The teachers that I work with arrive at school sometime around seven-thirty in the morning, and leave anywhere from five to eight to ten at night, only to occasionally go home and do more work. Teaching in Japan is one of the most exhausting, least rewarding jobs, they tell me. But they get paid a decent amount, they get insurance and bonuses. They get a much better deal than teachers in the States, but they have much more work.
The teachers in Japan have more say over discipline and behavior than the parents. When a student is in trouble for doing something either on school grounds or at home, or elsewhere in the city, it’s the homeroom teacher that is called in to talk to them. Can you think of anything worse than having to go to the principal’s office for back talking your parents after dinner? Or for fighting with your parents and then staying with a friend? Students in junior high and high school are not allowed to spend the night at their friend’s houses. The teachers believe there’s too much risk that if they’re with friends at night after school they’ll make “bad decisions.” I try not to laugh at how innocent it sometimes seems over here.
The students, most people know from anime, wear school uniforms. The boys wear either traditional buttoned up gokkuran or regular suit and tie, the girls sailor outfits or skirt suits and bows, depending on the school. Many elementary schools in my area have relaxed enough to let the students wear whatever they want, but in some places even elementary school students have uniforms.
All students have name tags that they must wear. If caught without, in my middle school, the teachers first pretend not to know who they are and then force them to wear a handmade nametag if their proper one can’t be found. In larger schools and high schools, the teachers don’t have to pretend, especially if they teach a different grade level. When students are dating—which they aren’t allowed to do in middle school, technically—the boys will give their girlfriends their nametags. It’s sort of like having her wear his class ring, but in the States a guy won’t get in constant trouble for not having it.
The class system is the same, but in junior high and high school in the States students have a locker and move around from classroom to classroom depending on what subject they’re studying. In Japan, the students have a homeroom class, and the teachers move around from classroom to classroom, depending on what class they’re teaching when. Everyone has ten minutes between classes; the students have to have all the materials for their next subject ready at their desk. The staff room is where all of the teachers’ desks are located, and the room next door that also contains the copy machines, a refrigerator, a sink, and places to make coffee or tea, and a long table.
At the beginning and ending of each class the students stand and bow to the teacher. This should be implemented in the States, it’s the best thing ever. In the hallways between classes, the students must also bow and greet the teachers as they walk past. When a student comes to the staff room they must introduce themselves loudly and state from the doorway what they need and why. Then they must excuse themselves and bow properly before leaving. Bowing is a very big cultural expression here, it’s not just the equivalent of a handshake.
At lunch, each class has a group of students in charge of going downstairs to the lunch delivery truck and carrying the pans, plates, food, milk, and ohashi—chopsticks—back up to their classmates, then serve it. There are no cafeterias. Students eat together in their classrooms, in junior high and elementary, and the homeroom teacher eats with the class. If a teacher doesn’t have a homeroom class they eat in the staff room. After lunch the students have twenty minutes to clean up, and whatever time is leftover is their free time.
After school the students clean their classroom, and whatever else that class is assigned to clean that day. There are no janitors. Some argue that this system forces the students to be more neat and tidy, since they’re the ones that will have to clean up after themselves at the end of the day. In some cases this works really well. But there’s always those students that don’t really care one way or another, or like to make trouble for everyone else. Happily, there are only a very few of those in my school.
After school sports are not sports like in the States. They have clubs here, instead. The sports clubs, of course, compete against other schools, and they have district and national matches, but it’s not just sports. They also have a sewing club, an art club, a brass band club, a chorus club, some schools have English clubs and gardening clubs and pretty much anything they can think of. If there are enough students that want to do a certain thing, the school will approve a club for it. I’m pretty sure this stops short of a drinking and smoking club, but everything else is deemed negotiable.
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