Why So Many Japanese Children Refuse To Go To School (bbc.com) 199
In Japan, more and more children are refusing to go to school, a phenomenon called "futoko." As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it's a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves. From a report: Ten-year-old Yuta Ito waited until the annual Golden Week holiday last spring to tell his parents how he was feeling -- on a family day out he confessed that he no longer wanted to go to school. For months he had been attending his primary school with great reluctance, often refusing to go at all. He was being bullied and kept fighting with his classmates. His parents then had three choices: get Yuta to attend school counselling in the hope things would improve, home-school him, or send him to a free school. They chose the last option. Now Yuta spends his school days doing whatever he wants -- and he's much happier.
Yuta is one of Japan's many futoko, defined by Japan's education ministry as children who don't go to school for more than 30 days, for reasons unrelated to health or finances. The term has been variously translated as absenteeism, truancy, school phobia or school refusal. Attitudes to futoko have changed over the decades. Until 1992 school refusal -- then called tokokyoshi, meaning resistance -- was considered a type of mental illness. But in 1997 the terminology changed to the more neutral futoko, meaning non-attendance. On 17 October, the government announced that absenteeism among elementary and junior high school students had hit a record high, with 164,528 children absent for 30 days or more during 2018, up from 144,031 in 2017.
Yuta is one of Japan's many futoko, defined by Japan's education ministry as children who don't go to school for more than 30 days, for reasons unrelated to health or finances. The term has been variously translated as absenteeism, truancy, school phobia or school refusal. Attitudes to futoko have changed over the decades. Until 1992 school refusal -- then called tokokyoshi, meaning resistance -- was considered a type of mental illness. But in 1997 the terminology changed to the more neutral futoko, meaning non-attendance. On 17 October, the government announced that absenteeism among elementary and junior high school students had hit a record high, with 164,528 children absent for 30 days or more during 2018, up from 144,031 in 2017.
Bullying (Score:2)
I'm glad Yuta is doing better, but not everyone has that option. How about stopping the bullying?
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Bullying is national treasure, why do you have to be so culturally insenstive? /s
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whoa. Did you just bully?
Re:Bullying (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a productive way to get a point across and a way that is bullying.
TFA is about Japan. The schools there are in the business of enforcing conformity. Peer pressure is a big part of that. If a kid is different (fat, autistic, eccentric), he or she will be bullied into behaving and looking like everyone else. The adults at the school aren't going to intervene to stop the bullying because they are the ones promoting it.
Bullying in Korean schools is at least as bad.
Solution: Don't be different. The nail that sticks up will be hammered back down.
Re:Bullying (Score:4, Interesting)
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Parents need to pull their kids out of schools if the bullying is that bad. The kids don't have many options, only the ones the parents provide. I would say 95% of the time the parents can get the school to pay attention and do enough to straighten out the situation. Unless the school has more bad kids than not, in which case you have to get the fuck out of there.
My kid got bullied a little here and there. I complained "loudly" but very politely to the school and they did just enough for a while... not real
In America we take bullying very, very seriously (Score:2)
What I'm saying is Japan probably doesn't have the same level of response to claims of bullying that America does. A bud of mine got the hell bullied out of him, even the teachers joined in. He happened to have a nice trench
Re:Bullying (Score:4, Informative)
School shooters do not legally obtain their firearms. Schools are gun free zones.
Brazil had a school shooting recently with a revolver and a crossbow.
Short of banning all firearms, regulations won't matter. And, since firearm ownership is one of the pillars of this country, snuggled nicely between freedom of speech/religion and the right not to quarter troops, I can say with confidence that if you want to live in a country with no guns, leave.
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In the case of Columbine, the two murderers went to a gun show and purchased their guns there, which they were legally able to do.
Why even bother lying about something like that which is so easily refuted?
Anderson and Manes bought the guns and gave or sold them illegally to Klebold and Harris. Take your propaganda elsewhere.
But everybody should read the killers' writings and decide for themselves if their actions were about a TEC-9 or not:
http://www.acolumbinesite.com/... [acolumbinesite.com]
Of course it's an uncomfortable re
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Dayton was NOT a school shooting. So that argument fails right there. Nikolas Cruz, FL shooting, had been reported to law enforcement multiple times including to the fucking FBI and from the school resource officer but no action was taken. You get one half out of a possible three points.
If you're going to push anti-2nd Amendment propaganda, at least get your facts straight. Posting anonymously to preserve mods.
Re: Bullying (Score:2)
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IIRC, in Sandy Hook Lanza shot 28 people. 26 of them died.
In Osaka, Japan, a man stabbed 23 people, but 15 of those stabbed survived. In China 22 children were stabbed. All of them survived.
Switch to knives? I'm better with that, since easy access to firearms dramatically increases the lethality of a given event.
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It's one way you get school shootings. And I'm not really going to consider that a separate class of crime than other mass shootings.
You only get mass shootings if there is sufficient access to tools to do the shooting and people think their life is so bad that they don't feel it's worth continuing. And they're angry at some group (as opposed to some individual).
Unfortunately, that's difficult to really address. For one things there are lots of tools that can be adapted to mass killing. Potato fertilize
Re: Bullying (Score:3, Insightful)
We get school shootings because we have mentally unstable people who also happen to have guns. The guns are just the first thing that came to mind. I guarantee that if you could magically get rid of all guns tomorrow that mass killings would just switch to bombs, arson, and running people over with vehicles. There are plenty of ways to cause mass mayhem. If we want to stop mass killings, we need to invest in mental health and research why most people quietly commit suicide but a select few decide to tak
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I swore to myself in middle school that before I commit suicide, I would first murder the person that drove me to it. I thought of it as public service. The world is better off without such people. Plus it's a warning to all the other shitty people not to take it too far.
Nothing I've learned since then has changed my mind.
Re:Bullying (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop lying about what other people want, asshole.
You're doing the exact sort of bullying that they are talking about, and you didn't use a gun so I guess you're a fucking liar about the nature of the issue.
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I neither need nor want one asshole.
That's good news, because you might have two.
Also, neither one of them can read.
Re:Bullying (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh... Too many people just don't know the difference between disagree and bully.
Constructive Disagreement: I don't agree with this and here are my points on why I disagree. At the end of the conversation the person disagreeing with you will at least understand some additional factors on the point being argued.
Bullying: You are less of a person by having this point of view. By having this view, you are now labeled as such a person, in which you will not be welcomed into these social groups, or even physically assaulted.
The first method is mutually beneficial as both gain a better understanding on each other.
The second is a power push, where minds are rarely changed, but people are afraid to publicly bring up the question.
Now I have seen both from all ends of the political and social structures. As kids are growing up they are often hit with conflicting data with what their parents say, what the teachers say and what their friends say. It isn't obvious on who is right, So kids will want to ask questions, but if they learn a question is responded back as judgement on them, they will just stop asking questions.
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Are you one of those people who look at the past through rose-colored glasses?
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I wouldn't say Rose-Colored Glasses. Most disagreements is in fact one side bullying the other.
The teacher admonishing the student for getting the answer wrong, asking a question that is in conflict with the lesson of the day, or given a topic to study to had come up with a contradictory conclusion.
The kid who sees themselves as the "Leader" of the group of friends will normally push his point of view with the other friends.
But the point is proper disagreements take work and training. Much like other anti-
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Bull. Kids are perfectly capable of having constructive disagreements. They're also capable of having neutral disagreements: I don't want to play basketball right now, so I'll go play with these other kids on the monkey bars.
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There were always those few bullies, but most of the kids wee able to disagree more constructively or at least just ignore the kids they disagreed with.
That adults today seem to be unable to manage that says a lot and none of it good.
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Your "constructive disagreement" is still inappropriate in most circumstances where you disagree with somebody. Just because you disagree doesn't automatically imply that it is appropriate to `splain down to them why they're wrong. You can just stop at "I don't agree," and wait to see if they ask you why, or show some interest. Otherwise, you should either pay more attention to whatever point they were making, by listening more, or else decide for yourself that you disagree. And maybe even exit the conversa
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The constructive disagreement should be two sided. Just saying I don't agree and leave it there. Is making Ignorance OK.
I have found even with topics I strongly disagree on, the person I am disagreeing with has some points and concerns that should be addressed, or at least considered. As well I hope my arguments are notes as well.
With the exception of trolling to to get me riled up, the person often has points,
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Sorry, but "not welcome into my social group" is not bullying. Bullying is direct abuse, though not necessarily physical.
Re: Bullying (Score:2, Interesting)
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May I refer you to the following post?
https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
This guy said it better than I could.
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You are correct that it is not a "left-right" political distinction. Certainly some on every wing of politics or religion feel the right to abuse others until they agree with "whatever". At the moment this is mainly being done in the US by groups on the "right", because at the moment they hold power.
Note, however, that this has in the past even been done by supporters of one sports team or another. This is more a rejoicing in the abuse of power than it is a forwarding of the ostensible goal.
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Funny thing is that my kid didn't get scolded or anything for hurting the bully in that way (as we expected would be the case).
Yeah, my wife is due with our first kid in a few months, and when she eventually gets to school, my plan is to tell her to stand up/fight back against any bully (even if she is not the target). If she gets suspended, I'll take the day off work too and we will do whatever she wants. Children should be rewarded for standing up to bullies, not punished.
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Re: Bullying (Score:3)
Fight back, stand up for yourself, don't be a victim.
Pretty sure that is the only thing that works against the inevitable bullying
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Re:Bullying (Score:5, Interesting)
If she gets suspended, I'll take the day off work too and we will do whatever she wants.
I dunno if this still works, but what my mom did was she refused to agree to a suspension and threatened to sue them if they did it anyways, and that forced them to do a review of their proposed discipline, and then during that process they found out that a) they're obligated to succeed at protecting students and b) if they fail students have the right of self defense and you can't punish them. You can only punish a student if it wasn't self defense because the teacher had already removed the threat. Lawyers understand that, teachers desire to blame the victim equally.
Reinforcing the idea that the teachers are doing a legit action by suspending the student might accidentally teach very-wrong types of lessons to the child. It is important to understand that punishing somebody for defending themselves (or another) is a corrupt and illegitimate act. Without that, the child might end up learning the exact wrong lesson, that might makes right and if you get in trouble, fuck `em, do your own thing. The actions and results have to line up with the lesson, or a different lesson will be learned. Intent (the parent's intent) is irrelevant.
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Don't be too quick to believe your child's version of what happened. Some kids tell convincing whoppers, when they want to.
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Re: Bullying (Score:2)
Procrastination (Score:3)
"Now Yuta spends his school days doing whatever he wants -- and he's much happier."
Yeah. Now. Check in again in about 20 years.
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"Now Yuta spends his school days doing whatever he wants -- and he's much happier."
Yeah. Now. Check in again in about 20 years.
The article does say that these free schools also don't convey on the students what I assume is the Japanese equivalent of a high school diploma.
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We would need to find a time machine to check the alternate timeline in which he stayed in the original school in order for your checkup in 20 years to have any meaning.
Re:Procrastination (Score:5, Insightful)
If you choose to sit around playing video games on a phone all day, that probably isn't all that valuable. However, there are entire models of education [wikipedia.org] based around letting students be more independent and figure things out for themselves. I don't think that's a perfect model that works for every student either, but there are probably some people who could benefit from it.
Presumably some sociologist has thought to look at the population that goes to these free schools to see what kind of outcomes they have. I tried to do some quick searching on this and stumbled across a story from 2012 [japantimes.co.jp] that's essentially the same as this one.
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Sure, they can dig the trenches with no education. However there is more to life than having a job. Do they understand interest? Will they know not to touch bare wires? Will they understand how vaccination works? Why not to eat stale food? Will they understand importance of freedom of speech? And that the world is not flat?
Without education they can live like Amish. They will learn from their elderly and be happy. But it may be happiness
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How good is being on the dole in Japan? In those progressive countries you can live pretty well without working.
Summary doesn't explain why (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
Many schools in Japan control every aspect of their pupils' appearance, forcing pupils to dye their brown hair black, or not allowing pupils to wear tights or coats, even in cold weather. In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear.
And they wonder why kids would rahter go as far as killing themselves over going to school.....
I enjoy learning and enjoyed going to school, but oppressive rules like that would make even me hate going to school, and are indicative of an extremely oppressinve and controlling culture.
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Holy crap. That's so far beyond totalitarian I have no words. It's like real-world Equilibrium just with no mood-suppressing drugs to help you.
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Being told to dye your hair is "far beyond totalitarian"? What happened to being forced to starve, genocided, and beaten? Those are cool? I would ask someone who was in a Japanese concentration camp getting tortured and gassed whether they prefer that over being forced to dye their hair. If we aren't able to have a sense of proportion we're F'd ok? Being told to dye your hair is inconvenient and a pain, it's not the same as torture .. you have zero clue.
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Being told exactly how you must look, literally right down to the color of your fucking UNDERWEAR, with no semblance of personal freedom and choice, is indeed totalitarian. Do you also think it's okay to tell people which gender they must be, what job they must have, which spouse they must marry, how many kids they must have and so on?
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You are equating being forced to do ONE or two things with the equivalent of being forced to do EVERYTHING against your will. Being forced to dye your hair is not the same as being told whom to marry. It's crazy to go ballistic if you can't do even one thing different than the way you want, with no regard for how it affects others. Being forced to dye your hair blue isn't the same as being forced to marry someone you don't like. Being forced to wear clothes in public isn't the same as being locked in a room
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Holy crap. That's so far beyond totalitarian I have no words.
No offense, but you need more words.
This isn't even close to totalitarianism. Most people who've experienced the real thing would slap the snot out of you for watering down the word into near-meaninglessness.
It's control, it's stifling of individual expression, it's enforcing conformity, etc etc etc but it's not totalitarianism.
"Totalitarianism is a political system or a form of government that prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extrem
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I think people are redefining words here. https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Note that several of those definitions are not about government controls. So yes, stifling of individual expression by those in authority (a school), enforcing of conformity, and punishment for being different can indeed be totalitarian by the dictionary definition even though it's not being used in a political sense.
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Other than the political part, the definition fits pretty well if you're not even allowed to have the hair color you were born with.
Re:Summary doesn't explain why (Score:4, Interesting)
Elementary school in Japan is very strict, they do try to remove the individualistic characteristics from the kids... total obedience. A friend of mine met his wife in Japan while he taught English at the schools. He figures they will eventually move back to Japan but not until their kids are at least teens. He got to experience that school culture for years and has no desire to put his kids through it.
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I have a friend who taught English in Japan for years got married and came back to the US before having kids and probably won't go back until they are grown. He said the cost/size of housing was terrible also.
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That only works if you have ghost insurance.
And not everyone can afford that.
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I've been to Japan, and although there is nearly zero violent crime .. it's laughable to think they are an oppressive culture. Literally the freedom to do anything from hiring a hot prostitute to walking around dressed as an anime character exists there. So I am not sure what aspects of it are oppressive .. maybe the schools are "oppressive"? If that's true it's worth it to be oppressed for 18 years and then to have the freedom to do basically whatever after that. I am sure they have a valid reason for impl
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Even with our inferior education standards in the US, we still pump out a number o
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I wouldn't trust the crime statistics personally. There was a fiasco awhile back where statisticians showed that the police frequently only classified a murder as a murder if there was a clear suspect to pin it on. They didn't want to mess up their murder case closure rates by having murders on the books that weren't likely to be solved. From an American perspective Japanese culture is far more indoctrinating. Hell just look at what is expected as the cultural norm in a business office.
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If the actual number is 20x higher .. that's still lower than here. Do you honestly think they can fudge the numbers by 20x?
Re:Summary doesn't explain why (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people think it's really important for children to learn to conform and be obedient. Others think it's important to teach them to think for themselves and question authority. The thing is neither of them is wrong all the time, nor right all the time. Wear a tie to work because that's expected, and show up when you're supposed to? Check. Tell people at work things they need to hear but don't wan to? Refuse to go along with things you think are wrong? Check also.
People conceive of education as if conformity or individuality were mutually exclusive, but as a human being you need both. You need be yourself, and at the same time function as part of the society you live in. To do that takes flexibility and resilience, and teaching those things should start with practicing them. We should consider that there is actually some merit to the notion that kids need to learn to suck it up and do things they don't want. But people also need to recognize when they've gone overboard and what they're doing isn't working.
Re: Summary doesn't explain why (Score:2)
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My highschool in the US wasn't religious, but they enforced hair color policy.
Only natural colors, right? Or did all the natural blondes and redheads have to dye their hair brown? If you want only natural colors in a school setting that is reasonable. But to even ban some natural colors is egregious.
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I was always arguing with the schools, one of my kids was expelled because he was known to have owned a trench coat right after the Columbine shooting. He didn't even have the trench coat anymore he had outgrown it and given it to Good Will the year before.
The chain on his wallet was apparently a weapon and not an anti-theft device. The embroidered design on his jeans (regular designer jeans sold at sears) was apparently a gang symbol even though it was no gang i was aware of (I had to point out to the prin
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In the '80s when I went to high school, they finally gave up on that policy. They called one guy's parents in for a conference because he had red hair with a platinum blonde tail in the back. Once the parents came in, the school officials had a very embarrassing discussion where they found out that he had not bleached part of his hair, it had been like that since birth. Shortly after, the '80s were in full swing and a significant portion of the students had hair colors not seen in nature.
Different, how? (Score:3)
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Never really minded being educated. Sure, some of it seemed pointless, or perhaps the methods used, but education in itself was OK.
The other 21 students in the room is what made school miserable for me....
Re:Different, how? (Score:4, Interesting)
The down of time.... Well of course kids wouldn't want their down time being intruded upon.
Anyway, I hated going to school at first. Not because I was forced to or wasn't interested in learning new things. I just didn't fit in. And it's usually the 'other kids' that find out first. And kids can be cruel. My yearly reports were like this: "Jiri usually looks out of the window and every now and then helps cleaning the terrarium" (we had a terrarium with some small beasties in class).
That changed when I went to another school where I was able to actually learn interesting things and had a possibility to partially set my own pace. I was still one of the somewhat 'weirder' students but it was not like I totally fell out of tune. And say what? Three years later with the end-of-elementary school testing I scored 548 out of 550. Only one person in the district had a higher score - no-one saw that coming. (In the Netherlands we have a test called CITO test. Most children go through it at the age of 12 - the end of their elementary school period, to have some indication which level of high school/pre college would be a good fit for them. The test has three main categories of which Dutch language skills and basic calculations are mandatory).
Subsequently I was bullied again in high school but did great in class because of some amazing teachers, extra curriculum I could attend and an overall great school and then flunked again in university because I was definitely not ready to handle the independence - to say I'm easily distracted is an understatement and I rather liked to program and explore the internet in the terminal room (in 1996) than attend the colleges. But at that time I had found out the best way to learn something for me is to just do it and work it out myself. And that there were a few things which were too hard for me to actually get decent enough at to make it my job and I'd better pick something else than stall and delay and buck and get nothing done at all (my breaking point was the fluency needed in solving third order differential equations to pass the exams for some of the more advanced physics classes - I then went on doing some -succesfull- classes in computer science at a more practical level in the last few years of my studies and then dropped out).
Nowadays I'm doing great as a part time (80%) software developer for various small companies and earn enough to support myself and a mountain of hobbies and interests like radio amateurism, electronics and computer* (the asterisk is intentional). My 'down time' I split between those hobbies and volunteering work for some groups and organizations (mostly again hobby related, like for VERON, the Dutch version of the ARRL).
So, school isn't for everyone and there are many types of education. And while I can only judge from my perspective as a child, I think as a parent, it's your responsibility to find a form of education that fits your child and make him/her to actually want to go to school. School should be fun, challenging at the right level... else it's just a waste of time. At a later age, count yourself lucky if he/she picks up something that is both interesting and gives him/her the opportunity to become independent in society. Oh, and be a parent. Raise your children. Don't expect school to be solely responsible for a child's education. There is tons of things I learned from my parents. Things you can never learn in school (like how to keep your finances in check, social rules, a way of learn to cope with the unexplainable - and yes, that may include some form of religion - and at the other side, encourage independent thinking and truthseeking, the importance of hygiene etc.). And to them, I will be eternally grateful for that.
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Lots of kids want to go to school on the first day of the school year.
They have to forced on a day to day basis, sure, same with anything else.
But if there is some reason they can't go for more than a week, like a sickness, or teacher strike, or something, most students are eager to get back. At least until the first bell rings.
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Just say no (Score:3)
Interesting , I never considered saying "i'm not going". Probably because it wasn't an option. My father would have laughed at me. These kids get to go to "free school" where they do whatever they want and get no degree or diploma? Then they can sit in the room in their parents house and never come out? Good plan.
I wonder if video games have anything to do with this.
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I wonder how these young people will function in society if they never learn anything beyond basic language.
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Maybe he's happy doing manual labor or menial jobs? Who can fault him for that?
A lot of folks who went through the school system (Score:2)
In America right now a 4 year STEM or business degree probably nets you a decent life, while an 8 year one will let you write your own ticket. Japan's not necessarily like that.
How They Handle Bullying (Score:5, Insightful)
As one who was bullied (and whose parents taught "Be nice."), I'd say one of the bigger issues is that a kid has no options. An adult can move out of a crappy neighborhood, change social groups or get a different job. But a kid mostly HAS to stand at that bus stop, ride the same bus and sit in his assigned seat next to so-and-so. Thinking that it will end in so many years when you graduate is not comforting.
Japan is special.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that in every article about Japan there's some new Japanese term for something that MUST be mentioned???? Would not mentioning what word for absenteeism is in Japanese somehow diminish the article? Why don't we do that for any other culture?
For example, there's an article below this about Ethiopia launching satellite, yet nobody wrote what Ethiopian term for satellite or related stuff is. Article above is about Emirati spyware, again surprise, no words from UAE dictionary thrown at the reader. Above that article about South Korea, yet AGAIN, no South Korean terms mentioned.....
Re:Japan is special.... (Score:5, Funny)
The Japanese term for people with your complaint is Baka.
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Why is it that in every article about Japan there's some new Japanese term for something that MUST be mentioned????
Ahh this phenomenon is known by the Japanese term "detarame", which can also mean the shit of the bull.
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You understate the case. Japanese has too many characters for specific terms to fit into Unicode. Most of them are rare poetic forms, but they're part of the official language.
(Actually, I suspect that they just overflow the section of Unicode allotted to Japanese...but it's still special.)
Schools are very competitive in Japan (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:2)
Supertramp's Logical Song sums it perfectly... (Score:3)
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, playfully watching me
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world's asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
School is psychotic by nature. (Score:3)
Read the essay "Why Nerds are unpopular" by Paul Graham. paulgraham.com/nerds.html it should be. That essay sums up my youth and school in general pretty much spot on. I figure it's ten times that for Japanese and Korean and probably Chinese schools as well.
That kids don't want to school in Japan is a sign of good mental health and common sense,in more ways than one IMHO.
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They spend a lot of time on phones as well. The top social media apps over there are Twitter and LINE. LINE especially is the messaging app of choice for anyone under probably the age of 30.
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I should add that they don't allow cellphones to be used at school. If they see them out of your bag during the day they will be confiscated. Not sure about the rules during lunch break, it may vary depending on the school.
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I should add that they don't allow cellphones to be used at school. If they see them out of your bag during the day they will be confiscated.
Found the alien imposter. You were obviously never a human child if you think that getting caught has a punishment equates to "it isn't allowed."
If it is actually not allowed the punishment would be for merely having it in your bag, instead of locked up somewhere you can't access it. If it is in your bag, you're playing with it if you got caught or not.
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For me it made me more righteous and indignant, more likely to stand up and complain in both situations.
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I don't know about your siblings mine wouldn't allow family to be bullied (and I have a very large family), even though we fought with each other constantly.
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But biology has not changed that much in the past 10 years or so. So in a way, yes, it is the wrong way.
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People in the 1980s didn't interact the same way as neolithic people did, but guess what? Biology hasn't changed.
Gamer gangs (Score:5, Interesting)
My son got addicted to video games and had similar issues in the US. You can't micromanage them past a certain age. Taking away stuff doesn't help. We removed the locks on his door, and he barricaded it with furniture. One can get cheap equipment on eBay for $15 if one doesn't care about cracked screens and older versions. When they have lots of time and stubborn determination, they find like-minded e-friends, become MacGyvers, and outmaneuver parents. It's like a wild pack of gamers, the Mindcraft Gang. He swiped my wife's iPad as ransom for his stuff back. She never folded, but he found alternatives anyhow.
I had to answer to a panel of 12 school board and city council representatives, who threatened to toss my wife and I in jail. I'm not sure if it were a real threat or just their form of incentive. While the law does say they can do it, it's rarely used in our situation, probably because tossing sober white-collar parents in jail for such would be a P/R disaster if word got out. I threatened to hire a "bigass lawyer". Bad Times at Ridgemont High.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The bottom line is that my son needed good counselors, but he refused to see them. Eventually some tenacious and skilled counselors did find a way to assist him. I applaud them; they cared about their job and tried hard.
The school-board/city criticized us for "not trying hard enough", but their recommendations appeared designed for 6-year-olds, not young adults.
Even when coerced to physically be at school, he often ignored h
Re: (Score:2)
Are you suggesting we should have ratted out our son? I suppose that could have been a Plan B, but he'd probably lie and make it a he-said-she-said incident that goes nowhere.
It was a totally bizarre experience, I can assure you. In hindsight, there are things I would have done different, but I don't own a DeLorean.
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American children are, in my experience, severely emotionally stunted as a result of staring at garbage on screens all day.
So are the adults. Before they were plugged into the eCollective, they were couch potatoes staring at their TV like a vegetoid octopus slug.
Now they drive their cars around like a vegetoid octopus slug. Luckily, most of them have adaptive cruise control that saves their life a couple times a day.