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Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

bbc.co.uk

201–210 of 262 posts

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Racism and discrimination aren't just reserved to the color of skin, it's often built around whole ancestries of groups and their traditional social standings [0]. For the same reason, the Nazis killed people that were just as white as themselves, as most scientific racism [1] went…

> Racism and discrimination aren't just reserved to the color of skin, it's often built around whole ancestries of groups and their traditional social standings. Indeed, but this exists everywhere. Why would this factor be unusually influential in Japan?

It doesn't exist "the same" everywhere, Japanese society is still extremely conservative and hierarchical, to a point that increasingly more people opt for just not taking part at all anymore because they see no more point in grinding their lifes away trough overbearing work ethics and overblown societal expectations.

Case in point: Japan has "family rental services" [0] for those people that spend too much time working, thus lacking the time to maintain an actual family. Which is the result of societal expectations along the lines of "A successful businessman also has a successful family". When in reality most struggle to just support themselves, the idea that a single earner can feed a whole household is something that also hasn't applied in Japan for a while anymore.

Hikikomori [1] are another, much earlier recognized manifestation of this, that even has somewhat of an equivalent with Western countries "NEETs". The reasons for those are not singular, they are as multifaceted as most social problems are. Racial and class discrimination plays just as much of a factor as the economic downturn, leaving most young Japanese, like young people in many other countries, without much of any perspective.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism? It's Japan . Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Even if the incidents are egregious, this is not even among the top twenty reasons that "many" refuse to attend. As far back as the 1980's it was widely reported that Japanese expectations for children's performance and good behavior drive them to mental illness, from the top down,…

> Racism? It's Japan. Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Racism and discrimination aren't just reserved to the color of skin, it's often built around whole ancestries of groups and their traditional social standings [0]. For the same reason, the Nazis killed people that were just as white as themselves, as most scientific racism [1] went…

What you've just described is actually at least two other words, similar, but not equal to racism.

Namely:

  ethnocentrism

  sectarianism
These things are not racism.

People don't get to just toss words around, adjusting them to suit their preferred narrative.

The differences are not insignificant. Cultural differences are tied intensely to modes of dress, language barriers, and more.

Lastly, social status among ethnic peers is not racism. Inheritance and nepotism are also not racism.

Things like this may be comorbid with forms of racism. They are still separate and distinct problems.

It doesn't mean the outcomes are different, but we have different words for different things, because there are real differences, and they still count and contribute to real world situations even when contemptible.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#203
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What racism is there to fight in Japan? Are you sure you aren't just pulling stock arguments out here?

Not an expert in Japan's culture, but from what I read about it, there's some racism towards Japanese with Korean ancestors, and apparently this forces some people to hide their heritage. There was also an article -- even posted on HN, I think! -- that some family names linked to historically lowbrow jobs (the "untouchable", such as undertakers and butchers) still carry some sort of stigma. Not their current occupati…

Burakumin. The Japanese government has been trying to end discrimination against them since the early Meiji era and yet it still persists to this day nearly 150 years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#204
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/Stat…

At least in the USA there are options for alternative schooling and homeschooling, which allow exceptions to compulsory public school attendance. Look to Europe though and you'll find places where it's absolutely illegal to do anything but go through the child brainwashing factories. Germany is a good example of this.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> The actual definition of hobby is MY definition. Me! Me! me! only I matter!

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#206
post #113

"As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it's a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves." Got some first hand experience here. Hard to not be a bit sarcastic. Geeze, I don't know... Is it that the students of Japan are suddenly becoming stubborn (or "weak") or is it that a system that: - does not fight bullying - does not fight racism - does not allow students any fr…

Racism? It's Japan . Whatever racism there could be, it's an extremely small, microscopic particle among the whole of the school system. Even if the incidents are egregious, this is not even among the top twenty reasons that "many" refuse to attend. As far back as the 1980's it was widely reported that Japanese expectations for children's performance and good behavior drive them to mental illness, from the top down,…

I mention racism as only one item on the list. 1 out of 30 children born in Japan today are of mixed ancestry, so it is not as microscopic as you may think.

I just have anecdotal evidence. The two kids I know here who regularly skipped school did so because of racist bullying. And yes, hearing "that's your fault because you are a minority" is indicative of a mentality that does not want to fix the problems of people who don't "fit in the mold".

"As far back as the 1980's it was widely reported that Japanese expectations for children's performance and good behavior drive them to mental illness"

Yes, "good behavior". "Why can't you be like the others?" "Why are you the cause of trouble?" Repeat that every day to any normal kid and they won't want to go to school.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#207
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…

The community here on HN seems to have a very negative opinion of school. PG seems to talk about it quite frequently. Here's a different viewpoint. I personally really enjoyed school. I enjoyed the social structure of school. I wasn't popular by any means, but I had my group of nerdy, academic friends who shared a passion for learning and building things. Learning how to deal with social conflicts, when they inevitab…

I just spent 20 minutes typing out a massive response explaining how utterly terrible my experience was with school. But I realized no one cares about my life story and there is no way I can fully capture my experience in this discussion post. But in short, the structure and expected rigor involved with school often made me want to just quit and eat lead. It was by far the worst time in my life and I went to a very good college prep school.

The teachers and most of academia only car about the straight laced kids who do well naturally or because their parents are good about offering structure, or the kids who clearly have a troubled home life. But since I didn't have either of those things, I was a "problem" kid and no one gave a shit about how I was doing. I wasn't being beaten at home so I didn't have an excuse for my poor performance.

I was constantly exhausted because I was naturally a night owl and school requires kids to get up way too early. The way lectures and studying were structured never jived with me and I was so tired most times I'd stare at a wall all class, I could never get into the groove of things.

Yet even after all of this, I've been very successful in my career even though I never went to college, nearly all of my coworkers have masters or phd's. I taught myself everything I know when it comes to practical application of skills in my field, literally none of it was taught to me by anyone, and a lot of it I taught myself during my highschool years. I take pride in that, but I also hate myself for it. I wish I could of fit into the square peg society nurtures so much, and because of the way I've gone about things, everything I do is harder for me than anyone else around me (except for other people in my situation).

This post does a terrible job really capturing my experience, but it isn't worth my time spending a day writing a post on a forum to capture how much I truly loathe the modern education system for making my life so miserable for close to 20 years. I understand most systems are designed for the 90% case, but being an outlier in today's society is rough and I wish it upon no one.

EDIT: A big reason why I wanted to post, was mainly because most people try to rationalize about how school isn't "efficient" and is an "opportunity cost" etc etc. I have a completely different take on it, school was depressing and extremely emotional for me. It made me very unstable trying to cope with how different I was compared to other people and was very arduous on my soul so to speak and I have lasting impacts on my mental health because of it. It's less about efficiency to me and more about improving the system to help make people's lives better and more tolerable if they're struggling. Suicide is a big problem today and I strongly believe the way our schooling system is setup has a lot to do with that.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#208
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/Stat…

In alaska there is no real punishment for skipping school

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#209
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other Oriental countries with a similar focus on putting the group before the individual. America has had a lot of influence on a lot of places, and certainly not all for the best, but how could America have influenced a place into a behaving a way that is completely foreign to America?

Group vs. individual biases are culturally and historically determined, but the politics or ideology they manifest in modernity are not. Anarchism, socialism, and communism all had mass appeal in prewar Japan and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) was a powerful political force in the early postwar period, being one of the few groups that rightfully opposed the fascist war that led to so much death and devastation. S…

I guess what I'm getting at is everything described in this article. The concept of ultra-conformity doesn't really resonate with the America.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think goal posts are being moved so much as "hobby" means different things to different people.

> The actual definition of hobby is MY definition. Me! Me! me! only I matter!

It's the definition I start with anyway.

Having the general-case "me" matter more is kind-of essential to the article in any case.

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