In his Mar 19, 2002 entry, High School Entrance Exam Results JET Tanuki raises some interesting questions about the role of teachers in the lives of their students and the problem with the examination system in Japan.
Although I understand his frustrations, I also think there are benefits to the Japanese system that we in the US are lacking.
I taught at a private high school, what in the USA would be termed a vocational-technical school. Basically, the students who couldn't get into a good school applied to us. The teachers were also those who generally couldn't get jobs elsewhere. Most teachers were near retirement age. Some had actually retired, but returned to teach part-time.
In Defense of Exclusivity
I think that wanting something very much, working hard to achieve it, and suffering to get it, makes it really worthwhile. When you are "in" there is a tremendous sense achievement and belonging. Even though the intellectual level at my school was close to the bottom of the barrel, we still had entrance examinations, and they were still hard. I think that getting a score of 35% was the cutoff. But I also believe that the recommendations of the Junior High School teachers could definitiely sway a borderline case.
The benefit of this "hazing" was obvious afterward. School spirit was high. The drop-out rate was low. I was only aware of two students of 300 who dropped out. (Homeroom teachers also meet with the parents of every student every semester.)
Rites of Passage
The responsibility of the school and its teachers does not end when the student leaves. It carries over on the passage, the time between, until the student is safely delivered to his or her next caretaker.
One difference between our systems is that in Japan failure is not the end of the story. Nor is it an individual's failure to bear alone. The burden of failure is carried by the group, which includes teachers as well as peers. Although much has been written about how this keeps the "cream of the crop" from rising (the nail that sticks out is hammered down) the flip side is that it also keeps the dregs from falling out.
The third year teachers were responsible for seeing each and every student into a new situation. They acted both as teachers and as guidance counselors. And I do not mean that the teachers met with the students once, handed them some career pamphlets, and waved them off. The homeroom teachers and Tonai-sensei ensured that every student was placed either in a school, or a job.
As a student in the USA, I don't know of a single teacher I had that knew what happened to me after I left his or her classroom, much less after I graduated high school. I don't remember ever seeing a guidance counselor.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
April 16, 2002
Share Your Thoughts
In Defense of Exclusivity
Rites of Passage