Why the United States Should Look to Japan for Better Schools

The NY Times ^ | Nov. 21, 2005 | Brent Staples

[Uncle Vlad]

The education of our children is too important a task to allow the government to run.

That's absolutely true.

[DTogo]

Exactly! This "we must educate like the Japanese" is a pipe dream of people who just look at the surface of the Japanese education system, which is very heavy on memorization/cramming for an exam, with little emphasis on theory, creative thinking or arts. Most artists (music, etc) in Japan tend to live on the fringes of society with few striking it big and then suddenly being celebrated by the society that once wanted them to become salaryman drones. Or the scientist with a novel concept leaves Japan rather than cow-tow to his "seniors" for 20 years, and then gets the Nobel Prize.

While Japanese high school graduates may be farther ahead of their American counterparts in some areas such as math and science, Americans tend to catch up to and exceed the Japanese in college - where the Japanese learn very little except how to socialize and party. The name of the university is what's important, not what you studied or your GPA upon graduation.

Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)

[Dr. Marten]

Right on the mark. Good post!

[Teacher317]

You know, I had a pretty darn good education in the years before we were taught to be ashamed of our past. In fact, it was about that time that our education system really started rolling downhill. The acquisition and regular implementation of critical thinking skills have little to do with knowing the dark side of your political forebears.

[Calpernia]

>>>>The acquisition and regular implementation of critical thinking skills have little to do with knowing the dark side of your political forebears.

Are you saying history should be changed? Or taught as is?

[Sam the Sham]

Yes, that is true.

We in America do not want a society in which a test you took when you were 12 sorts you into the "gifted" who will be tracked for college and the dummies.

[Sam the Sham]

Doozo.

[Codeograph]

As someone that has both a degree in Mathematics and Physics, but in deemed "unqualified" to teach those subjects in the public schools , I couldn't agree more !!! We also need to get rid of the NEA, which controls the legislatures in most of the states.

[Dianna]

bookmark

[gaijin]

Exactly so. Japanese universities are mostly a waste, I believe.

I went to KEIO.

[skinkinthegrass]

..your point are well taken, but...Haven't the Jesuits teachers & Nuns @ smaller/less well-equipped schools...done far better, with far less.

I mean something else is missing, like discipline (give the teachers some muscles :)/focused goals (kick out the NEAs Chapters :)/tighter studies (studies that means something :)

thanks togo for the ping! :D

[dsc]

"Dont know if Japan has been infiltrated by generations of ineffectual liberal educatots and hordes of illegal aliens.?"

It's in progress. More and more schools are doing away with uniforms, and they've forbidden teachers to smack the little sh@ts when they need it. This has had a disastrous effect on classroom discipline in the public schools.

Many students, in fact, consider time spent in public school classrooms to be wasted; their real test prep comes after school in the juku.

You can pretty much toss any stereotypes about Japan that have been popular. The ravening beast of PC is devouring Japanese society. It may not be as far down the road as in the US, but it is advancing at full gallop.

Japanese TV is pretty much nothing but propaganda pushing promiscuity, perversion, and divorce. The tobacco nazis roam the country seeking whom they may devour. Crime rates are several times higher than the government admits. Juvenile delinquency has metastasized.

Having had children in the Japanese public school system since 1992, my conclusion is that most Japanese public school teachers are the next thing to useless.

On the other hand, they do give kids a better background in math and science, which is important. Until college, at least, let kids do their independent thinking on their own time. All the independent thinking in the world is useless if you don't know squat. The job of the schools is to give them something to think about.

[moog]

Thanks. Having dealt firsthand with Korea's school system, which is similiar, one of the main things I found to be in their favor was their attitude. However, it is noteworthy to mention that the highschoolers and some junior highschoolers went literally ALL day to school, not coming home until late at night. In many schools, they went half a day on Saturday and even during so-called "vacation" breaks.

Having just recently addressing this last week in a thread, I'm not going to address it now.

[gaijin]

When the yen peaked, there were many, many, many illegal IRANIAN overstayers in Japan. There are still some, but not nearly like in the mid-1980's. They would sell counterfeit phone cards (which entitle the user to make phone calls from pay phones), and they would deal the small amount of drugs in Japan.

I found Iranians very nice, and I found that they had a hard time obeying the law.

There is currently a crack-down against visa overstayers in Japan.

Suddenly, ordinary street policemen will stop people who do not appear Japanese, and they will ask to see your gaijin card, or your passport.

As compared with the general pattern over the past 20 years, this is unusual, but now suddenly not uncommon. Since I am physically huge and rollerblade aggressively (something faily unusual in Tokyo), I am stopped very, very often compared to others.