Job Discussion Forums

[ruby_silence]

Hello. I was offered a job from Interac and will be moving to Japan in April. I was told that since I have experience teaching kids with developmental disabilities, it is likely I would be given an assignment with children in special education. In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act protects the civil rights of people with disabilities. Is there anything similar to this in Japan? I have read that there are similar laws, but that they are not followed as strictly in Japan as in the US. If you've worked in special education in Japan, please let me know your experience. Thank you.


I saw a thread on Dave's that touched on this subject, but it was from 2003.

[seklarwia]

I'm not American, so don't have the foggiest idea about what your Disabilities Act. I'm not even that clued up on what Japanese laws say on the matter. But what I can talk about is what I've witnessed thus far.

As ALTs (both JET and dispatch), many of us work with children with special needs regardless of whether we have experience or not.

Special schools tend to be tiny (sometimes as few as 10 kids in an entire school), so it is fairly unlikely that you are going to be assigned to one full-time. You'll probably be serving regular schools too, where you will come into contact more with special needs. The two special schools in our area are only served by a visiting ALTs (1 served by a JET, the other by an Interac ALT) once or twice per month. But I work in a regular JH and can have as many as five special classes in a week and because the English office is next to 3 or the special classes, I interact with them daily.

In Japan, the parents decide whether they want their kids in special ed; the schools may advise, but they can't make the final decision. Only a small number will end up in special classes or special schools. The rest will be forced to cope in regular classes of up to 40 working at a pace that is often too fast for them and with teachers who have no background in special ed and who may not have even been informed of exactly what difficulties the children have - the schools do not have the authority to have kids tested without the parents' permission, so if the parents decide to pretend that their kids have no problems, they may not even tell the school the details or deny it if the homeroom teacher asks them about it.

Of course there are more than a few problems that occur with this, but one good thing that does come out of it is that the regular students are far more accepting of those with with special needs than kids in the UK. In my school at least, the special kids never get bullied, they are included as much as possible in everyday school life and during breaks and lunch even the students in the special classes spend time, mess around and getting up to mischief with the regular students.

Japan still has a lot of improvement to do in special ed. Simply by the reaction of visiting teachers to my school, that is pretty evident (they are often shocked by the confidence of our special class students and surprised by the amount of things that they do besides the regular classes - my special classes do a lot of practical activities to prepare them for life). But they are trying to make improvements.
In my area the teachers and special classes from different schools often go to visit each other so they can learn from each other. Teachers and advisors often visit my school to observe the special classes. And 2 days ago, one of the special classes was taken to spend a day with the special students at a different school. Whilst it was a fun day out for our kids, it was a chance for the teachers to get together to discuss ways to improve their classes and school environment for the students.

I could ramble on about special ed here forever. So perhaps it'd be easier if you asked about anything that concerned you in particular. Perhaps then you'll get something more useful than my verbal diarrhoea

[Bread]

The above has completely matched my experience as well. The regular kids seem to be really inclusive of the special kids, which is nice to see. One of my schools has special excursions whose goal is to have fun with the special kids in the park. They even participated in the marathon with everyone else last week with help from their teachers, something I really doubt you would ever see in the US. As opposed to my regular classes where I do the lesson planning, I leave the special class lesson planning completely up to the special teachers, since they're trained for it.

The biggest problem I've had is with incredibly disruptive kids who REALLY seem like they should be in special classes, but I guess the parents opted not to do it. At one school, there was a woman whose full-time job was to stand next to a single kid and keep him from yelling in class. In one of my classes now, the homeroom teacher can never participate in the class because she needs to constantly quiet a yelling kid. I can't even imagine what her solo classes are like.

[Glenski]

Google is your friend. A little digging brought this up:

2009 report by a special ed teacher visiting Japan:
http://www.edweek.org/tm/section/first-person/2009/06/24/tm_sjordan_web.h20.html

MEXT report 2002 on special ed in Japan (short)
http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/tokubetu/material/001.pdf

2005 report on development of special ed "Development of Special Needs Education in Japan and Some Current Problems"
http://www.isec2005.org/isec/abstracts/papers_y/yamaguchi_k.shtml

1998 report on special ed reform
http://courses.coe.asu.edu/artiles/EJSNE/EJSNE_Japan.pdf

undated (but at least 2002-2004) report
http://www.nise.go.jp/en/Special_Education_in_Japan.pdf

laws related to persons with disabilities in Japan
http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/english/law/japan/30select.html

There's a nice paragraph on special ed in this 1994 report.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED379774.pdf

2004 report
http://www.jicafriends.jp/vocational/gi2005/material/resume/1022_school.html

Bear in mind that although about 1% of students in Japan belong to special ed schools, most private and public schools have no counselors or psychologists, yet HR teachers and others are expected to take on those roles, and there are students in these schools (not special ed schools) who probably need special ed facilities. Embarrassment and other cultural norms prevent this from happening in many cases.

I was in a private HS, and I saw/had more than one case of a kid with hyperactivity disorder of some sort, and another was so heavily medicated for whatever condition he had that he virtually slept through all his senior year courses (and remarkably passed every one!).

[ruby_silence]

Thank you for the informative responses!

[jnanagirl]

I was in the JET program 1988 - 1990 and taught a few special education classes as part of my junior high teaching rounds. These were hands-down the most enjoyable classes I taught in Japan - the students were warm and open-hearted and willing to try anything. (Perhaps they are not as harshly disciplined by their Japanese teachers as other junior high students are? Not sure about that, but I believed it to be the case.) I know I haven't answered your questions here, but thought it might be worth relating my positive experience. These were students in rural Japan who had their own separate classes in an otherwise mainstream junior high.