All Posts from the School Category
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Summer holidays
The summer holidays start on July 21 or thereabouts, and go all the way through to the start of September. But you won’t be surprised to hear that at junior high, school holidays aren’t what you’d expect them to be.
For the first couple of weeks, Ruby will be trooping off to school every day because the brass band is practicing hard for some big competition coming up on August 9. She’ll will be spending the full day practicing, although they do get a one-hour break in the middle of the day for… guess what… study! Because the school also doles out a massive lump of homework over the summer holidays, since it wouldn’t do for the students to have a bit of free time to relax. After the competition the practice sessions are scaled down a bit, but she still has to go in most days.
And by the way, when you go to school in the holidays you have to wear school uniform.
So school’s out, but school’s not really out. Like a long-life battery in overdrive, Japanese school never sleeps. Even the short breaks for the New Year and the end of the school year (in March) are less than two full weeks, more like ten or 11 days, and you can bet that the kids will be lumped with huge piles of homework then too.
It’s reached the point where we’re hardly surprised any more at what the education system here serves up. It seems every week Ruby comes home with another wacky edict from school: No sweet things for lunch. No drinks breaks during PE classes. No playing at lunchtime. No leaving the house during exams week. Hair ties must be the regulation colour. Hair can only be tied at the back, not halfway up the head. Underwear must be pure white.
Not allowed to swim at the beach until the school says so? No problem.
Native English speakers have to study English too? Makes perfect sense.
Have to stick with the same club activity for three years or your marks go down? Fair enough.
Have to attend school throughout the holidays? Whatever you say.They’ve even organised a roster of Parent Patrols during the holidays. Our turn is on August 3. We have to meet the other parents and then march around the neighbourhood checking that the kids aren’t being naughty. A big long list came home yesterday of things to look out for (and report back to school the next day, obviously). Things such as:
• Riding too fast on a bicycle
• Dinking friends on your bicycle
• Fishing from the roadside
• Swimming outside the designated swimming areas
• Laughing out loud (OK, I made that one up)But now, in the name of journalistic integrity and balance, I should like to present what I believe to be the other side of the story. From talking to other parents and reading up on the internet, I have learned that other points of view do in fact exist.
First of all, many if not most parents have to work throughout the holidays (throughout the year in fact; Japanese have never been good at exercising their rights to annual leave, and in the current depressed economic climate people are doubly scared to take time off) and so are glad to have the kids looked after. When you think about it, plenty of Australian parents put their kids in school holiday programs while they continue working; well, here in Japan, the school takes care of it for you. And it doesn’t cost a yen!
From the kids’ point of view, meanwhile, the after-school clubs are meant to provide an enjoyable diversion. No matter that you do it every day after school, sometimes before school as well, and on weekends, and during the holidays; that’s because in Japan, if you’re going to do something, you do it properly. Like, really really properly. Sure it sucks up every last minute of your spare time, but getting together with your friends to engage in something that isn’t study is still fun. Isn’t it?
I have also heard a number of times that the club activities are there to keep the kids off the streets where they might be tempted to engage in naughtiness and Choose the Wrong Path — a sort of state-sanctioned juvenile delinquency prevention program. In Japan, as elsewhere, years seven to nine are seen as the so-called “difficult age” when kids are wanting to distance themselves from their daggy embarrassing parents and start flexing their teenage muscles. The club activities give them the opportunity to stay out until 5:30 or 6:00 every night, so that by the time they get home there’s barely time for homework, dinner and bath before bed. If your teenager is being difficult then this has got to be a win-win solution.
Our case, however, is different because:
(a) while we love all things Japanese, we’re not used to such an authoritarian education system
(b) we both work from home and are around all the time –afternoons, weekends and holidays, and
(c) we still like spending time with our teenager (though she does push her luck occasionally).At least the primary school is under no such pretensions. As far as I’m aware (fingers crossed) Felix does not have to do anything during the school holidays other than the regulation pile of mindless holiday homework. The school pool remains open throughout the break, which sounds like a great way to get together with friends. Naturally there is a parental supervision roster for this too, but I’m actually quite looking forward to checking out the holiday pool action at Sunami Primary.
And who knows, maybe Ruby will end up having a really great time with the brass band after all. After all, you can never tell what teenagers really want. Why, they don’t even know themselves. Best to keep them busy. That is the Japanese way, grasshopper.
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Tales from junior high 2
This one is a ripper.
One day last week the teacher delivers another stern lecture to the class: apparently some students are under the misapprehension that lunchtime is for playing. (We’re talking about the tiny bit of lunchtime that’s left after everyone’s finished eating in the classroom and packing their things away; about ten or fifteen minutes.) Lunchtime is most certainly not about playing. What remains of the luncheon period is for getting your books ready for the next lesson. If you have any spare time, you may wish to read a book quietly in the school library, but there is to be NO PLAYING.
So there you have it: from eight in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon, zere vill be no free time, no fun, no chatting idly with friends. Who needs friends anyway? School is for studying, and nothing else.
No wonder that bullying is such a problem in this country.
The other day I had a dream, of a crazy fantasy world where students go to school from, oh, 8:30 or so in the morning and finish at maybe 3:30; where every day they have both recess and lunch breaks to spend as they please; where they can choose different after-school activities every day or even just go home if they want; where the classes are varied and stimulating and even make use of modern technology such as computers; where school, in short, is a place that you like going to… oh wait, that’d be Australia. And probably most other civilized countries.
We came here to experience a different culture, and I’m loving it all… except for the draconian education system. I desperately want to be proven wrong about this. I would love to be able to retract this piece sometime. But at the moment, this is what I see and it seems so terribly unfair.
There, that feels better already.
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Tales from junior high
Occasionally our resident teenager deigns to share a story from school with her rapidly aging parents. I try to get her to write these in her blog, but recently she’s barely had time to scratch herself let alone compose new entries (readers may have noticed that it hasn’t been updated in quite a while). So I’ve decided to appropriate her intellectual property for my own pages. You’ll just have to imagine the exclamation marks after every sentence and liberal sprinklings of OMG.
Anyway here goes.Once a week, Ruby’s class has a session called “moral education” where they discuss things such as feelings and being considerate for others and other lofty noble concepts. (Naturally the kids all think it’s a complete waste of time.) One day the teacher decides to engage them in an extremely weighty topic to wit:
What brings us happiness? Is it money?
Ruby immediately senses a trap: it’s one of those trick questions that teachers use to catch you out. You’re supposed to say clever things like “having lots of friends” and “showing kindness to others” and “doing the best you can”.
That’s right, in order to be happy you need money! continues the teacher.
Come on now, thinks Ruby, you’re really stretching this out. But she doesn’t put her hand up, just in case. You never can tell with teachers.
Which is just as well, because it turns out the answer is indeed money.
We need to make lots of Money so we can buy lots of Things, explains the teacher. Things bring us happiness. But in order to have lots of Money, you have to have a Good Job; for that you’ll need to go to university; in order to get in to your preferred university you need to go to the right senior high school (years 10-12); and in order to get into the senior high school of your choice you’ll need to study hard while in junior high school (years 7-9). So knuckle down and study hard, kids!
So much for moral education.Another time the kids are given a lesson on safety. Apparently certain students have been spotted walking along the railway tracks on their way home. The teacher tells them in no uncertain terms that they are not to walk along the railway tracks any more. Why? Because the startled train driver might be obliged to slam on the brakes, causing untold inconvenience to the passengers and possibly disrupting the timetable. Furthermore, adds the teacher imperiously, you could get hit by the train and die.
Don’t you just love the order of priorities.Meanwhile, Ruby tells us that her school has decreed that students are not permitted to swim in the sea until the official beach opening on July 3, another three weeks away. Now, it’s going to be 30+ all next week. In the event that the four of us feel like walking down to our local beach to cool off, Eleni, Felix and I will be free to get in the water but Ruby will have to sit on the sand roasting in the sun out of fear that someone might spot her and report the blatant rule violation back to the authorities.
I can’t even begin to explain how stupid and pointless I think this rule is; how it prevents kids from enjoying themselves; how it insults us as parents by implying that we’re somehow incapable of taking care of our offspring. I suggested that we just choose to ignore the rule, but Eleni and Ruby felt it simply wasn’t worth the hassle, so it looks we’ll just have to abstain for the next few weeks. Or get in the hot car and drive to another beach further down the road. Thanks a bunch, school. As you can see, I’m not very enamoured with the local education system this week. But this is the Japanese way, grasshopper. Clearly I still have much to learn.
At least we all got a swim in last Friday, including Ruby. (This was before we knew about The Rule.) Were the spies out that day? We wait with bated breath for the call from the principal.
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Sports day
Sunday was the annual Sports Day at the local primary school. The Sports Day is a massive event, with marquees arranged all around the sports ground for the parents and of course the local dignitaries invited (presumably the same bunch that gets wheeled out for graduation ceremonies and the like) and the kids all practice for weeks and weeks beforehand.
So you get to see lots of acrobatics like this:
and this:
And there are running races for the tinies:
And a massive tug-of-war.
Those tents at the back are where all the Proud Parents are cowering in the shade enjoying picnic lunches while the kids sweat in out in the burning sun. (And if you look really carefully you can even see the sparkling sea there behind the tents… sorry… am I sounding a bit too much like a travel brochure?)
During the festivities they had the results up on a big board at the front. Felix was happy because the White Team (his team) won the day on points:
Meanwhile in other exciting news, the pool at the primary school is due to open in just a few short weeks. The pool up at the junior high school is also being prepared for the summer, and guess who gets to scrub down the walls before they fill it: that’s right, Ruby and her compatriats were all out there today armed with brushes and towels and hoses. (Ruby “accidentally” got her best friend Kasumi wet but managed to buy her off with a muffin.)
And on Saturday Felix and I went to Onomichi to do some shopping and found this quaint little coffee shop where they make coffee using equipment that looks like something out of a mad scientist movie:
The coffee itself was pretty ordinary but at least we had fun watching them concoct it on the bunsen burners.
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Mid-term exams
In the brave new world of junior high, it’s time for mid-term exams. The schools have them at slightly different times, but Ruby’s exams are this Thursday and Friday. She’s been studying quite hard; in fact, I’ve never seen her study before really, since Year 6 in fun-lovin’ Australia was just an endless blur of building models and shooting videos of one another and going on camp.
In the very first week of junior high school they had introductory tests. Ruby did rather well on Maths, even outscoring her contemporaries (her father’s genes there, obviously) but struck out on Japanese (too many weird characters), Science (too many unfamiliar scientific terms) and Social Studies (zero knowledge of Japanese history at this stage). So the objective is to get a semi-reasonable score this time around, and to her credit young Ruby has applied herself admirably to the task. To make it easier (and harder for everyone else) the school has introduced English for the mid-term exams. If she doesn’t get 100% on that she’s going straight to bed without supper.
The school is so serious about the mid-term exams that they’ve even CANCELLED AFTER-SCHOOL CLUB ACTIVITIES for the whole past week. You know, the one that you do every day until five-thirty every day plus Saturdays and sometimes Sundays too. (And apparently the sporty clubs — i.e. everything other than brass band — also work out in the mornings before school. Just in case they had some time to themselves in the morning. All I can say is: thank heavens she chose band.)
So instead of club activities the students have to stay behind for an extra half an hour of study after school, just for a bit of a change, seeing as they’ve been studying all day with no recess and about 10 minutes for lunchtime. (Me? Cynical?) But this does mean that Ruby is home at the very reasonable hour of about four-thirty to raid the fridge before opening her textbooks for the evening session.
Apparently the school has instructed the students in no uncertain terms that they are not permitted to leave the house during this unprecedented parcel of free time. They are expected to study for their exams (fair enough). But what happens if we want to go out for a quick bite of okonomiyaki? We’ll have to hide Ruby under a blanket in the back seat.
An epic precedent was set today at Mihara No. 4 Junior High School, when Ruby was excused from doing English homework after school like the rest of the class. Yes! She was actually permitted to cram for her Social Studies IN CONTRAST TO EVERYBODY ELSE. I tell you, it’s the thin end of the wedge; at this rate they’ll be letting her off English classes altogether by the end of the year, and from there it’s just a short plunge into TOTAL ANARCHY in the classroom. I’ll have to have a word to the Principal.
Meanwhile, one of the Group of Three Friends-Turned-Tormentors, having been summarily ousted by the other two for reasons unknown, has turned full circle and asked to be friends with Ruby again. She even went so far as to apologise for having being mean (“I only did it ’cause they told me to” — you sheep). Still, every ally counts up at Lord of the Flies in the mountains.
And after the exams finish it’s a big weekend in sport, with back-to-back games for Ruby on Saturday and Sunday (including a 6 am start on Saturday to get her on the purple bus), plus the annual Sports Day at Sunami Primary School for Felix on the Sunday. Sunday also marks the debut of the Old Man and His Bass at the brass band. Yes, despite an plethora of advice to the contrary (thanks Malcolm) I’m going to go ahead and give it a shot. Mind you, it’s meant to be a junior band — the flyer clearly says ages 13 to 22 — so I can only assume that they’re so desperate for a bass player that they’ve relaxed the criteria. They may live to regret that decision.
Next week the Fun ‘n’ Excitement level goes up as we host my two sisters and mother for a visit that will include Ruby’s birthday and her official induction into teenager-hood. Now she will be able to sneer and roll her eyes with legitimacy. Anyway since we’ve got most of the family here we’re planning a day of wild celebrations; I’m just working myself up to making the phone call to school to ask for the day off.
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Skool lunch tasting session
Gotta love those skool visits.
This week they organised for interested parents to come in and try out the skool lunches. As it happens Felix is on serving duty this week so he gets to wear the dinky little serving gear, including the ubiquitous Germ Mask:
After the designated carriers have wheeled in the trolleys, the designated servers dole out the gruel from the pots.
The designated lunch monitors check that everybody has been served, then issue the Japanese version of 2-4-6-8-dig-in-don’t-wait.
Then the fun begins. Luckily there are no silly rules that you’re not allowed to talk while eating, like we had when I was at school back in the dark ages.
How about those US Army-issue metal plates! Like something out of MASH.
All the adults then repaired to a different room to try out the lunch for themselves. And listen to a highly involved presentation from the nutritionalist at the local council about how they try to incorporate seasonal ingredients and ensure a good balance of vitamins, minerals, riboflavin and iron, while making mealtime fun and interesting and many other things which I didn’t quite listen to as diligently as I possibly should have. I did however study an enormous table that gives a breakdown of the meal content in terms of nutrients, iron, energy and six million other parameters.
It’s all very thorough and I’m sure they’re doing a great job, but at the end of the day it’s institutionalised food on thin metal plates. Actually one of the mothers raised the crockery issue at the end of the talk. And the response? The local council is apparently “aware of the issue” but “unable to take action at this time.”
In any case, I’m sure that in terms of nutritional value the skool slops are surely way ahead of whatever we could be bothered slapping together for Felix at 6:30 in the morning, and at ¥240 (under $3) per meal it’s a bargain. Don’t imagine I’ll be eating out at the local primary school any time soon though.
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Skool update
Just a few random thoughts about the kids and their respective schools.
Firstly, Ruby is now having a better time at school (in contrast to the shenanigans last month). Some of her former tormentors are even speaking to her civilly again, which makes it that much easier to get through the day. The after-school brass band is proving to be unexpectedly good fun, not least because Ruby has worn down the resistance of the anti-sax faction and won herself a couple of genuine sax parts. And in the process we’ve discovered that the Year 9 trombone player is actually a closet saxophonist too, while the Year 9 trumpet player is also a wicked drummer. It’s not quite School of Rock yet but the winds of change are definitely a-blowin’ through the No. 4 Mihara City Junior High School.
Meanwhile, the native English speaker is still being forced to sit through three English classes per week. She is also expected to write out a diary page in English every night, but tonight we hit upon the idea of copying out the back covers of paperbacks from around the house. We figure that the teacher never reads the homework anyway. Then Ruby decided to make up her own story from half-way through, so in tonight’s instalment the happily married protagonist abruptly kills off his wife and breaks out in a volley of traditional Japanese drumming while his daughter Joy (possibly traumatised by the recent upheavals) changes her name to Nappi-San. I wonder how long it will take Teacher to twig to the fact that Ruby’s diary entries are not entirely grounded in reality.
Felix meanwhile is enjoying himself at school. He loves learning new kanji characters (and there’s plenty of those), and just last week proudly brought home a new kanji dictionary that has proven so popular it already has stains on it. Some of the stuff they do in science sounds interesting — this week they are all building solar-powered cars — while in maths he is regularly usurped by “two really smart girls” which presents him and his ego with an excellent challenge. Year 4 has more excursions and activities to spice things up; in a couple of weeks they are off to the local rubbish treatment plant which apart from the smell sounds like it should be fun. He still gets to play at friends’ houses after school more than he ever did in Australia, and on Wednesdays he goes with a group of mates to the local shrine where they all do their homework together then play games and learn about Japanese traditions and culture. (I suspect that the sweets and biscuits are the main attraction.) Meanwhile the skool pool is due to open in a few weeks and some of their classes become swimming lessons, the lucky things.OK it’s gripe time now. Having experienced two very different education systems (three if you count Italy), I can’t help but draw comparisons, and I’d like to share a few here.
• The kids have virtually no free time for playing. At primary school the “long break” is all of 20 minutes, and although lunchtime is 45 minutes most of that is taken up with eating and packing up the school lunch so they’re lucky to get 20 minutes to run around outside. I can’t help but compare this to Australian primary schools, where the kids get an hour and a half unadulterated free time. At Ruby’s high school, where you bring own lunch, they get barely 15 minutes to themselves after they’ve finished eating, and that’s the only break in the day. What are the chances that the lack of free time might have something to do with all the bullying and other stress-related problems that plague the education system?
• Computer education is woefully behind. Apparently in Year 9 they’re just learning how to turn on the computer and create a file in Excel. Contrast this with Australia, where according to Ruby they were making PowerPoint files in Year 1 (probably Year 2 or 3 after discounting for exaggeration) and had moved on to designing websites and creating 3D models in Google SketchUp and Kahootz by Year 6. How is it possible for the land of technology to be so far behind at the school level? Or is it just us out here in the sticks?
• There are no drinking taps. The primary school is serviced by tank water rather than mains water, which the kids are discouraged from drinking. Every kid brings a water bottle (NB: cold tea is the norm; plain water is a strange drink enjoyed by foreigners) and when that runs out… well, I guess that explains why Felix looks so hot and bothered sometimes when he gets home. Meanwhile Ruby nearly got heatstroke in a PE class the other day when they were all sitting out in the baking sun with no access to water (OK, cold tea). Apparently you’re not allowed to drink during class, and PE is a class, ergo…I don’t mean to sound overly negative. The curriculums are well-structured, the teachers are committed, the schools are well-equipped (if a little shabby), the results are there to see. Besides, we came here to experience a different culture and way of life, and this is it. Whether by design or by default, Japanese schools see it as their duty to foster toughness and resilience. Even at the risk of dehydration.
Oh, and apropos (love that word) of nothing in particular, we bought Felix some purple pants at our favourite clothing store Uniqlo last week. He chose them himself, I should add. Here he models his new pants complete with the Leif Garrett look:
And it always reminds me of that song Purple Pants by the legendary Heebeegeebees:
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Games girls play
I’ve read the manuals, I’ve talked with other parents, I’ve seen those teen movies and TV shows out of America. So I know that high school girls can be pretty full-on, forming cliques and being mean and cutting and nasty, not to mention cyber-bullying and mall shopping.
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But I certainly wasn’t expecting to encounter it out here in a quiet little school on the Japanese seaside, and not so early on in the piece.
When I was investigating the local schools from my desk in Australia I thought that small class sizes would be more friendly and intimate. How naiive! If anything it seems that the opposite is true: small classes create a pressure-cooker atmosphere. And there’s another factor compounding the situation. Junior high schools in Japan normally draw students from various primary schools in the vicinity. But there are no other primary schools in Sunami, so the same bunch of kids from year six goes straight through to junior high, with all their friendship groups and animosities perfectly preserved.
It appears that Ruby’s arrival near the end of grade six coincided with (or perhaps precipitated) a major shift in the tectonic plates in grade six. The two most strong-willed girls in the class, called Rie and Yuu, having previously been thick as thieves, suddenly tired of one another and immediately set about forming opposing cliques. Ruby found herself being courted by both sides and tried to maintain a neutral position, but this proved impossible and she eventually fell in with Rie’s clique. (They were the ones who took her out to the local shopping center during the holidays.)
Over the last couple of weeks, however, the planets have realigned once again and fractures have started to emerge within the cliques. As part of this process, for no particular reason poor Ruby abruptly found herself on the outer, mercilessly cast adrift by her own friendship group. At one stage they were being actively unpleasant, and although they have since stopped this, it’s clear that Ruby is going to have to find herself a different set of friends, at least for the time being. In a big school this might not be so difficult but when there are only ten girls in the class and about half of them have decided to be your enemies, your options are kind of limited.
However there has been an unlikely saviour in this grubby scenario: the regular after-school brass band sessions. While Ruby’s supposed friends are all busy in the other room trying to coax their first notes out of recalcitrant instruments, Ruby gets to have fun warbling away on her sax in the main room with the bigger girls, who are apparently much nicer all round.
I had a chat with Ruby’s teacher yesterday, and apparently this sort of carry-on is a common feature of the initial settling in period at junior high. Maybe it’s something to do with having to wear uniform for the first time, who can say. I just hope that they come to their senses soon and start being nicer to one another or it’s going to turn into Lord of the Flies up here on the mountain. -
Skool visits
Last week was official school visit week, so we both trooped in to see Felix and Ruby in action.
Avid readers of these pages might have noticed from previous photos that Japanese schools look alot like schools in Australia — from about 40 years ago I reckon. Tiny wooden desks, chalk and paper on blackboards, gas heater in the middle of the room, no air conditioning. Certainly no such thing as interactive whiteboards, computers in the classroom or a laptop on every desk, let alone wireless internet or school intranets. At the end of the school year in late March there was great excitement when a couple of the classrooms got whopping great flat-screen TVs, although Ruby’s grade six teacher was less than impressed: “all it does is get in my bloody way,” she muttered, and went back to the chalkboard.In the interests of journalistic integrity I should report that the primary school does have a computer room full of creaky old terminals, but Ruby says they hardly ever went in there and nobody knew how to type anyway. Felix says he has been in there once in three months.
But anyway, back on topic. Here’s a couple of photos of Felix in his element:
You see what I mean about the classrooms.
The junior high skool also held an official classroom inspection day, on a Saturday for some reason. I suspect this was to give fathers a chance to attend, although on the day it was the same old collection of mothers plus the super-keen Australians. And the class that we got to inspect? English. Yes, English is compulsory at junior high school, and Ruby is at junior high school, so Ruby gets to recite lines such as “How are you? I’m fine, thank you. And you?” and practice the alphabet for 50 minutes three times every week. I’ve had a quiet word to the teacher and we have agreed that the time will eventually come when Ruby is granted special dispensation to be excused from this charade; but at the moment, just two weeks into the new skool year, it’s all about fitting in and being seen to fit in, so English classes it is. At least Ruby gets to chat to the British assistant teacher Lucy-sensei on her weekly visits.
And then there were the home visits. In Japan, instead of the parents going in to the school, the teachers come out to you in the afternoon or evening. The schools tend to take a much greater interest in the personal lives of students than we are used to in Australia. Last year a Japanese teacher friend in Melbourne told me that if the police pick up an errant kid on the streets they’re more likely to contact his schoolteacher before his parents. So the home visit is presumably to check that the kids have a stable home life — ie that your place isn’t a complete hovel and that there’s food on the shelves. And we haven’t been called up to the school to explain the lack of fish in our diet or anything, so I guess our household environment has passed muster.
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The long skool day 2
Last month I shared my thoughts on the long school day in Japan.
At primary school both our kids were putting in nearly ten hours a day, leaving at seven in the morning and not arriving home until four-thirty or five at night. Now that Ruby is in high school, less than 15 minutes’ walk up the hill, she can sleep in until seven every morning. In fact, the mornings work out beautifully, because Felix is naturally an early riser and most times I don’t have to wake him up at six-thirty. Needless to say he requires very little maintenance in the morning (of the endless brushing and plaiding of hair variety) and breakfast time is less of a rush.
However the official after-school club activities program has just started at high school, and once again Ruby is back to nearly ten-hour days. I have been dreading this moment for some time, because this for me is one of the biggest impositions made by the local education system.
Ruby has already done an acerbic treatise on club activities in her blog (read it here), so I will just give a brief rundown from my perspective.
At the start of Year 7 (first year of junior high school) you nominate a specific club activity that you are going to commit to for the next three years. You do this club activity every day after school (sometimes before as well), as well as on Saturdays and/or Sundays. If you choose one of the full-on serious clubs like baseball, then most of your school holidays will also be spent practicing. No such thing as a week down the coast with the family in the caravan.
Contrast this with Australia where, as far as I can remember, you can do things after school if you want, like sport or drama or music or whatever; or you can just go home. You can even do different things on different days of the week. But if you’re not interested, you can just go home.
Ruby’s junior high school, having less than 80 students in total, is limited to offering five activities: baseball (strictly for boys), volleyball (strictly for girls), table tennis, athletics and brass band. Ruby chose brass band (read her thoughts about it here) in a bid to keep up the saxophone, although we have since discovered that saxophone is not technically a brass instrument (it has a reed and is therefore treated as a wind instrument). She says she might take up the trumpet.
So obviously the approach is quite different, and in my opinion quite constrictive — every day until five o’clock (5:45 in summer) seems like an unprincipled restriction on their freedom of movement. But what I find most interesting about the club activities regime is what it says about the nature of families and parenting in Japan. I’ve already talked about how Japanese kids are tough and independent, but the high school experience takes it to a new level. No-one really expects to go home after school to hang out with the family, and perhaps (though I could be reading too much into it here) the family doesn’t really want them there anyway. The kids are meant to stay at school for hours, forging new friendships and being challenged in a non-academic way; the parents are probably either at work until late or otherwise busy, and are happy for the school to keep their kids busily engaged and off the streets for the afternoon. By the time the kids do stumble in the door, they’ve barely got time to do their homework, eat dinner, have a bath and fall into bed exhausted. Do they get any time to themselves? Can’t see it myself.The other major issue is choice. Whereas we expect our kids to get involved a range of different activities, the Japanese prefer to concentrate on one, with maybe another (non-school) activity on the weekend for good measure. I suppose you could argue that the Japanese approach, which effectively outsources the after-school activities to the school, is much easier than the Australian model, which inevitably involves ferrying the offspring back and forth across town in the pre-dinner timeslot. And I should point out in fairness that the club activities are not strictly compulsory (one of Ruby’s soccer compatriots, for instance, has opted out), although there is a strong expectation that you will be part of it. What with the Japanese insistence on group harmony. And especially in Ruby’s case, given that there are so few students at the school and given that she is keen to fit in.
As with the initial shock of the long school days, I suspect that the person who is having most trouble coming to grips with the concept is me. The kids themselves are already relishing their new Japanese-style independence (see here) and there is no doubt that the experience will be good for them. All the same, I can’t help feeling a tad peeved sometimes as dusk starts to fall and my children are still not back home…
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This blog is about the adventures of a family of Australian barbarians spending two years in the islands of southern Japan. Stay tuned for regular updates on the food, the culture, the earthquakes, the wacky festivals, the school system and more. 
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