MSM Caricatures of Japanese Education

My friend recently sent me a CBS News article on the Japanese education system "Respect for Japanese Teachers Means Top Results", which makes me throw up in my mouth a bit; it sounds like the author, one Celia Hatton, came up with the title from something her smiling guide said that she scribbled in her notebook during a tour of a model school.  This article basically used an assumed causal link between cultural prestige for teachers in Japan and high test scores for Japanese students to grandly and baselessly assert that we in the U.S. should have a system more like the Japanese one.  (Yeah, that old trope) 

I think it's a noble goal to look at the education systems of other countries and incorporate their best practices into our American public schools, but as someone with considerable experience working in the Japanese education system (and this has undoubtedly been my main research interest for the last four years), I'm sick of lazy journalists reporting lazily on Japan for lazy mainstream media outlets with lazy readers.  I'm sick of having to struggle against this lazy caricature.  The Japanese Education system is a complete nightmare.

Most of the commenters on the article agree with me (although some go a bit overboard), because the only people really reading CBS News articles on Japanese education are Americans who live in Japan and know how it is.  Some highlights:

Thirty years of PR has convinced some we need to copy the Japanese, but there are enough Americans who have solid, long term experience in Asia, so we know better. - Bibitybobityboo

The Education Ministry carefully choreographs the whole school curriculum, so there is no room for innovation until college, and then the students are so burned out or tightly strung it's difficult to undo the damage. - yokkaichi1

The most fair-minded take comes from commenter Imaind:

Having experienced sending my child to schools in both the USA and Japan, I was disappointed to see this report showing only the "good" side of Japanese public school education. First, the bowing that starts the day is no different from the bowing that occurs at many moments throughout the day for many situations, regardless of respect. It is an ingrained, nearly reflexive, custom. There are students who bow, yet still go on to disrespect and misbehave. Second, Japan's virtually homogenous racial and cultural population, with a long tradition of caste distinctions, is unlike what composes the school population in the much of the USA. (sic) This also means that there is very little available in terms of special education, whether for the handicapped or the gifted, and subjects are generally taught to the lowest common level. Bilingual education is rare and usually costly. The saying, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" pervades the system, as well as society, so any exception is either overlooked, suppressed, or frowned upon. Third, the Japanese education system is focused largely on exams. Students routinely go through "exam hell", with after school hours, weekends, and holidays spent at "juku" cram schools, paid for by their parents. This over-reliance on tests contributes to stress among students and teachers. An increase in "school refusers" since the 1970s, without a corresponding rise in home-schooling or charter schools, has led to a marked rise in social withdrawals. There are few school counselors. Fourth, Japanese teachers put in long working hours, and often are at school on weekends and holidays. The vice principal at my daughter's school arrives at 6 a.m. and doesn't leave until 10 p.m. Many teachers are stressed out over "monster parents" who complain, call, visit, and generally harass them over their children's education in the most minute detail. "Bad" or "weak" teachers are not fired, but transferred. Many are re-trained. All get transferred within their city or prefecture every three years, and may be switched to different grade levels from year to year. There are usually a few supply teachers on staff to cover classes in case of a regular teacher's absence, so no substitutes are used. Teachers are expected to participate in regular physical exercise with their students. Teachers must routinely go to the staff room during the day, and classes are often left unsupervised. This time is the opportunity for bullying incidents, which have also been on the rise since the '70s, entailing everything from teasing and practical jokes, to theft and violent acts. Fifth, many schools put boys first in everything from the roll call to the order of graduation. Sixth, parents, particularly mothers, are expected to sew, launder, iron, and more. Every item of the child's, from the tiny components of their math kits to their earthquake protection hoods, must be labelled. Seventh, children do more than serve each other lunch and clean floors: they wash windows, set up sports equipment, clean the toilets, and rake the leaves. Children walk to & from school, or ride public transportation, from the age of 5. Eighth, there are no free preschools or kindergartens, nor anything resembling Head Start. Pre-school education must be paid for by parents. The same goes for high school. Even public high schools are not free. Some economically disadvantaged high school students attend evening classes so they can work during the day. Free public education in Japan is only from first through eighth grade. This is just off the top of my head. I hope CBS provides a better balance if it reports on this subject again. - Imaind

Let me add my own two cents:

The two main reasons why Japanese students tend to do well on international standardized tests are (1) because the Japanese system forces students to continue studying even well into the zone where the marginal rate of returns has gone to zero.  Students wake up in the early morning and go to school until evening, then they go to private schools to get a leg up on the other students.  There are also usually special cram programs on weekends and during school vacations.  

I can't tell you how many students fall asleep during my Friday night at 7:00 lessons, even when we're playing a game or taking a break to stretch.  I have actually sent students home early before because their presence in class was a waste of my time and a waste of their own time.  One of my students - who is incredibly bright - takes class on Saturday night at 7:00, right after he finishes school for the week.  He has no hobbies.  He likes videogames, but he doesn't know anything about them.  He'll probably get into a top Japanese university.

(2) Japanese schools are highly standardized with the one goal of excelling on highly standardized tests.  Despite the samurai philology, there is no love of learning or lifelong individually-directed learning fostered in Japanese public schools.  The students all hate school and want to kill themselves.  Some of them do, in fact far more than their American counterparts.  To pretend that this is anything but a serious problem amounts to sloppy journalism and sloppy humanity.

That being said, these problems largely apply to more tightly-controlled Junior High Schools and High Schools.  Elementary Schools in Japan are exceptional.  There is an ocean of difference between elementary schools here and the more standardized Junior High Schools and High Schools ("exam hell" starts at age 12).  But there are rumors afloat that that ocean of difference is set to be paved over by the idiotic Ministry of Education soon, because sixth in the world on standardized tests is not enough for the Japanese government, and further juking of the stats must ensue. 

The hope is that Japan can return to its number one spot via the widespread Taylorism of its child-slave population.  This, more than anything, is why my wife and I have decided that no matter what else happens, our children cannot be allowed to attend Japanese schools.  The schools in Japan are the nation's biggest problem and hardly worth emulating in any way other than superficially.

Bowing to teachers at the beginning of the day to connote respect, cleaning one's own school to teach values, eating healthy school lunches, getting proper exercise, walking to school, etc., are all very, very good things.  We can try to incorporate those good elements into American public schools, but our schools really won't get any better until we start teaching math and science (and/or our kids start getting interested in math and science) instead of passing on facts about illegal drugs and ensuring proper levels of self-esteem.

Comments

[Dyske]

I was educated in Japan until the end of the sophomore year of high school. I then moved to the US. I'm certainly no fan of the Japanese school system. I have nothing but dark memories of it. I actually didn't know how dark it was when I was in Japan, because I had nothing to compare to. It's only in retrospect that I realized how depressing it was.

But I'm not sure how I should criticize any school system. Even in Japan, there are many brilliant, creative minds. Was it because of the school system that they turned out brilliant, or in spite of it?

How about James Joyce, a big critic of Catholic school system? If he didn't go to a Catholic school, and went to a great school he loved, would he have written his novels (especially "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man")?

In other words, it appears that our intentions as teachers seems to have no relation to what the kids end up learning. (I cover this topic in one of my recent essays.) So, whatever we try to teach our kids, they end up learning something we did not intend to teach, and that is the more significant part of what they learn (as in Joyce). If so, a bad education system may actually be good for kids.

But this is the beauty of being human. There is no right or wrong way to be or live. A brilliant flower can grow out of a pile of garbage, and a rich clean soil can grow a bunch of weeds. I'm not really sure what we gain by creating an ideal education system.

[Dyske]

I was rushing out the door as I wrote the last comment, so I continue and elaborate:

If your kid turns out to be what you intended him to be, he is like a product with nothing that is genuinely him. Naturally, he wouldn't want to be a product of someone else. He would want to feel that he is an autonomous being whose existence is independent of his parents. That is, he has a strong incentive to deviate from the intensions of his parents. That's how he will eventually come to feel that he owns his own life.

This means there is a conflict between what his parents want and what he wants. As a society, this extends to what the school system wants and what the students want. Every school system has an intention (conscious or unconscious) of what it believes is an ideal outcome for the students, they develop their philosophies based on that ideal. The students would naturally want to negate it in order to claim their autonomy, to refuse to be mere products of their educational system.

I like the American educational system better because they are not trying so hard. The degree of intension is much less than that of the Japanese system. Because of the homogeneity, the Japanese can agree on a more specific vision of how their students should turn out as adults. This means their intensions are much stronger. So, overall, you get this sense that they are producing quality controlled products.

There are students who turn out brilliant through the Japanese school system but they are actually unintentional outcomes of the system. All brilliant people are unintended consequences. So, even the Japanese school system can unintentionally produce people who can think for themselves and are highly creative. My instinct tells me that every culture produces just about the same percentage of these brilliant people regardless of their school system. Because they are unintended consequences, the percentage does not correlate to the type or the degree of intentions.

Because of this belief I have, I don't really try much with my daughter. I feel that it's a waste of my time and energy to intend my daughter to be one way or another. So, ultimately, it doesn't matter to me what school she ends up going. Who knows; she might go to a terrible school and become a brilliant write like Joyce. She might go to a great school and be a boring person. Or vice versa. My parenting style is similar to how John Cage used to compose music by chance. He spent his musical career trying to eliminate intensions from music. His method of composition was intentional but the end result was always unintended. So, if my daughter cannot decide which school to go to, I'll tell her to throw a dart. Or, let my wife pick one. It wouldn't really matter in the end.

[Christopher Carr]

I think you have some good points Dyske. The path provided by the Japanese school system is narrow, and so only the very brightest and truly driven actually venture off it. America offers a field, a field so wide open that most people in my generation have no idea what they want to do and are incapable of making decisions. There has to be some balance between these two extremes. Kids need to know that not everyone can be Leonardo da Vinci, but if they think they have the chops, they should be encouraged to try. Our school system should be designed with this reality in mind. I've said before that I think everyone should learn a trade that they truly love to fall back on in a worst case scenario. It's taken me until very recently to realize that practicing medicine is something that I will love doing. Before that I was just floating around with no idea what to do. And I think that was a direct and predictable result of my American Education.

Above all, the most important principle to remember is that people's lives are their own. They should be given as many tools and as much information as possible so they can make wise decisions for their own lives. The most invidious thing about the Japanese school system is that it sees these kids as statistics to contribute to national greatness rather than seeing students as ends in themselves..

[Dyske]

I'm not sure if you can blame the American school system for that ;)

You seem to be suggesting two contradictory things. On one hand, you are saying that an eduction system should NOT be "wide open", but on the other, you are saying it should be wide enough for the students to make "wise decisions for their own lives".

Finding what you love and knowing what you are, are one and the same thing, and you are not going to learn that in school. I don't think any education system could encourage or discourage it. If anything, encouragement might be worse. When you as a parent encourage your kid to be a certain way, and if your kid turns out accordingly, she can't feel that it was fully her own achievement. On the other hand, if you discourage her, and in spite of it, if she achieves it, she will feel that she owns the achievement entirely. It will give her much more confidence in herself.

But in my opinion, the best choice is indifference. Don't encourage or discourage anything. Let her work it out on her own. Don't assume that any system of parenting or schooling can help her find herself. I don' think that's possible.

If you discourage her from doing something, she might actually pursue it out of spite, just to upset you, and that pursuit may actually have nothing to do with who she is or what she loves. A lot punk kids are like that. They dress and behave the way they do, not because that's who they are or what they love, but because their parents hate it. Rebelling against their parents gives them joy and a sense of freedom. It has nothing to do with finding who they are. It's a big distraction and a waste of time.

Although you say the American school system is "wide open", the opposite is my perception. In the US, there is a strong pressure to "find yourself" as you are growing up. I was shocked to learn that the kids were getting career-specific education in high school. The choice of majors in college too is usually career based. It's not like that in Japan. You can study pretty much anything in Japanese college even if it's not directly related to what career you might want to pursue in the future. At that age, you are not equipped to make any significant decisions. You need to learn things first, and see the world, before you make any premature determination about who you think you are.

The fact that you feel it has taken you too long to realize you want to practice medicine, may in fact be a direct and predictable result of your American Education. In my opinion, it SHOULD take that long. It could be worse. I have a friend who is a doctor who hates her job. She is looking for a way out. Imagine being in that position after wasting your youth slaving away, studying medicine, and racking up huge debts.

In general, the American school system is dictated by extreme pragmatism, and the focus is on the skills and the knowledge of their trades. It's a system designed by capitalists. On the other hand, the Japanese school system is dictated by this need to produce a person who can get along in (or conform to) their small society, so their focus is on personality (or social skills). It's a system designed by socialists.

I personally prefer the American system because overall it's less successful, less intentional, and again, they are not trying so hard. So, when you as an American finally find yourself and achieve your goals, you can take full credit, and feel confident in your own ability. And, you can thank your dysfunctional American school system for that confidence in yourself.

[Christopher Carr]

"You seem to be suggesting two contradictory things. On one hand, you are saying that an education system should NOT be "wide open", but on the other, you are saying it should be wide enough for the students to make "wise decisions for their own lives"."

That's exactly what I'm saying. There should be lots of options for lots of different kids. Not everyone is meant to be an accountant, so why force these kids to study math instead of art or music, if they really want to study art or music? On the other hand, there should be some minimal basal achievement level that all kids must reach. I don't think we'd disagree that everyone child should learn his or her multiplication tables.

It's also important in future analysis to separate the different levels of education. This is something which I will increasingly try to do, and be clear about doing, for this blog: elementary school education in both countries seems to be fairly loosely structured. Jr. high school in Japan seems to be a totally different animal, whereas Jr. high in the U.S. seems to just continue whatever was going on in Elementary School with a slightly higher "base" of required material. At my middle school, we learned algebra and geometry, for example, but the rest of the curriculum was fairly open-ended.

High School continues the trend of differentiation. Japanese high schools are all super standardized, which, from a statistical/mathematical perspective makes no sense to me. Haven't these administrators ever heard of the law of large numbers? Don't they know how the immune system works? (They should, especially since our current understanding relies largely on the work of Japanese doctor Tomio Tada.) Requiring that everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses (because any standardized system inevitably has strengths and weaknesses, whether intended or not!) is destined to result in complete national decline. And I know that's a very strong statement, but one which I hope to establish strong support for in the future. But, to continue with the immune system metaphor, the Japanese education system is leukemia.

The obvious problem seems to be that constant required standardized tests mean that students and their parents place a premium on test scores, and the more competitive students spend these three years (six if you include Jr. High) doing more or less nothing but cramming for specific tests. Since the test tests factual knowledge, there is little coasting on natural ability, only cramming and memorizing facts. This system rewards effort rather than ability, which is a pleasant fantasy, but does the students a disservice in terms of preparing them for how the real world works. Students who waste the most time at the margins generally move towards the right end of the bell curve.

American high schools on the other hand are of many types, and the only standardization really is the SAT, which, flawed as it is, is in essence a test of natural problem solving ability, and is not taken as seriously by American college admissions officers as the corresponding Japanese examination results. In the U.S., there are AP exams for more ambitious students, but even these rely on largely open-ended questions and the essay format. Take a position, articulate it, and defend it, using factual knowledge; in other words prove a familiarity with nominal material.

When we get into universities we're talking about something else entirely. American Universities are exceptional, but expensive. Most students spend their time reading and talking about books, which really anyone could do in his or her free time. It seems like our universities grant expensive degrees in cocktail party knowledge, which is appropriate considering most students spend their four years at parties. I'm told that Japanese universities as well are basically four years of fun and doing nothing before more of the same high school micromanagement for those students who go on to be "salarymen". But, I don't know much about Japanese Universities other than these anecdotal tales I've heard from a few professors.

Maybe you're right about how it should take that long to pick a "career". I will agree that the idea that one must choose one, predefined and clearly formulated definition of a "career" scares the hell out of me. Everywhere I turn I am constantly being pressured to "build a career", whether from the Media or friends. (My family has been noticeably passive.) I read an article in the Atlantic, a magazine I greatly respect, which seemed to suggest that my generation is destined for oblivion because the recession inevitably damaged our "career" trajectories. But I find such discussion to be fairly incoherent. What the hell is a "career"? It just seems so out of place with modernity. Am I really missing out on something by running my own business instead of taking some corporate desk job somewhere, getting overpaid to fill out spreadsheets and organize conferences?

Of course, it is well within the realm of possibility that I will hate being a doctor too. But my decision to become a doctor is at least partially based on the wide range of what I can do with the knowledge I will receive in Medical School if I find I cannot be a practitioner. I could go work for a university, I could work in public health, I could do biomedical research, I could work for a biomedical engineering or pharmaceutical company, I could even write science fiction novels like Michael Crichton or become a political theorist like Charles Krauthammer. (Both of those guys went to Harvard Medical School.) I don't have to spend the rest of my life telling overweight people not to eat so much and filling out forms. My decision to become a medical doctor is not based on any idea of careerism. It is just something that interests me. In other words, it is a decision made despite the education culture from which I spring, not because of it; which seems to be consistent with your take, although I think I'm part of a minority here.

I guess I can only comment on my personal experience, but after having the value of well-roundedness drilled into me throughout high school, I found the need to specialize in university to be counterintuitive. I guess that's what I meant by a wide-open field. Suddenly, our pre-defined path takes us to a wide-open field and we have no idea which major to choose, which jobs to apply for, which job to take, which way to go. I decided about two years ago to work for myself, expose myself to as many diverse opportunities for work as possible, and say yes to them all, since I couldn't make a "career" decision, and this has led me to medicine, so maybe that is the point?

[imaind]

Thank you for quoting me so graciously.
Best wishes in your future endeavors, no matter what they may be.