Japanese School Procedure
Part 2
By now, we are half way through July, and all of my American
friends and colleagues (mostly band teachers by now) are well into or finishing
up their summer vacations. Japan has yet to begin summer vacation at all. In
fact, I’ve had to stop reading my Facebook Newsfeed in order to avoid the
inevitable envy and depression resulting from reading various posts about fun
summer activities, and the many friends of mine visiting Flagstaff long before
I will. Today I based an entire lesson for my elementary students around the
differences between summer vacation in America and Japan. So now, I will
outline some of these differences:
1. Length. In America, summer vacation for most school
children, begins around June and lasts until late August, giving them a solid
2.5 - 3 months off. In Japan, summer vacation starts towards the end of July
and goes through the end of August. This gives the kids about a month off. This
doesn’t seem so bad until you start taking some of the other factors into account.
2. Homework. In Japan, summer break is the break between
first and second (out of three total) semesters. Therefore, all students from
high school all the way down to elementary school first graders are given
homework. According to my sixth graders, they get a lot of it, too. I’m sure
that the amount and level of difficulty varies with age, but it exists
nonetheless. In America, because summer break is often the break between
grades, it makes it difficult for teachers to assign homework to students they
have not yet met. When my kids heard that, I almost thought we had a
coup-de-tat on our hands, but luckily they just grumbled from their seats.
3. Summer vacation is a lie. There is hardly any down or
vacation time involved in summer “vacation.” This is partly due to Japan’s
over-work ethics, and their desire to squeeze in events that they otherwise
have no time for in other parts of the school year; events such as a
prefectural calligraphy contest and ekiden.
Yes, children come to school daily over summer vacation to prepare for the
prefectural calligraphy contest and the long-distance relay race. At the junior
high school, every student is required to participate in a sport, and they also
have practice throughout summer. My elementary kids do the same, though not all
are required to do a “club sport.” Therefore, even during summer “vacation,”
most Japanese kids are still coming to school on a regular basis. They just
don’t attend classes.
Of course, not all of this news is depressing. In Japan,
every school has a pool, and it seems as though schools function much like the
local community center during summer break: a place where students may come
play, swim, and hang out with friends. Where I grew up, unless you had business
to be on school grounds, you were not allowed to “loiter.” My high school
didn’t even have a pool until my third year of attendance, and it certainly
wasn’t open to community swim, so I still had to drive to the next town over to
use the community pool. So the next time you’re feeling depressed because you
feel overworked, just think of Japan and remember that we’re not on vacation
either, if we even get one at all.
