Things About Japan: Juku and School

In Japan, students go to juku, or cram school, after they get out of (compulsory) school. While this is technically optional, it seems that everyone, from the brightest to the dumbest, goes to juku. Juku is supposed to help students pass their entrance exams for getting into high school. Whether this is by challenging them outside of the classroom, which is below their level, or by helping them stay afloat in class, depends on the level of the student.

What this means is there is another few hours of schooling a day for these kids, as well as the homework assigned by the juku. Thus, the average student goes to school around 8:20, has classes until around 3:50, participates in club activities (usually sports) until around 5, goes home to eat dinner and then goes to juku. I have honestly come back from hanging out with friends on a Friday night around 10:30 and, upon exiting the train station, have seen my students leaving the juku. After juku, the students go home and work on homework until around midnight. (This is the general average my students have told me for their bedtimes.) They then go to sleep and then repeat the process.

When I reveal to students or teachers that America has no juku, I am often met with a complete lack of understanding. How could we not have juku? What would you do with all that extra time? When asked this, I often have to bite back the response that comes to mind: "Have a childhood."

Another interesting thing to note about Japanese schools is that a student cannot fail out of a grade or out of the school. In fact, a student can skip school every day for years and still graduate with the rest of his or her class. Thus, even if a student doesn't understand a concept and shouldn't continue to the next level of the subject in question, he or she will be moved forward. These students eventually turn into either the silent, who won't ever interact with the teacher and attempts to hide as best as possible in class, or into the delinquents who try their best to disrupt class because they are bored and can't follow along with the material at hand. Even worse, students cannot really be disciplined in any way; there is no detention, no expulsion from class or from school, and all a teacher has is the power of authority to hold his or her class in order. Should the teacher lack this authority (or the respect necessary to wield it), a class can often degrade into a crippled mess.

It's no wonder that there are an increasing number of students who are flaking out in their classes and giving up on a variety of subjects, if not high school all together. (Compulsory education ends with 9th grade, the last grade of middle school here.) While I don't want to say that the American system is perfect by any means, I can't help but feel that there are some serious flaws in the Japanese system.