Won't Miss #426- Japanese education system

I'm sure these three school girls with the Mickey Mouse hairdos are an exception to the non-critical-thinking rule.

All education systems are means to an end. The culture decides what that end is. I'm going to admit to being ethnocentric in this post and say that I believe the goals of education are to produce people who are literate, generally knowledgeable, and capable of critical thinking. The Japanese education system fails miserably on that last item (though it succeeds wildly on literacy) because it focuses on rote memorization and test scores. Passing the tests becomes the end, not a means to an end, and students slave away to cram facts into their heads, pass tests, and then simply forget what they learned. By and large, this system creates people with linear thinking who hate the idea of "education" or study as they associate it with exhaustive memorization sessions rather than interesting discussions with diverse answers. Teaching students for many years in Japan has shown amply that most people are so rigid that they are focused on finding one "right" answer to every question and squirm uncomfortably with an answer which includes many possible correct options because this was their experience throughout their years of schooling. What is more, the system produces an unproductive teaching environment in which teachers are pressured to pass students on tests at any cost rather than focus on what is actually being learned.*

I won't miss the education system and the way in which it fails the Japanese people.

*On multiple occasions, I've heard complaints from teachers who had to dumb down tests so that the weakest student could pass because every student had to pass. Whether or not they mastered the desired information wasn't the issue.

Won't Miss #291 - empty university education

The Japanese are considered to be some of the most educated people in the world and are thought to study harder than anyone. The truth is quite a bit further from that. Japanese universities are widely known to be little more than playgrounds where people "rest" between the crush of studying for entrance exams in their lower education years and the oppressive days ahead as company drones. They sleep in classes, write anemic papers for academic requirements, take tests with open texts, and spend most of their time in various clubs (tennis being one of the most popular). They walk away with a piece of paper in most cases, and little else. What is worse is that based on the name of the university and little else, they are capable of gaining status and good jobs. Their actual capability and intellectual capacity aren't factored into their future, only the name of the school.

I won't miss the vacation spots which are Japanese universities, and the fact that most of the people who attend them don't walk away greatly more educated or mature for having gone to them.

Will Miss #232 - valuing cultural pursuits

A sign offering piano and electone organ lessons.

The prevailing attitude in the U.S. when it comes to education is that it should be in the service of earning money. In particular, people believe that you should spend your time pursuing only those things which will advance your career. This is one of the reasons that people hold liberal arts degree holders in contempt and have a higher regard for people who study engineering or harder sciences. In Japan, this sort of thinking is not nearly as prevalent. In fact, people study language, piano, etc. for the sake of self-improvement and out of mere interest. They don't have to have an application in mind to motivate them to study. I'm not sure why this is the case in Japan. It could be that the culture has deeper roots and a longer history of things like tea ceremony and flower arranging so they see inherent value in cultural pursuits. It could simply be that they have different underlying values which don't place money-making above all else.

Whatever the reason, I will miss the way in which Japanese people study and learn things for the sake of overall self-improvement or to diversify their interests rather than as a means to a particular end.

Won't Miss #224 - (s)Mothers and kyoiku mamas

Disclaimer (aka, please do not sue me): I'm not saying this lovely woman with her daughter is a kyoiku mama or overprotective because she's holding her little girl close. This is just a picture taken at a shrine on New Year's of a parent and seemed to fit the very general theme and is not meant to imply anything about this fine woman's character.

Though I have never been held hostage as part of a captive audience by an overenthusiastic parent, there are some problems with mothers in Japan, particularly if you are a teacher. Some mothers are over-involved with their children's lives to an unhealthy extent, particularly their education and any aspect related to their academic careers (like club activities). There's a term for women who relentlessly push their children to study, kyoiku mamas, and there are also women who simply insert themselves where they don't belong as part of their kid's education. Some mothers insist on standing at the back of the classroom during every lesson and interfere with lessons. Some of them dictate every little action to the teachers or bully or intimidate them. I once taught a mother who clearly dragged her son along to her English lessons and then dominated the lesson by translating for him and even incorrectly "correcting" his English instead of allowing me to do my job.

I won't miss these women who are so controlling with their children that they push them and me around.

Won't Miss #150 - one correct answer

One of my students took an ethics course at an American college and she told me that she really hated the class. The reason she hated it was that the class required a person to think through all sides of an issue and choose a particular viewpoint. She said she was uncomfortable with this because she liked the answers to be concrete and for there to be one "right" reply that she could offer. This was nowhere near the first time that I'd been told this during my time in Japan, not by a long shot. This mindset occurs because the Japanese education system emphasizes that there is one right answer for every question and no alternate opinions are necessary or welcome. It is a way of discouraging differences among individuals and dissent when dealing with authority figures.

I won't miss the thinking bred by this "one correct answer for every question" nor the narrow perspective it leads people to have.