We woke in the morning to a drizzly day. It was our day to visit an all boys Jr. And Sr. High School. The school is called Tohpokugakuin. It's a school of 1600 boys. They have an amazing facility, built about 10 years ago. This looked like a top notch private school. They start the day with chapel and all 1600 boys attend daily. Then they rotate through their classes. They also have after school clubs, which might be soccer, baseball, judo, music, etc. These boys are in school until 6-7pm in the evening after all their after school activities. Then they go to cram school to prepare for the high school and college entrance exams. Finally after that they do their homework or may have a music lesson. I'm not sure when they have time to eat and have any fun.
There were a few presentations by some of the boys in the school about the history of the school, the facility, and the mission of the school. Also, a few of the boys will be going on a trip to Pennsylvania this summer, so they spoke about that.
We arrived and were able to attend a few classes. The first class I visited was an English class. In order to enter college, they boys must pass an English proficiency portion of their entrance exam. The class was very interesting. The boys were told to get into groups and come up with what they thought their ideal school would look like. They could use either pictures or words. The directions for the assignment were given in Japanese and then briefly explained in English. This was very unlike the Chinese English class we observed where the teacher spoke almost entirely in English to the students. As a result of having little exposure to spoken English, they boys for the most part spoke very little English and had a very difficult time speaking to us when we asked them questions. Culturally, they tend to be shy and get embarrassed easily, so this made it more difficult to communicate with them. We found that overall, the Japanese have fairly poor spoken English skills because they aren't being forced to think in English in school. The school system in Japan is requiring English education to start earlier in elementary school now. It will be interesting to see if the younger people are able to communicate more effectively in English.
The responses of the boys were typical when asked about their ideal school: girls in school, no uniforms, subway station at the school, fewer bugs in the school, use iPhones in school. Sounds like regular teenagers! They also wanted more sleep. Due to their busy schedules, they don't get enough sleep.
I also observed a home economics class. The boys were finishing cooking a delicious looking udon dish. They got to eat it when they were done. Apparently they have these cooking lessons about 5 times a year. When asked if they or their father's ever cook at home, they all said no.
Outside of the school
The amazing teachers who went on this trip.
Some cute schools girls we met along the way
The Japanese homes are still very traditional. Once a woman has a child, she says home to care for the child. The men are the breadwinners. They are called the "salary" men. It's a little strange watching them all come to work and go home. They all wear white shirts for the most part and dark pants with nice shoes. It's like it's a uniform for the office. In the summer they don't have to wear a tie, but in the winter they do. Often the men work long hours, so they don't spend much time with their families. They may have to commute long distances or may stay after work to have dinner. One night we were out at about 9:30pm and the subway station was still full of men going home from work. The culture is changing a bit because the workforce is shrinking due to the low birth rate. It is more common for women to work after children than it was, but there is a big problem of finding childcare. Japan is still a very traditional culture, but is now have some growing pains. It will have to adapt to meet it's changing demographics.
After we visited both classes we had a nice lunch and were able to eat with some of the boys. They had brought their lunches, and those looked much more delicious than ours. Their mothers had packed them lunch. We tried to talk with the boys, but had some difficulty communicating. These boys were 11th graders so they will be taking the college entrance exams soon. Then went on a tour of the school. They have a gym that has 4 full size basketball courts and a running track around the top, a judo room, a nice cafeteria, a beautiful library, and more. It was time to say goodbye. There is a custom in Japan to wave until you cannot see the people anymore. As we drove away in the bus, there was a group of boys who spent some time with us waving for quite a while. Of course we had to wave back.
Time to head back to Tokyo on the bullet train for another delicious dinner. We were all exhausted, so it was an earlier night. We had another full day of sightseeing in Kamakura the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment