good university, you would get a good job upon graduation. You'd stay in that job throughout your career and be cared for in retirement. Now, young people are having trouble being hired; Japanese culture only recently introduced the idea of lay-offs in bad economic times. Graduates are facing competition from experienced workers who have lost their jobs. Another problem with motivation is that grading in universities is notoriously easy. Students are motivated to work to get in college, but less motivated to study once they're there. The ideal model used to be to work hard in school, get a good job and work towards a better income. That paradigm has collapsed. College counseling is a recent phenomenon. Counselors are not just college counselors though; they're college and career counselors. Japanese society does not push students towards higher education; they push people to "follow their passions" or "find their purpose." Sometimes this involves college, sometimes not. These counselors help students find something that "they can dedicate themselves to." Counselors are more heavily used in poorer areas; rich parents want to brag about their children and the good universities they attend. They send their teens to "cram school," night and weekend test-preparation academies. Poorer families can't afford cram school, so students use the resources available to them with their school tuition. Still, applying to colleges is still largely a family decision, and students fill out the college application (or applications-applying to more than one school is increasing in popularity for students who don't mind moving away from their families) and send it themselves.

I thought the push towards finding 'a purpose to dedicate your life to' was interesting. In the US, I'd say we strongly push seniors towards college. Do you think that's its emblematic of US stress on advancement and competition that has encouraged this mindset? I'm asking because what I kept hearing from people was that society needs mechanics, electricians, and "people for the hair house" (ummmm hairdressers). As we've already talked about Japan being a more group-oriented society and these professions are necessary for successful group cooperative function, do you think it's a fundamental difference in our worldviews?