This is another clickbait article from BBC on how "Japan is weird". The number of kids in the free schools seems tiny at about 0.2%.
Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
191–200 of 262 posts
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1. Even as an adult, If I could do it all again, I would avoid school as much as possible. School is an upgrade from child labor, but I now have enough experience to know it's a downgrade from what I can learn of my own. Not saying every kid should do the same of course. But personnally, after being in 11 schools, including fancy private ones and ones in poor neighbourhoods, I found extremly few decent teachers, a v…
I think that the point of school is in no way education. The point is to mold individuals in order to fit within 2 standard deviations of the norm, and it does all it can to do so (tests, medication, etc etc). If you are in the upper percentiles, you are used to bring the lower percentiles up, if you are in the lower you are used to bring balance. Now we are almost at the point of making not going to school illegal.…
> Now we are almost at the point of making not going to school illegal.
I'm fairly certain (at least for the US) it has been illegal. "By 1918, every state had a compulsory attendance law on the books." [1]
According to this table, school attendance is compulsory for every state in the US for specific age ranges: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab5_1.asp
[1] https://hslda.org/content/docs/nche/Issues/S/State_Compulsor...
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
What racism is there to fight in Japan? Are you sure you aren't just pulling stock arguments out here?
For a random example of racism in Japan's shools that simply don't accept that other ethnicities exist, here's a story about students required to dye their hair black in order to match everyone else - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/japanese-stude... - in this particular situation the student had naturally brown hair, which most likely means a non-Japanese parent, and was bullied by the authorities beca…
But it is not racism, it would be if they had to change hair color because of their race, but they would all the same require japanese person to dye their hair.
If it is not based on race it is not racism, this case it is based on hair color so its "hair color"-ism I guess.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
The clubs you listed all involve strenuous physical activity... and are clubs. People can pursue them as hobbies, of course, but I think for most people a hobby is something personal, and perhaps pointless, outside of the sound mind/sound body routine. EDIT: Kinda surprised at the downvotes! Is it really so controversial to consider a club activity less of a "real" hobby than something self-organized?
> Yep, just gonna move the goal post a bit further to make my argument valid.
I don't think goal posts are being moved so much as "hobby" means different things to different people.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#195Asian school tend to have super high workloads even during summer holidays they give you work to work over your Holiday. The pressure is immense as they rate you from first to last, and parents do not like their kids to be in the last 75%, let alone last. They see it as a disgrace to the family. Sadly someone’s got to be back there. The pressure is immense. This is just a single point amongst others I don’t have time to type
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the two cases I know, because they are black Japanese (one parent Japanese, one African) and that it just breaks the mind of both students and teachers that you can be Japanese without being 100% ethnic Japanese.
But again, that has to be such a tiny minority that OP's list sounds made up.
I'm OP.
It is a minority. And Japan is very racist towards them. Turns out there are 3 kids in that situation in my family.
We already witnessed three classes having racist bullying and both teachers and school direction refusing to do anything.
I do believe that this mentality of blaming the victims that do not "fit in the mold" is indicative of a very negative culture.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Maybe there's the benefit of finding friends, but now they have the internet from a young age, and I think the social justification has evaporated. Why bother forming friend circles with people you must talk to, when you can find friend circles from a larger pool with people you want to talk to? I don't know... Aren't relationships with people you see face-to-face generally stronger than those with people you mainl…
> I mean, here we are, and I can only remember like 3 usernames in this community. It's not like I'm friends with them either or anything. I think like 99% of us don't really know anybody else here. I’m here a lot, and I have a list of probably a hundred or so usernames in my head that either post often or have meaningful contributions, many linked to real-life identities. I doubt I could recognize any if they walked…
The thing is that the usernames are not very prominent in this UI. They're even always grayed out. It's like it's optimized to not distract users with posts' owners unless they need them. I probably could recognize more if posts came accompanied by profile pictures or something that stands out that's somewhat unique to users. As it is, my brain doesn't have to register anything about the user to read their posts.
The 3 usernames I do remember, it's because one's name somehow stands out to me from their use of capitalization (most use just lowercase), and the others because their username appears in other people's posts (e.g. dang).
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, I don't miss having to fight for social acceptance, the bullying, the stress and pressure nor the hypocrisy of the ones in charge. Ironically this is somehow the most valuable lessons learned during school, since you ultimately have to deal with this shit throughout your life in most career paths. So at least you got prepared for that.
Yes, but should not have to learn about fire by putting your hand in it for 20 years. In a room full of pyromaniacs calling themself firefighters. As a defenseless kid. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/YiqlS Without the fun of it
" putting your hand in it[fire] for 20 years"?
Sorry, bad metaphor, too extreme. Nobody can do or imagine doing that.
As for the sword cartoon you linked to: there was nothing better than getting my first Boy Scout knife. Within a few days I had blooded my blade by cutting myself, thereby learning new respect for a tool that lasted decades. My experience is that every boy cuts himself once with his pocket knife, and then begins to pay attention to what he is doing with it(1). Every child should be given a pocket knife at the appropriate age.
I liked school. I learned all the basics there. The teachers wanted to help me.
I saw only one case of physical bullying in 24 years of school. I was never bullied, perhaps being too tall and too willing to engage people in conversation.
Most discussions of bullying bring out old grievances that should have been dealt with long since and then forgotten. But they often merely fester. That's a shame.
(1) it's like the "hand in the fire" thing. I remember the first time I put my hand over the stove flame - the picture of it remains in my head! Wow, was that ever a lesson! Do that with a neural net!
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
What racism is there to fight in Japan? Are you sure you aren't just pulling stock arguments out here?
For a random example of racism in Japan's shools that simply don't accept that other ethnicities exist, here's a story about students required to dye their hair black in order to match everyone else - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/japanese-stude... - in this particular situation the student had naturally brown hair, which most likely means a non-Japanese parent, and was bullied by the authorities beca…
The mixed Japanese-African girl I know was forced to straighten her hair because her natural hair is "extravagant".
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that the social dynamics of being stuck with 20 to 30 same-age same-rank peers for many months is highly unusual. Only prison is like this. In normal life, groups (Work, Family, social gatherings) are of mixed age, mixed experience, mixed rank. To become a better person, I had to forget the pettiness of High School social dynamics.
> I think that the social dynamics of being stuck with 20 to 30 same-age same-rank peers for many months is highly unusual. This. Whenever people ask about "socialization" WRT home-schooling, I always tell people that you never any social situation like you do in school -- where: 1) Everyone is exactly the same age 2) Nobody chose to be there 3) People have little chance to change their situation 4) There are very fe…
> At your work, if someone is being a bully, then either management will fire them, or you can look for another job.
... or you figure out how to deal with conflict like an adult. If your way of handling conflict is firing people or taking your ball and going home, your long-term outlook is not so good.
Working with people in a system is a skill that you figure out by being exposed to other people and dealing with their crap. If you've worked with military veterans, maintaining focus on what you need to do while navigating insane systems and coworkers is a core skill that they usually have.