Job Discussion Forums

[sushi]

Ok I`m new here in Sendai, having just come from Kyungju in Korea, but what`s with the short skirted highschool girls. I`m not knocking it. i think it`s great. You would never see this in korea, so i�m　ｃｕｒｉｏｕｓ　ａｓ　ｔｏ　ｈｏｗ　ｔｈｅ　ｅｄｕｃａｔｉｏｎ　ｄｅｐａｒｔｍｅｎｔｓ　ｄｅｃｉｄｅｄ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｉｓ　ａｓ　ａｐｏｌｉｃｙ　ｆｏｒ　girls ｄｒｅｓｓ.

[Doglover]

[guest of Japan]

Short skirts are not a policy, they're a fashion statement. When the skirts leave the store they go below the knees. Then the girls either roll them up, or if they have a kind and talented mother - hem them.

[moot point]

15-20 years ago it was the "in" thing to wear them down to their ankles.

[Big John Stud]

I work at a high school. I think the girls wearing short skirts is so sad! This is an awful message to be giving such young innocent girls. Last year, during the winter when it was freezing cold and snowing, the majority of the girls wore short skirts. I would be cold just looking at them, and I was wearing long pants.
I asked one girl who lived in the U.S. if American girls would do wear short skirts in such cold weather. She said no. I asked why do Japanese girls do. She said, we have to!
This is one rule I would love to see changed

[Big John Stud]

I work at a high school. I think the girls wearing short skirts is so sad! This is an awful message to be giving such young innocent girls. Last year, during the winter when it was freezing cold and snowing, the majority of the girls wore short skirts. I would be cold just looking at them, and I was wearing long pants.
I asked one girl who lived in the U.S. if American girls would do wear short skirts in such cold weather. She said no. I asked why do Japanese girls do. She said, we have to!
This is one rule I would love to see changed

[TokyoLiz]

Girls sometimes put a belt on, then roll the waistband of the skirt around it - instantly shortens it without surgery. I've confiscated a few belts before from girl students wearing their skirts too short.

The consolation is that some schools allow the girls to wear their gym shorts under their skirts for extra warmth. My jr high girls do this. Double socks are good, too, they tell me. In their school shoes, they sometimes tuck little pocket warmers (you know the kind? Little packets that self heat) in the toes of their shoes. I laughed one winter morning - my kids, boys and girls, were sitting on their pocket warmers and wouldn't stand up because they'd fall out of their underpants!

[Synne]

It's not having a talented mother who can hem their skirts for them or not. Most girls will take them to a seamstress to have them shortened.

Also, most girls will have two skirts, one short, and one long in order to get by those inspection days in which the lengths are checked which happens at some high schools.

Thing is, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell the difference between "down around the ankles long" vs. "barely covering anything short"...

...so why does it go unnoticed every other day other then inspection day?

I'd agree doglover, the teachers and principals are probably perverts...or just don't care.

[JimDunlop2]

It goes "unnoticed" because as a teacher you would be labelled a pervert for actually noticing the fact that the skirt was so short... Especially if it happened more than once.... Then everyone would be saying, "How come (name)-sensei is the only one who keeps looking down at the girls' legs?"

So no one says anything for the most part...

The skirts even start to get shorter by 3rd yr Jr. High School. And you don't have to be a pervert to notice. I had one girl sit in her "shortened" skirt with her legs spread as wide as if she were at the gynecologist's office, for all to see. Needless to say, I just tried to pretend she wasn't there and continued with my lesson.

[Synne]

Thats a good poin Jim.

I can just imagine the level of nonsense that could get stirred up (especially with the male teachers) if they were to bring that up.

I wonder if being the foreign teacher and trying to do something about it would lead you into hot water quicker then if you were a Japanese teacher.

[JimDunlop2]

I dunno about "quicker" but I'd say definitely just as quick....

Perhaps, quicker in the sense that, from our Western perspective, it would only be natural (and expected) for a responsible teacher to say something...

[lajzar]

That sort of happened to me once. A 3rd year girl was sitting at the entrance to the gym, skirt hiked up so you could literally see everything below teh waist, hipbones and all.

All the male teachers made a point of not looking at her. It took a female teacher to say "mitakunai" to her. there's just no way a male could have told her off without looking like a pervert for noticing.

[Calories]

it's a trend in canadian schools too. winter or summer a skank is a skank is a skank.

[Celeste]

I remember working for a girls' high school in Korea where some of the girls would try out their flirting skills on the men teachers. The poor guys would tell the girls to go away and leave them alone, but usually a woman teacher had to come and really deal with the discipline in these cases. I remember one young man teacher who the girls were all in love with, being harrassed mercilessly by these girls. And they weren't just talking!

One day, as I was walking home, I saw this teacher walking home as well. Two girls ran up behind him. One jumped onhis back and held on like she was getting a piggy-back ride, and the other ran around front and kissed him. He was shocked and yelled at them, but the next day at school, it was a group of women teachers dealing with the discipline over this event.
I see the little girls in Japan trying on their sexuality like children trying on mommy's shoes. They clumsily wear the short skirts and lip gloss and try to arouse attention from men- not really knowing what they'd do with that attention if they actually received it. School is a safer place for them to try this sort of thing out than a night club, or something, even though it is wholly inappropriate.
I joked to one of my co-workers that we must be working in a very poor neighbourhood if none of the parents could afford enough skirt material to cover their daughters' bottoms properly. She totally didn't get that I was making a joke. She proceeded to tell me all of the tricks that these girls use to shorten their skirts. When I asked her how she knew this, she told me that it is an old "tradition" and she too did this in highschool.

[Glenski]

I am...amused by the antics at my own private high school. A year or two ago, colored bras were all the rage, and with the white blouses that girls wear, the bras were very visible through them.

Every year girls hike up their skirts (and yes, the 3rd year girls usually have the shortest skirts). One would think it is for the attention, yet they cover their rears as they walk up stairs, even if they wear their gym shorts underneath. A tease is a tease, but really!

Nobody really says much at my school. It's a shame, too, because it's supposed to be a private school with a strong feeling of family and preparing students for society and discipline. Students wear jewelry and makeup, especially in 3rd year, and teachers do very little about it. The 3rd and 2nd year teachers hold semi-regular inspections half a dozen times a year, after herding the students into the gym and having them slowly march out single-file through a gauntlet of inspecting teachers. The more prominent offenders get pulled aside and scolded and given a week to change. A month or two later, they do it all over again. Quite pointless without a penalty or punishment system.