Job Discussion Forums

[6810]

[markle]

[6810]

Me too, short term that is.

I guess for my family, we are looking for a life a little more "analog" (as they say here) than we can get in Japan. After all, teaching, while not paying that high, pays on average higher than the standard breadline for ESL in Japan.

I am actually from regional Australia, myself, so isolation via distance no big deal to me, plus a natural environment for children to play in is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.

As for racial tensions, like I said, I'm from regional Oz, so it's nothing new to me. And as for indifference to education... hey, I've been in Japan long enough and seen the inside of enough secondary classrooms to be able to cope with it...

[osakajojo]

I don't see the Japanese education system as being bad. I have met a lot of intelligent students.
And what is the deal with cram school?
Not all kids go, I think it just seems that way to a lot of us because we teach a lot of ones that do.
They don't have to go and I won't send mine unless she wants to go.

[Sherri]

[markle]

I have been musing on this since I have a munchkin on the way and living in Japan is not out of the question. I have got the feeling that people are approaching this from an 'either/ or' point of view rather than a mix.
What about having the kids in the J-ed system until jr or senior high school before considering either sending them to international schools, moving back home or boarding school (yes I know the inconceivalbe!, but in parts of Australia I lived it was the only viable option). It gives you a little breathing room to get the money together or get all your ducks in a row, and while Japanese primary ed is still less than ideal I doubt it is going to seriously damage the kids' education.

[cafebleu]

Cram schools play an important role in preparing Japanese schoolkids for the difficult university entrance exams - that's the major reason they exist plus as others have noted, there is pressure to send your child to one because their friends are going and Japanese parents are preoccupied with doing what others do or they are seen as different and therefore by implication wrong.

My experiences with Japanese schools were fairly positive - where in a western country would you see kids sitting down to learn 3 alphabets including a kanji one where the characters have multiple meanings, at primary school stage?

It wouldn't happen in the UK - everything there that used to be the measure of competence at literacy and numeracy is now 'too hard' apparently.

Tests are 'too hard', they 'lower self esteem', etc etc. There is no balance there. The western notion of schooling is all about giving children and teenagers 'self-confidence' even when there are no grounds for them to be so self-confident with the appalling literarcy and other skills so many of them lack outside the posh schools.

There are Japanese critics of the Japanese schooling system - especially one woman based in Australia who has devoted her life it seems to exposing Japan's bullying in schools. While she has done her research, she is also obsessed with kids not wearing uniforms and apparently gets narked when people tell her that uniforms are mostly good in their effect.

This Japanese academic comes from a background of upper middle class wealth. She wouldn't begin to understand a parent or parents who are grateful for uniforms so their kids can be just like the others and don't have to worry about a new outfit everyday and not having the latest gear.

[Sherri]

[cafebleu]

Hi Sherri, I should clarify my points re the state of UK schools. I agree that A level study criteria tend to be higher than the equivalent in the US in some cases.

I also know from my time teaching in Asia (different places including Japan, Korea, Taiwan) that while the school system generally produces highly literate and mathematically competent students at primary school and secondary school levels, there is no comparison with the critical thinking level that can be attained in the UK, US etc.

Were Japanese students asked to write an essay on the 'Socio-political and economic factors that led to the Tokugawan isolation policy' for history, they would be all at sea. They have absolutely no experience in this kind of combination of factual and opinion writing in an analytical context.

Subtitute 'Tokogawan isolation' for the 'Protestant Reformation' and you have a standard question asked in the UK and Australia to give two examples, for European history at final year high school level.

No Asian students I taught, no matter how intelligent, would be able to handle that because it is outside the scope of the memory based learning that is the norm in Asia. Likewise university students in Asia would also struggle with the very idea of that kind of analysis.

In Japan and Korea the 'top' English students at secondary school are able to do very well in a series of short questions about grammar points.

However, I do believe the Asian systems have a lot going for them in making students realise that being literate and mathematically competent from an early age is non negotiable, and competition is part of life irrespective of their 'self esteem'.

I always found that primary school level Asian students were doing mathematics that UK secondary school students tended to gripe was 'too hard' and their parents sometimes complained about that as well.

[Gamushara84]

Everyone raises some good points about having their children go to an international school or a Japanese school...

For me, I spent part of my high school in the Czech Republic. I went to a Czech school, while one of my friends went to the Brit school. I really wished I could've gone there, but hey...the point of me being in the Czech Republic was to experience Czech schooling, so...

In Japan, I found school to be really boring--not much was expected. Rote memorization doesn't seem to encourage creativity at all. In Mexico, I could see the same "lack" with my friends. They never seemed to be on the same page. Not that they were stupid--they were quite bright, many smarter than I could ever hope to be...but they never questioned anything.

I would be afraid to send my child to a Japanese school because I wouldn't want her to turn into a robot. I also think it's good to have an international experience, no matter what country we decided to live in. I would also be wary to have my kid in a school where her experience might be based on how other children in the school treat her. At least at an international school, my child wouldn't be the "odd one out". I'm not saying Japanese kids are racist, but I'd rather my kid learn ABCs and hiragana/katakana than "My mommy says XYZ because you're foreign". Sorry, but I've seen too many of my friends develop complexes like that.

About A-levels: I guess you could say A-levels are harder than normal high school classes in the US, but that's the point, isn't it? In the US, we have AP classes and AP exams. I guess you could call that A-levels...

[Glenski]

[king kakipi]

My question :-

[southofreality]

It's funny... I hear people here talk about others that are in their 40's and 50's like "Hey, did you know that Kenji went to Todai?" I mean, surely Kenji's done something more significant in his 40 or 50 years on this planet than go to a top tier uni, hasn't he? Even if not, that's old news. But, where you went to uni here often carries a special meaning for you throughout your life.
Imagine some aging mid-level executive at a medium-sized US company, who wound up in his position by his seniority. If he wasn't considered particularly good at his job, what would people say in response to the statement, "Hey, did you know Bob's a Harvard grad?"
They'd say, "How'd that happen?" or "What's up with Harvard?"

The point is, as long as parents believe that having their kids go to cram school will give them a better shot at getting into a high-level uni, cram schools will keep packing 'em in.