Summer Holidays? Poor students.
Today we had our closing ceremony as it is now moving into Summer holidays. The ceremony, as the Japanese way is, was very solemn and strict, you could hear a pin drop. The principal spoke first and then we had individual teachers talking. One lady, who kind of scares me, shes old, nothing against old people but there are lots of scary old people in Japan. Now I feel mean, I'm generalizing but hey.
Anyway her speech was just saying how we need to study more, and she just kept going on telling these kids that study was the most important thing in their life. This is textbook study. If you do bad in a test, you must study more and more and more! If you want to rest you must say no and study more and more! She did say to read books, which I kind of agree is a good thing.
Following the closing ceremony my 2nd grade year stayed back and had another lecture because the 2nd years(grade 11) are doing the poorest. The speech was about how they are doing terrible, the 3rd years are doing so wonderfully, teh 1st years too. The teacher read numerous test scores and stats and was saying they will let the school down at the end of the year when all the schools in the prefecture are compared. Our school will look bad etc etc. Im sitting there going whoa, they're serious about this hey. Then he talks about how during their summer classes they must work REALLY hard to improve their standards.
Summer classes, so summer holidays, the students have classes now from 830am until 1230pm instead of 330pm. Ontop of this they recieved summer holiday homework books for each subjet. And towards the end of the summer holidays they have examinations.. ? Holidays my ass. How ridiculous!
The reason for all this stress is because everyone got their grades back today. On their reports, everyone is ranked within their class from who was the best to who was the worst. Everyone is constantly being ranked, future schools, which class you are put in, its all decided by your test scores, from as early as Primary school. Teachers already decide which universities you can enter, which are above you etc. These kids lives are planned out, It's harsh!
This is the Japanese way of life though, It's only one of many differences over here. I mean I should do more "textbook" study but it's not the only thing in this world! Japanese students need more freedom, they need more opportunities to show initiative, in areas other than studying.
Anyway her speech was just saying how we need to study more, and she just kept going on telling these kids that study was the most important thing in their life. This is textbook study. If you do bad in a test, you must study more and more and more! If you want to rest you must say no and study more and more! She did say to read books, which I kind of agree is a good thing.
Following the closing ceremony my 2nd grade year stayed back and had another lecture because the 2nd years(grade 11) are doing the poorest. The speech was about how they are doing terrible, the 3rd years are doing so wonderfully, teh 1st years too. The teacher read numerous test scores and stats and was saying they will let the school down at the end of the year when all the schools in the prefecture are compared. Our school will look bad etc etc. Im sitting there going whoa, they're serious about this hey. Then he talks about how during their summer classes they must work REALLY hard to improve their standards.
Summer classes, so summer holidays, the students have classes now from 830am until 1230pm instead of 330pm. Ontop of this they recieved summer holiday homework books for each subjet. And towards the end of the summer holidays they have examinations.. ? Holidays my ass. How ridiculous!
The reason for all this stress is because everyone got their grades back today. On their reports, everyone is ranked within their class from who was the best to who was the worst. Everyone is constantly being ranked, future schools, which class you are put in, its all decided by your test scores, from as early as Primary school. Teachers already decide which universities you can enter, which are above you etc. These kids lives are planned out, It's harsh!
This is the Japanese way of life though, It's only one of many differences over here. I mean I should do more "textbook" study but it's not the only thing in this world! Japanese students need more freedom, they need more opportunities to show initiative, in areas other than studying.
posted by Thomas Llewellyn at 10:51 PM
1 Comments:
That woman scared me too!! The only part I really listened to was when she was going off about how everyone should be dressed formally for such a ceremony. She's scary in the staff room too.
What are you going to do with all your free time now?
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