Japanese Educational Sysem Essay, Research Paper

Japanese Educational System

Japanese children are better students than American students due to a more active role by parents and families in their education. Parents of the United States (U.S.) aren?t as involved in the relationship of their students schooling

All students who attend school in Japan start their school year in April. The parents of the Japanese students believe that the April cherry blossoms bring their children luck.

Japanese parents decided to make an eighth grade camp for students who wish to go to high school. The students go to this camp to learn what high school will be like that they will be prepared for (high school).

Children in Japan have few buses to ride to school so they walk, or ride their bikes to school, or if their parents have cars then they will drive them.

Before you attend middle school you must take a test in elementary school to decide which school you will be attending. This way makes it easier for students to learn, because they have other classmates at the same level as them. The parents, when polled, voted ?yes,? for this test. Meaning that they wanted their children to take these exams.

All high school students have entrance exams. There are many pressures to these exams. Most students want to go to high school and to college. So they can support their families and maybe even they?re own future families. However, in order to attend high school and college you have to pass a test. It is a test on language, social studies, math, and science. Now studying one subject for one test is hard enough, but studying for a test on four different subjects is really hard. The parents of Japanese students take on a major role in their student?s lives. Even more so than parents of students in the United States (U.S.) Children are much more independent in what they would like to do with their life and what they want to learn. Where as Japanese students are independent, but not to a point where they can chose where they want to go with their life. Their parents will usually tell them what they are going to be. Then they have to live up to those standards and not fail. Which means they will have to pass all their for entrance exams into high school, and tests when they are in school, plus the entrance exams into college. Japanese parents are very supportive and encourage their students to do the best that they possibly can. They hope their children will become well educated and get a great job. But the Japanese parents also put pressure on their children to succeed and to do well in school (and bribe them), so they will have a good older life. An article I found on line (?Snogloy? online); ?While a 17 year old student is studying for an entrance exam four days away, his mother comes in to offer him tea so that it will calm his nerves. She kept pressuring him to study so that her older life would be great and so she would have a brilliant son. The student hadn?t been studying months before the exam, as his fellow students were. He was worried he wouldn?t get in one of the top colleges. He had been one of the top-graduating students in his class. But he became careless. His mother wanted him to become a doctor, and be greatly educated. While the mother brought the tea to her son it slipped out of her hand and burned her son. She apologized quickly and went to exit the room, when her son called his mother back into the room, locked the door and started to beat on her with a bat. Until she was dead. The boy only gets 15 years in jail?. The boy had so much pressure on him that he beat his mother to death. These are the types of things that the Japanese students go through. The parents put pressure on them to do well and not to slack off. In America parents also put pressure on our students to do well, but not 24-7.

In the early 1900?s for discipline for elementary students was harsh. If a student was disobeying the teacher or ?goofing off? the teacher would smack the hands of the students or they would have to go and stand out side for the whole period and hold buckets of water in their hands with out dropping them. If they did even greater punishment would come.

Like most students in America students in Japan have to wear uniforms, so that there will be no inappropriate clothing.

Students in Japan also have to clean the rooms, halls, toilets, and yard of their own school, on a daily basis. The parents took a vote and say it?s a way to keep things clean and not have to hire anyone to do it for them. These are the things that they will have to do later in life, so they are taught how now. (?Pyle?

Some students even skip tradition to study for their entrance exams to high school. A 14 year old girl was studying for her exam when she decided to not celebrate the Asian new year. Her mother supported her all the way and said that if it would help her get into high school then okay.

When you attend Middle school and you meet up to standard you would apply to a standard school and are considered for ?special training?.

In Japan in the 1980?s, if you had a learning disability then you were to fen for yourself. Meaning that you had to stay with the learning group you are in even if they are smarter than you. If you failed a test or exam and don?t make it into the next grade then you will not be able to keep in school and will have to go out and get a job and an adult. Today in Japan, they don?t do that any more, they have classes, (like in America) that help the ?slow learning? students. I have also noticed that Japanese students who moved from Japan to America are highly educated and get out standing grades. In conclusion Japanese students make better students that American students due to a more active role by parents and families in their education. The American families don?t support their children in school as much as Japanese parents do. Japanese students make better marks than American students do.