Japan's Education System

I'm kicking off this post with a heavy-handed illustration of just how much education is about perspective: above you see a map in which Japan is the center of the world. ;)

Basic snapshot of the school system--there are no "standardized tests" required to graduate at any point, but there are intense entrance examinations to middle school, high school, and college. At the high school level, these entrance examinations have the effect of sorting students into tracks by putting them in schools at their level. There are vocational schools, and there are various intensities of academic schools. However, the fact that the testing system is entrance rather than exit-based means that once you test into high school, or college, for example, there's basically a 100% graduation rate. If you go, you pass. 

So we visited 2 middle schools, 2 high schools, and 3 elementary schools during my time in Japan. We had the opportunity to speak to many teachers and principals. I learned a lot! Obviously, I have lots to say, but I think I'll just drop some pictures with straightfoward descriptions first so there's a sense of what school is like in Japan. 

Environment

Most of the schools we visited had the kind of open layout that you see in this picture above. One principal told us the design was deliberate--the idea is to create a space in which one can observe everything that is happening easily. My school is actually built on a similar principle, with windows in the doors, etc. Of course, this school is nearly open-air. Indeed, in some of the schools there were no windows (only open space). Obviously, this counts air conditioning right out. Trust me, this is rough--kids attend school right through July, and Japan is unbelievably hot and humid in the summer. In plenty of the classrooms we observed, kids came close to being passed out on the desks...but still didn't complain. We noticed that the middle schools tended not to have air conditioning, while the high schools had at least the minor levels of air conditioning used throughout Japan. 

In the middle school and elementary school classrooms, there were cubbies located at the back for backpacks and thermoses. 

The majority of the schools we visited had a structured policy regarding shoes. You remove your shoes upon entering the building and put on school slippers. If you look carefully at the feet of the students in the picture above, you can see they're wearing what sort of look like blue plastic shower slippers. There are also slippers for the bathroom, and special shoes for gym class, as seen just below:

In the classroom itself, kids almost universally sat in neatly arranged rows like below. In the middle schools, rows would alternate boy girl boy girl, and even in some of the high schools we noticed this type of segregation. You'll probably notice that students are wearing uniforms--in Japan, middle school and high school students wear uniforms, while elementary students do not. 

Schools had their attendance posted for everyone to see. The big numbers indicate the number of students in class (class size varied from 30-45), the 0s and 1s indicate the number of absences, lates, and early departures. Yep, attendance is pretty incredible. That seemed to be almost universally true based on all the schools we visited. 

Cleaning

In Japan, there are no school janitors. The students clean everything, and are taught to do so from elementary school on. They have "cleaning periods" built into their daily schedules. 

 

 

Lunch

Japanese elementary and middle schools tend not to have cafeterias--instead, kids eat lunch in their homeroom class (homeroom, by the way, is much more important in Japanese schools than American schools, because those students go to all their classes together and the homeroom class serves as the organizing base for all school activities). The lunch is prepared either off-site, or in some rarer cases, in a school kitchen, and brought to the classrooms. The homeroom teacher supervises the students whose turn it is to serve the class lunch. In elementary school, the "Toothbrushing Song" will be played after lunch and students will brush their teeth at their desks! Super cute.

Special Ed and Immigrant Students

When we think of Japan, we think of an incredibly homogeneous culture that is often horribly racist. To some extent, this perception is justifiable. Especially compared to the United States, Japan has a very low immigrant population (this is a separate issue, of course, and Japan undoubtably realizes that they will have to allow more immigration if their population continues to decline). It's laughable to try to compare Japan's education system to the US' when they don't have the same language and diversity issues that we do. I will say this, though--I saw more diversity than I was expecting, on the street, on the TV, and in schools. Not a lot--but more than I was expecting. A couple of schools even tried to discuss this with us because having to deal with non-Japanese speakers is a relatively new challenge for them. The schools we visited that had non-native students told us that for now, they are pulling these students out of Japanese-heavy courses to do extra reinforcement classes. 

Japan does have a concept of special education, although it seems to take quite a bit more to get the designation than it takes in the United States. I'm not entirely sure what advantages the designation results in--they definitely get special self-contained classes, and apparently also some kind of testing accommodation. However, given that Japan essentially has no basic standard for graduation (everyone who goes graduates--their testing system is based on entrance, not exit, so students are not preparing to exit high school, as our students are, but to enter college) I'm not entirely sure what that actually means or whether or not it even matters. At any rate, here are two teeny tiny special ed classes we saw!

 

Clubs
In Japan, students have class from about 8am to 4pm, and then they have an hour or two of "club activities." Clubs are a much more formalized endeavor in Japan than they are in the United States. For one thing, in middle school they are mandatory. By high school, you can choose not to be involved but my impression was that most student still belonged to something. Because they're mandatory and because teachers MUST head at least one club, there's a lot more structure and continuity in the life of a club. Older students who have been in the club for two or more years essentially run the club and train the younger students to take their place when they leave. Teachers might not have whatever skill necessary (like kendo or karate) but still find themselves in charge of this club, so this continuity and student-led aspect is essential. Clubs actually continue in the 6-week summer "break" that students have, so although students may not have school, most of them are still going to school every day for special club activities. It seems like schools invest quite a lot of money into their clubs. The clubs in the pictures below all require special spaces that I can't even imagine my school having or wanting the money for.

The tea cermony club. 

paired Kendo practice

Student-led Kendo practice

Sumo club

Teachers

Teachers in Japan work similar hours as American teachers (so, looong) and don't get paid as much. Both teachers and principals work as part of the entire education system, and get transferred to another school every few years. The system almost reminded me of the military, in that you have some choice about where you go, but the ultimate decision rests with the system. I was pretty shocked when I first heard this, since from my perspective it seems to be robbing both teachers and schools of that element of free market competition for the best resources and workplaces. At the very least, it speaks to a much more nationally cohesive system than we have here. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing? Your allegiance is to the education system as a whole rather than one school. Teachers get experience working in different places with different students. The system and the curriculum are stronger than the individuals leading the classes. On the other hand, it sort of does put limits on how much you can invest yourself in any particular school and creates questions about leadership and continuity as far as principals are concerned. 

Anyway, teachers follow the students' schedule in that they work from about 8 to 4 then are responsible for some kind of club activity. We were told many teachers stay late, until 9 or 10 at night, to grade papers. It doesn't seem like they spend much time actually lesson planning, which makes sense given that most lessons seem to be textbook work. 

Just for fun, a teachers'  room in Japan:

Some Thoughts

There are some really obvious differences between trends in American education and Japanese education, and the first bit I'll get into will be what people expect. Yes, Japanese classrooms are as big and as quiet as you think they are--almost 40 students is the norm. They sit at individual desks. The students don't chat a whole lot (though there is sometimes some inattention and nodding off), and I observed almost no questions. In general, there's a LOT of textbook-focused instruction and very little group work. Most of the lessons we observed did not share the warm up-mini lesson-practice activity structure that many American schools demand, but instead were simple running through textbook exercise after textbook exercise. Lesson planning honestly doesn't seem to be overly creative or inspiring, and I saw low engagement in a lot of classrooms. In one class, I did an engagement count at one point and found that out of 36 students, 4 were actively listening to the teacher. What I found quite interesting is that whenever we asked principals what they look for during a teacher observation, they said all the normal things that an American principal would say--interaction between students and teachers, high engagement, critical thinking. The hilarious part is that in no way did that description ever fit what we saw in those principals' schools. 

Despite some of these things that I would say are severely lacking, there's an undeniable structure and cohesiveness that I find really appealing. First of all, there's a very clear structure to the school and to the classroom, and students know what to expect. The school right away sets a structure and routine with having school uniforms and school slippers. You literally have to put your head in school-mode when you get dressed in the morning, and you leave the outside world behind when you enter the school doors. At the beginning and end of every class, all students stand a bow--ritualizing the beginning and end of class really sets a clear mental starting point and ending point that I really like. Having students take responsibility for the cleaning of their own school really lends a feeling of ownership to the building and learning community--and probably trains them pretty well to keep clean for the remainder of their lives. Hey, no one can deny that Japan is really really clean. In my month there, I saw public litter once. Once. 

You know, I think what underlies all these structures and expectations is a real idea that teaching manners and social behavior is a primary objective of the school. I would argue that it's a secondary objective in American schools, but in Japan it really seems to be a driving force. All of the schools we went to put a strong emphasis on "a proper greeting" as part of their teachings. There were visible attempts made to include students in all activities. What are the mandatory clubs about if not a way to make sure everyone is initiated into the community and society? The major concern for both teachers and students is NOT the lesson that happens in the classroom but creating that community of inclusion. At one Q&A session we asked if teachers were evaluated based on their test scores, and they genuinely had trouble understanding the question. When they finally got it, one teacher just burst out, "But that's just stupid." Of course they wouldn't understand this impulse to evaluate individual teachers based on performance. Japanese teachers are not evaluated in this way--they're evaluated, to be sure, but a struggling teacher goes through years of mentoring and it's almost impossible to fire a teacher. But Rob put it best when he said this is because in Japan, education is an ecosystem--responsibility for a child doesn't fall on any one particular teacher because there are an infinite number of factors at play when it comes to a child's achievement and learning. I loved this analogy. It's the polar opposite of what we have in the United States where we like to quickly assign causal relationships to how a child does and what the teacher does, but it's not that simple. Other teachers play a role. The family plays a role. The environment of the school plays a role. Learning really is an ecosystem and a school needs to be the one responsible for maintaining its overall health and balance. I think we could really use a little more of that in the United States.