Comments on: On Pretending to Know About Education in Japan, pt 2: On Getting Into High School (and University)

By: Tomodachi ja nai

Tomodachi ja nai — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:21:55 +0000

Japan will one day wake up to a bad case of “sales fixes everything”. The Japanese are still living in the belief that the times of the bubble economy, the Sony Walkman times will come back soon, and therefore are hard at work training their kids to be dorky engineers. But they are making the “Asian mistake” – thinking that knowledge alone, i.e. the remembering of facts will make someone an innovator or business leader. It’s wrong of course – the only kind of people this system produces are shallow automatons who are unable to face real life. That’s why Japan is a society that tries to shield its members from real life, e.g. sincere social interaction, foreign influences, creative inspiration.
The layoffs by the Japan, Inc. corporations will only increase, because the young Japanese see companies like Apple, who ban suits and don’t give a crap about formalities, yet rise up to be the most successful companies in the world, and wonder why they have to become a slave in a Japanese company, when the same amount of dedication and hard work could also lead to a much more liberal, more natural life in a foreign country.
The best Japanese minds are already fleeing the country in droves to go to Europe and the US. Most of them never look back, and their peers at home envy them so much that, should they return, bully and insult them about “not being Japanese anymore”.
We will see this proto-fascist country go down to lows nobody would have thought were possible.

By: Sophie

Sophie — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:08:18 +0000

My husband used to work at an academic preschool. They took children from two. There were uniforms and homework, even before all the children were toilet trained.

By: zoomingjapan

zoomingjapan — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:43:00 +0000

Nowadays there are many elementary school kids who also go to juku on top of going to eikaiwa, piano lessons, baseball and whatnot.

When I first came to Japan I found it very interesting that nobody ever asked me about my grades or what my degree was in, but they wanted to know the name of my university and whether it was a good one. In my country all the universities are considered pretty equal. Going to university used to be free, no tuition fee.
Only a small percentage of all students will end up going to university anyways.

I don’t think the Japanese system is very good.
Many students don’t keep what they’ve learned at all. They just cram it for tests and they also lose a lot of their childhood / free time!
It can become super ridiculous depending on the parents.
I used to have a 2nd grader of primary school. After school she would attend our eikaiwa and after that juku and piano lessons and whatnot. The mother often asked for extra private lessons and she often stayed up to 1.5h although we said that she at least needs some breaks in between and she stayed until 9pm! She’s still a kid dammit!

Very interesting post. I’m off to read part 3 now! :)

By: Ἀντισθένης

Ἀντισθένης — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:28:56 +0000

Well done. And no wonder the most interesting Japan.ese people are not the most successful. Just remembered: need to watch ‘Battle Royale’ again