Schools in Japan

I don't have kids yet and I think it will still be a little while before I have kids.  Still, recently I have been thinking a lot about what I will do if and when they come along as far as their education.  Part of this is due to other blogs I have been reading about foreign women married to Japanese men, and also due to things like buying a house and now actually knowing where my kids will go to school.  It may seem a little premature, but it is something that I take seriously.  

I would say that probably the one thing that could make me move from Japan is the Japanese school system. This was definitely something I considered when my husband and I were house hunting. I teach at the five elementary schools in town and while all of them have their ups and downs, I definitely have my favorites and know which ones I would like my kids to attend. Some are as small as only having 18 kids in the whole school and some are as big as having two sections of about 38 kids in a class.   Though there are good and bad things in both, I definitely prefer the small ones.  This is partially due to the fact that I myself went to a small school (85 kids in my graduating class) and because of a cultural difference in education.

One of the biggest cultural differences for me is the fact that in Japan they really don’t like to separate kids when it comes to different learning ability. There are great things to be said about, “everyone learning together, etc” but I just worry that slow kids fall behind and become shy and that smart kids get bored and act out. Where I am from, starting as young as elementary 1st grade we were split for reading and then in about 3rd grade we were split for math. My school had three homerooms so one teacher would take a high group, one a middle, and one a low group.  Even then we were sometimes split up even more for reading.    The groups were determined by a test at the beginning of terms and you were allowed to retake the test in the middle of the term.   I didn't have glasses for the first two years of school and this affected my ability to read.  But then when I got them and fell in love with reading, I was able to speed through the middle reading group's lessons in a "fast tracked course" and join the highest group.  When I did that, there were three other kids who did it with me.  

However, I think this was more due to our teacher seeing that we had the ability to move up as opposed to us really caring which group we were in.  No one seemed to care which group they were put in as they made friends with the kids in their group. Thus, we all learned at our own pace and had a fair mix of being challenged and yet comfortable.   The really slow kids went to a special teacher for special help, and some advanced kids got to go to a club called tag where they could pursue personal interests (ie while the rest of us were reading picture books they had moved on to chapter books).

In Jr high we were split even further and had a chance to challenge ourselves by joining more advanced classes.  By the time we were in high school we would be with kids of different years.  Again, no one really cared (as far as I know) about what class they were in.

Because they don’t do this in Japan I worry that my future children will either be too ahead or too behind the group to be successful. For example, even though my children will hopefully have a good grasp of the English language, when they get to the first year of Jr High they will be put in the class with students learning the ABCs.  I asked my husband if there was the possibility in Japan for our children to do something like go to the teachers' room and read English books on their own (so they wouldn't be wasting their time), but he said that was very unlikely.  One could say that maybe he doesn't know, but I actually see this at work.  Kids who have done home-stays abroad or who have lived in foreign countries are in the same group as kids who can't say their name or what they had for lunch.

I like the idea of my children going to school in Japan because they will be able to learn Japanese language and culture.  But the whole idea of there "not being exceptions" in the curriculum scares me.  This is where I look to school size for a way "around the system."  I know that the system won’t change but that in small schools with fewer students there is more of a chance that the teacher can cater to each students personal needs. 

I don’t mean to generalize- this is only what I have seen in my own town. And I also don’t mean to preach- each parent can feel however they want.   Actually if you are a parent in Japan I would love to hear your thoughts about how you feel or what you are planning on doing as far as sending your kids to school in Japan.  And even if you are not a parent, I would love to hear about your kids schooling.