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Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#81

Post by growlist »

a-saleh wrote: post #57
barry-cotter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means school was irrelevant. The evidence for transfer of learning is weak to the point of non-existence[1]. Even if transfer learning did exist that’s not the reason for school that any substantial portion of people believe in. If we look at the institutional history of school teaching nationalism is a much easier sell as to the purpose of school. [1] “Besides just plain forgetting, people commonly fail to mars…

I don't think we are talking about transfer. My mam had the concept of exercising zitsfleish, the ability to sit down and concentrate at a mentally taxing boring task for uncertain reward. This is a skill I use to this day, especially when debugging, and when I have a hard day, I remind myself that if I was able to solve 100 linear equations over christmass when I was 10, I should be able to find this bug!

> the ability to sit down and concentrate at a mentally taxing boring task for uncertain reward

If anything I'd say school hindered me in this regard! I think I learnt dogged persistence through playing videogames.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#82

Post by growlist »

paganel wrote: post #38
WilliamEdward wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The evidence for transfer learning is weak to the point of non-existence. Citation needed. But transfer learning is a term specific to the ML field anyway, so I'm not sure why you used it. > teaching nationalism is a much easier sell as to the purpose of school I don't think most people believe this is the purpose of school, not even nationalists.

Nationalists most certainly believe that, for example every small change to our children’s history books that can be seen as not conforming to our glorious past (or what the nationalists see as our “glorious past”) is seen by our local nationalists (I live in a Eastern Europe) as potentially the end of the world as we know it. Europe can be interesting like that, good thing that we (almost) stopped killing each other…

> stupid things like imaginary lines drawn on soil.

So let's erase all borders and see how we get on.

Orwell: 'men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.'

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#83

Post by timwaagh »

school is pretty terrible. if it wasn't for my parents being as strict as they were i would have let go way before uni. personally i'd rather see the whole system scrapped. it's easy to single out japan as its system has some very particular demands. but the fundamental flaws don't stop at borders.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#84

Post by paganel »

growlist wrote: post #82
paganel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalists most certainly believe that, for example every small change to our children’s history books that can be seen as not conforming to our glorious past (or what the nationalists see as our “glorious past”) is seen by our local nationalists (I live in a Eastern Europe) as potentially the end of the world as we know it. Europe can be interesting like that, good thing that we (almost) stopped killing each other…

> stupid things like imaginary lines drawn on soil. So let's erase all borders and see how we get on. Orwell: 'men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.'

Actually we get on quite well in Europe, thank you very much. I suggest you take a car-ride through Northern France, close to Verdun, if those numberless WW1 cemeteries don’t change your mind I don’t know what else will.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#85

Post by growlist »

paganel wrote: post #84
growlist wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stupid things like imaginary lines drawn on soil. So let's erase all borders and see how we get on. Orwell: 'men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.'

Actually we get on quite well in Europe, thank you very much. I suggest you take a car-ride through Northern France, close to Verdun, if those numberless WW1 cemeteries don’t change your mind I don’t know what else will.

> Actually we get on quite well in Europe, thank you very much. I suggest you take a car-ride through Northern France, close to Verdun, if those numberless WW1 cemeteries don’t change your mind I don’t know what else will.

That'll be the same France that has nuclear weapons?

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#86

Post by _y5hn »

sdrothrock wrote: post #35
oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

> If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. The benefit of going to school for kids in the US at least is that you get to move a year closer to getting out. A cost is that if you don't go, you get held…

Very very few people are sociopaths (~2%), but these strong people mirror and magnify what they've been exposed to at home or in peer groups. Often the problem is really with some parents and sometimes a particular teacher, misbehaving and not being corrected. When do adults correct eachother? Exactly! And of course the "glad that's not my child being treated that way..."

And why not? The culture is about microaggression. Eventually, your peers become competition. A competition to break down the environment as hard and fast as time permits, and then wonder why nothing changes..

If this reflects company culture, the kids will need to learn to survive, either by skipping school legally, or learning to survive and maybe become a bit psychopathic themselves. Just to be a little ahead of the system. Those skipping school are those who could turn the situation around, if not orchastrized by the community, the teachers and closest family. It is sort of a culture strangling itself.

You get what you deserve in the end. So look people in the eye and get to know them, even if they're a bit strange looking, they're much more fun to be with in the longer run. That other reward will still be dangling there, teasingly.

I appreciate the efforts put in HN and the people who make this a platform for eachother. Such platforms people can stand on and make a difference.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#87

Post by satori99 »

dkersten wrote: post #73
satori99 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But when am I actually going to use this?" I was as guilty of this as anyone in my school days, and yet not a single teacher ever pointed out to me that I was at school to learn how to learn , so in a sense the subject matter was irrelevant.

Except school never thought me how to learn. School learning was always an uphill battle for me and using schools ways of learning was a hindrance to me in uni and later life. I had to figure out for myself the best ways for me to learn, but unfortunately didn’t really have a good grasp on it until much later (after uni). Hell, I was a somewhat troubled teen with problems and when I was about 14, I outright refused t…

I had a similar experience, though I still value skills I was forced to learn. Even things like cooking skills, that held little interest for me at the time.

I often found that my interests were there, but misaligned. I may have been intensely interested in some aspect of history -- but not the anything on the current curriculum. If, by chance my interests aligned with a class topic, I excelled without much effort.

My other gripe was the lack of integration between topics -- You didn't learn much about the history of science or math in science or math classes. Nor did you learn much interesting stuff about mathematical and engineering history in History classes. Art was the exception to this and I really enjoyed both the historical and practical aspects of Art classes for this reason.

My school days are well in the past and I understand it's a little different for high-schooler's these days. At least I hope that's true.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#89

Post by watwut »

mikekchar wrote: post #30
skokage wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. My impression from living here in Japan for a bit over a year, and having friends with children in the Japanese school system, is that Japanese students have way more pressure put on them. Kids spend way longer each day out of the house; Study sessions before school, stronger peer pressure to a…

> Also keep in mind that the middle school you get into will have a huge effect on which high school you get to attend, which has a very strong influence on which college you get into, and thus effect your pipeline into the best companies. This is not generally true. For public schools (i.e. ones in the public system, not private) your middle school is determined by where you live. There is no entrance exam until you…

> I've seen the curriculum and it's not appreciably more difficult than in the west

Pressure cooker learning environment does not always leads to more difficult topics. It is more about how much work is there to be done, how much time is spent by it and how they treat you when you fail (either by not doing or by making mistakes).

To large extend, kids actually learn more when they have time to rest/play and are not under pressure. Up to the point of course, playing whole time and no expectations dont lead to high results either.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#90

Post by watwut »

EGreg wrote: post #28
oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

That’s because school is just a glorified daycare for parents who both work for corporations. The school in turn trains kids to work for corporations someday — and in the meantime stay out of trouble until the parents can finish their workday. Many schools are unable to teach kids anything and try to just contain the troublemakers long enough for their parents to pick them up.

In Japan, mothers are expected to stay at home and their careers are pretty much impossible after kids are born.

American school system does not exactly make it super easy for working parents either. I know schools that basically assume that one parent works part time maximum.

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